Tickets "On hold" with third parties

[Jawloms]

Wasn't sure where to put this question. After some opinions;

 

We logged a ticket with a very high priority with a third party. We've had interactions with them to gather further information, but now because they've had to escalate it beyond the initial helpdesk people they have put the ticket on hold. We asked for it to be kept "In Progress" as it's important and they replied with;

 

unfortunately i cannot as it will cause issues with sla's so i will have to leave it on hold.

 

Are the literally saying "If we don't put this on hold, we aren't going to meet our own SLA and that would make our stats show that we aren't"? Is that allowed/right/common practice?

 

Thoughts?

 

Stuart

[dmj]

depending on the issue, it's sometimes because engineering teams work in 'sprints' of two weeks and need to plan their work.

It could be an internal SLA (SLO) that they would break by keeping it on hold, rather than anything they would breach contract with you for. What does the contract say about your SLA with them and amount of money you get if they are in breach?

[Fazza]

You need to read the terms and conditions you have in your contract with them regarding the SLA they have provided you with. What's the penalty if they don't meet the SLA do you get a partial refund of the money you paid for the service? It could be that your third party needs another third party to do something before they can then solve the problem so it's out of their hands. It's all in the fine print of whatever you agreed to when you signed the contract with them.

[Jawloms]

We're having great difficulty getting a copy of the SLA from them for some reason. We're having trouble running a critical report around safeguarding. It's simply that 1st line can't deal with it so they've escalated it internally.

[gaz350b]

Flip this back on your own helpdesk management. The helpdesk is likely its own unit and engineering teams are separate.

I would understand your frustrations more if it was closed, If you had to wait on on finance teams to send an order to get a replacement part. Should your team be penalised on other teams/3rd parties performance?

 

But as Fazza mentions its all in the detail of the fine print of the contract.

[dapaulio]

This would solely depend on the reason the ticket is on hold.

If the support company have put it on hold to stop sla clock because they don’t have an available engineer to resolve your issue then no this is misuse the system to solely circumnavigate the sla between you and them.

If the support company cannot progress a ticket because of an external cause then yes the ticket can be agreed to go hold with the customer. Important emphasis on the term agreed by both parties. Eg the vendor has to make improvements to the software and this make take a month this is then an agreed timeframe for review.

Between vendor and support company the ticket will still be in progress.

Between support company and customer it could be agreed to be put on hold, or (we have) awaiting vendor which stops the support company sla with you (the customer)

 

However the support company should be challenging the vendors to meet their sla on your behalf. Once the vendor offers a solution then the clock starts again between you and support company to apply the solution within the sla agreed between you and support company.

 

These sort of tickets though normally fall outside the acceptable tolerance of an sla. A company may say 90-95% of all tickets will be resolved within SLA

Edited November 10, 2024 by dapaulio