SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT
Drijen Digital specialises in the design, development and support of websites. Our standard Maintenance Service Level Agreement is as follows:
1. Authorisation
The Client is engaging Drijen Digital as an independent contractor for the specific task of providing regular WordPress maintenance and support as described on Drijen Digital’s website. In order to enable Drijen Digital’s fulfilment of this agreement, the Client agrees to provide Drijen Digital with access to the following:
- FTP access username and password (if this is difficult we can create a new one through the hosting account).
- Access to the website’s cPanel (typically provided in the hosting account).
- WordPress administrator-level username and password.
The Client also agrees to allow Drijen Digital to install any plugins into their WordPress website or make other revisions as required in order to provide maintenance and support services.
Official updates and communication with the Client will be made via email, and/or our project management software.
2. Care Plan Services
2.1 What your care plan includes:
Your care plan contains everything that was agreed at the time of commencing the plan as per our care plan features table.
2.2 What your care plan doesn’t include
- Domain management or services (although we can work with your domain management and make changes to your domain settings or services on your behalf as part of your monthly support time).
- Website design, website redesign, website development, or website redevelopment (these projects can be quoted separately).
- Search engine optimisation services (although you may use your support time to have us make recommendations based on your SEO reporting).
- Non-WordPress websites.
- Website migrations (although these can be quoted separately).
- Email support, management or maintenance (although we can communicate with your host on your behalf as part of your monthly support time).
Anything not explicitly included in the sections above may incur additional charges at Drijen Digital’s hourly rate for support clients.
2.3 Backup & Restore Services
We make secure off-site daily backups of your entire website, keeping up to 90 days worth of copies. We back up everything required to restore your website in full. If your site crashes or otherwise needs to be restored, we’ll get it rolled back to a previous version as quickly as possible. Although we cannot guarantee how quickly this will happen (every situation is different and has its own causes and solutions), in most cases we’ll have it restored within 24 hours of request.
2.4 Maintenance Services
In addition to WordPress core and plugin updates as they are released, maintenance and support services are provided to keep your website running and in stable condition. Note that time for maintenance services other than WordPress core software and plugin updates, post-update review, and fixing any bugs or issues that arise after updates, may be considered additional maintenance and taken out of your monthly support time.
Minor tweaks required to keep your website running and looking right. These may include (but are not limited to) fixing browser rendering issues due to browser updates; plugin or theme issues that appear after a software update; adjustment of CSS for minor branding changes (colour, logo, typography, etc.); troubleshooting and fixing features or functions that stop working inexplicably.
Any issues that are caused by 3rd parties (plugins, themes) will be considered outside our control and will be chargeable. We will first make use of your allocated hours as specified in your care plan and then charge at our discounted current care plan hourly rate.
Full review after software updates to find and fix bugs or new issues. As the Client will typically be more familiar with the detailed workings of each site, the Client should notify Drijen Digital of any new bugs, issues, or problems requiring maintenance during the course of this agreement.
Drijen Digital will provide support for a website’s existing plugins until such time as they are no longer supported by the plugin author or compatible with any other part of the WordPress environment. In these cases, Drijen Digital will endeavour to find and install suitable replacements for these plugins (time to do so will be taken from the Client’s support plan time).
Bug-fixing as it arises. It is understood that in some cases, due to the changing nature of the Internet, things may not work or look identically to how they did prior to maintenance or bug-fixing. As long as there is no usability or accessibility issue created, the bug or maintenance issue shall be considered resolved. That said, Drijen Digital will always do our best to keep your website working and looking as great as possible.
Database optimisation will be performed to help keep your site running as fast as possible. Spam and post revisions (older than the most recent ten) will be purged to help keep your database running optimally.
WordPress core, WordPress plugins, frameworks, and themes are kept current with the latest stable version EXCEPT THAT theme updates will not be performed on sites that do not have a stable, properly-coded child theme in place (otherwise, theme customisations will be lost).
Only commercial themes and frameworks that can be uploaded via the theme uploader and updated automatically within the WordPress administration interface are included in the updating service. Themes and frameworks requiring special attention may incur an additional hourly charge (any additional charges must be pre-approved by the Client prior to Drijen Digital starting work).
Websites must keep all customisations separate from files that are part of recurring software updates. If Client website code is overwritten due to a theme update the Company will not be responsible in any way.
Please note: WordPress Support Plans work best when websites adhere to current web standards, including but not limited to WordPress theme development standards and W3C HTML/CSS validation. Failure to do so makes maintenance and support difficult, and Drijen Digital may exercise its right to refuse inclusion of a website in its support plans for this reason.
2.5 24/7 uptime monitoring
The Client and/or the hosting company will be notified by email immediately upon a website going offline. Drijen Digital will work with the host to ensure that site-down issues are resolved and will notify the Client as soon as the site is back online.
2.6 Security scans for malware
If there is a malware issue found, the client will be notified and provided with recommendations for malware removal and site recovery.
Our security scans are an “as is” product using third-party tools. As such, we are not responsible for their findings or any malware effect on your site.
2.7 Bug fixes
Identifying and fixing bugs on a live website will be given priority over other support requests. During office hours we will respond within 2 hours and aim to find a solution immediately. Outside of office hours we will endeavour to respond within 24 hours, otherwise within the first 1 hour of the next working day.
2.8 Support services
Drijen Digital provides support for troubleshooting, how-to reminders, content updates, host liaison, and consulting. Time to provide these services is deducted from the number of support hours provided by a Client’s plan. Unused time does not roll over to the next month.
2.9 Out-of-scope support
If your support issue requires significantly more web development time than is included in your plan, we will quote it as a separate project, outside the WordPress Support Plan. An example would be a website redesign, addition of significant new functionality, or the development of a brand new application.
3. How to contact us
Support is available via email (support@drijen.digital). Requests may be made anytime.
Our customer support representatives are available Monday through Friday, 9 am – 5 pm UK time; excluding all national holidays. Representatives may be available outside these hours, but such availability is not guaranteed and is not automatically granted or assumed as part of this agreement.
Drijen Digital is committed to a two business day turnaround on any task that takes two hours or less. Rush requests (less than 24 hours) may be accomplished but will incur an additional rush fee of up to £175 + VAT.
WordPress Support Plans are offered “as is”, with no implied warranty or guarantee that your website will function exactly as you wish (there are sometimes limitations as to what components work together, what hosting companies will allow, or what requirements 3rd-party components and plugins will have).
4. Third Parties
Drijen Digital does not automatically support custom web development by third parties on a Client site. If we agree to work with custom code that is not well-commented, we may require access to the original developer in order to help. It is highly recommended that the Client contact Drijen Digital before any web development by others (outside Drijen Digital) is initiated so that we can advise the Client on the suitability and potential pitfalls of new development. If Drijen Digital is called upon to fix website problems due to additional development by third parties, such fixes may incur an additional hourly charge.
During the duration of this agreement, the Client agrees that no other party will make modifications to Client’s website, database, plugins, or files (other than as needed for regular content management); any non-standard changes to the theme that could result in loss of edits; or any modifications that affect the core or plugins that could result in the loss of edits. If a party other than Drijen Digital makes changes to a Client’s website, any errors that are created, that must be repaired, will be done so at Client’s additional expense.
5. Payment
Care Plans require a subscription to be set up with an upfront payment for the first period via the secure payment buttons on the care plan options page.
Upon payment, Drijen Digital will request required information (e.g. FTP access, cPanel access, hosting login, WordPress login, etc.) if we don’t already have it.
Upon receipt of the required information, Drijen Digital will schedule the work as agreed.
All monthly charges after the first month will be made by recurring automatic charge to the Client’s credit/debit card.
If paying annually, the payment will be taken each year, 7 days before the renewal date.
6. Care Plan Cancellation
We want to make sure all our clients are happy with our services. If you’re unsatisfied with your care plan, you can send us a cancellation request at support@drijen.digital, and we will gladly cancel the care plan if you send the request 7 days before the next payment.
If you do cancel, please bear in mind that you will have to arrange the following:
- Website hosting (if our arrangement included this)
- Updates to plugins, themes, and WordPress (twice a month or at least once a month)
- Off-server Backups
- Making sure your site is secure and cleaning it up after it is hacked
We reserve the right to cancel a care plan if:
- Client doesn’t respond in a timely manner
- Client doesn’t keep up with their subscription payments
- We deem the client to be unethical, rude or unwilling to work with our normal processes and procedures
- We deem the work unethical
7. Customer Support
We aim to achieve the highest level of client satisfaction and for our clients to have absolute faith in our standard of work and the professional manner in which we conduct business.
7.1 How we aim to serve our clients:
- Be friendly, warm and courteous on the phone, email and in person.
- Respond to all contact within 24 hours.
Anything that you tell us in confidentiality will remain confidential.
7. 2 What we cannot provide:
An immediate response time. As a small company dedicated to numerous clients, we cannot promise we will be able to answer your queries straight away, but we aim to respond within 24 hours.
7.3 Out of hours support.
Our office hours are Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm. If you have any urgent query, we cannot promise to deal with it outside these hours.
7.4 What we expect from you:
- Remain professional in your approach with us as we are with you.
- Provide all information requested in the agreed timescales.
- Pay all invoices on time.
- Unless explicitly agreed beforehand, you are responsible for providing content and images and other material that will be used on your website, so you’ll need to make sure you don’t infringe on any copyright or laws. We will provide feedback if the quality of the content of images is not the level we require.
8. Disclaimer
If the services described in the Plan are or become unavailable, then Drijen Digital will use reasonable measures to repair and reinstate those services within 24 hours of detection. Where such unavailability is due to the negligent failure of Drijen Digital to deal with circumstances within its control and is for more than a total of 24 hours in any 30 day period then Drijen Digital will at its discretion either pay to Clients compensation limited to a refund of the monthly fee paid or provide a credit up to the same amount.
Neither Drijen Digital nor anyone else who has been involved in the creation, production or supply of the services described in the Plans or any Additional Services shall be liable to the Client or any other person for any loss in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty) or otherwise howsoever and whatever the cause thereof by reason of or in connection with the Contract or those services for any:
- economic loss of any kind whatsoever, or
- loss of profit, business contracts, revenues or anticipated savings, or
- damage to Your reputation or goodwill, or
- loss resulting from any claim made by any third party, or
- special, indirect or consequential loss or damage of any nature whatsoever, and You shall indemnify the Drijen Digital from and against any claim which may be made against Drijen Digital in respect thereof.
Drijen Digital shall have no liability for loss or damages arising from being prevented or delayed in or from performing any of the services described in the Plan or any of the Additional Services, due to circumstances beyond its control. Such circumstances are, but shall not be limited to, governmental acts, war, riots, strikes or trade disputes (including by and with our own employees), technical failure, general availability of the Internet, power failure, communications failure, weather, flood, fire or explosion, natural or local emergency.
9. Law and jurisdiction
These terms and conditions are formed under the laws of the United Kingdom and any legal claim shall be made in a court or via the legal system of the United Kingdom.