Customer Services Plan v3.5

Redcentric customers

6 Sep 2016

Customer Services Plan

Tim Wilkinson

Gwen Cooper

Customer Services, Quality Management

Annual

1.0 2 October 2006 New Document Obsolete

1.1 1 October 2007 Prioritisation Changes Obsolete

1.2 9 January 2009 New Template Obsolete

1.3 25 June 2010 Escalation contacts updated Obsolete

1.4 5 February 2011 Update re: Emergency Changes Obsolete

1.5 27 June 2011 Inclusion of Major Incident Categorisation Obsolete

1.6 3 August 2011

1.7 16 August 2011

1.8 16 Sep 2011

1.9 20 Dec 2011

Existing drafted into new document

template format

Addition of new DC access request

process

Correcting email address inconsistencies

and flow chart amendment to reflect

correct details.

Re-categorization of the P3 and P4

definitions

Obsolete

Obsolete

Obsolete

Obsolete

2.0 28 Sep 2012 Update to Reserved Windows section. Obsolete

2.1 19 Nov 2012 Addition to 6.1; 6.3 amended to 14 days. Obsolete

2.2 7 June 2013 Amendments reflecting role changes Obsolete

2.3 30 July 2013 Addition of section 6.8 Obsolete

Customer Services Plan v3.5

2.3 3 Jan 2014 Rebranded only, no change to content Obsolete

2.4 14 Jan 2014 Support telephone number changes Obsolete

2.5 23 Feb 2014 Section 6.5 Service Outages – updated. Obsolete

2.6 8 Jan 2015 Change of named personnel Obsolete

2.7 13 March 2015 Updates to Sections 1.1 & 1.4 Obsolete

2.8 23 June 2015

2.9 26 June 2015

3.0 8 December 2015

Amendments to Escalations; matrix and

internal; addition of project services matrix

Reason For Outage Reports.

Some other small content changes in a

number of the sections.

Change to Incident Management Team

description (4.1)

Changes to 4.1 re: Level 2 escalation

„phone number and when to use Level 3

and above.

Obsolete

Obsolete

Obsolete

3.1 9 December 2015 Amended contact in section 6.5. Obsolete

3.2 15 March 2016

3.3 5 May 2016

3.4 24 Aug 2016

Addition to 2. Service Call Severity – re:

upgrading severity of calls.

Amendment to section 2 re: Priority 2

calls; removal of section 4.3 Project

Escalation Matrix.

Escalation personnel change in sections

4.1 and 4.2.

3.5 6 Sep 2016 Replacement graphic Section 5. Live

Obsolete

Obsolete

Obsolete

Redcentric‟s Operations Director is the owner of this document and is therefore responsible for

ensuring that this policy is reviewed in line with the review requirements of Redcentric‟s ISO9001

Quality Management System.


CONTENTS

1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................... 5

1.1 Logging a Service Call ............................................................................................................... 5

1.2 Contacting Customer Services by Telephone ........................................................................... 5

1.3 Contacting Customer Services using the Redcentric Services Portal ....................................... 5

1.4 Contacting Customer Services by Email ................................................................................... 6

2. Service Call Severity ........................................................................................................................ 6

3 Change Request Severity and Implementation .............................................................................. 7

3.1 How to log a Change Request, a MBS-Disaster Recovery Test or a network failover test ...... 8

3.2 How to log a Data Centre access request ................................................................................. 8

4 Escalations ....................................................................................................................................... 9

4.1 How to escalate an existing Support ticket: .............................................................................. 9

4.2 Redcentric Support Escalation Process - INTERNAL .............................................................. 10

5 Redcentric Support Call Methodology ......................................................................................... 11

6 Service Level Agreement (SLA) .................................................................................................... 12

6.1 Major Incident Plan .................................................................................................................. 12

6.2 Reason For Outage Reports .................................................................................................... 12

6.3 Redcentric Core Infrastructure Continuous Improvement Programme .................................. 12

6.4 Reserved Windows .................................................................................................................. 13

6.5 Complaints ............................................................................................................................... 13

6.6 Consultancy/Performance Review ........................................................................................... 13

6.7 Returns Merchandise Authorisation (RMA) Process ................................................................ 14


This Customer Services Plan has been created to provide an improved service for Redcentric‟s

customers.

Redcentric has one direct point of contact for customer support, which deals with all aspects

of the Service. The Redcentric Customer Services team takes full responsibility for supporting

and logging problems and technical support queries. Their specific role is to ensure that all

telephone, email and portal queries are answered and resolved as promptly as possible. They

will provide the customer with a customer interaction number and the engineer will then deal

directly with the query. The customer interaction number is useful to quote if making

enquiries to the progress of the call and it also helps Redcentric monitor the progress of that

call.

The Customer Service operation is available 24x7x365 and can be contacted by telephone,

email or via the Customer Portal. Your call is routed directly to our Service Management

Centre (SMC) who will log your Service Call, agree the call priority and assign a customer

interaction number which will allow your request to be identified efficiently and tracked at all

times

It is important that all urgent and high priority requests are called into the desk by phone to

ensure they are acted on immediately, avoiding any potential delay the receipt of emails

could cause (see 1.4).

Contact Customer Services by telephone on 0345 1207070 providing the following

information:

1) Customer name and address;

2) The Redcentric Product or Service to which your call relates;

3) An existing Interaction Call, Incident or Change ref (where applicable);

4) Details of the requirement or information on the problem you are experiencing and

what you have tried to resolve it;

5) You will also be asked to verify your security pass phrase (if set).

Your call will then be logged (or updated) and your unique customer interaction number

confirmed. A support engineer will then deal with your call directly.

Customers can us our online Customer Services Portal to contact Support. The portal can be

found at http://www.redcentricplc.com and has a variety of helpful applications and tools:

Manage contacts for outages/planned works notifications

Logging a service incident or interaction

Updating an existing incident or interaction

Viewing current project status

Access to storage reports

Access to bandwidth and performance statistics for networks

Viewing billing information


Please note, response time SLAs will only come into effect when a ticket has been raised and

NOT on receipt of an email. If your issue is urgent please contact us by telephone or log a

ticket via the customer portal. Emails are actioned on a first come first served basis. Once

your email has been actioned by one of our Service Desk team you will be issued with an

acknowledgement and assigned a support analyst who will deal directly with your query. You

will also be advised of your unique customer interaction number. You can also track your call

online, and view historical call information.

The following table defines examples of the priorities to be used by the Customer and

Redcentric when logging calls. Redcentric shall respond to all requests for support in

accordance with the table below.

“Typical events” are illustrative only and are not limited to the events listed.


The following table defines examples of the priorities to be used by the customer and

Redcentric when logging change requests.

These timescales are minimum standards and wherever possible, the Redcentric SMC will

strive to better these quoted implementation times to meet customers‟ realistic requirements

for urgent change implementation, however this is generally dependent on the complexity

and nature of the actual change required.

Classification:

Routine Change Request

Routine Change Request e.g. IP route

change, firewall change.

Additional Portal login

Change Logging: 24hr x 7 day x 365 days;

Acknowledgement Response: within 4

business hours;

Implementation: within 2 business days of the

parties signing written confirmation of the

changes agreed. For complex changes, a

signed scope of works document is required.

Changes required to be performed out of

hours will be subject to charges.

Redcentric call handling process:

Logged change requests will be progressed

between the hours of 09:00 - 17:30 hrs (Mon -

Fri); the assigned engineer will make contact

with the customer and agree a schedule of work.

Classification:

Urgent Change Request

Non-routine Change Request e.g. firewall reconfiguration

request

Change required to prevent service failure

Change Logging: 24hr x 7 day x 365 days

Acknowledgement Response: within 1

business hour

Implementation: within 1 business day of the

parties written confirmation of the changes

agreed.

Redcentric call handling process:

Logged change requests will be processed

between the hours of 09:00 - 17:30 hrs (Mon -

Fri) the assigned engineer will make contact with

the customer and agree a schedule of work.


Please contact the Redcentric Service Management Centre to discuss your requirement.

A copy of the relevant form will be mailed to the customer to complete.

Customers can then either email an electronic copy of the form to:

support@redcentricplc.com

Once logged, the forms will go through a series of checks to ensure that all necessary

information has been gathered and all parties have agreed on the requested work. You will

then be issued with a change request ID for tracking purposes.

*Change Requests - please refer to the defined SLAs in the table above for the target

timescales to implement changes.

*DR Test Requests - please note that there is a four-week minimum notice period to request

these types of exercises and until you have written confirmation from Redcentric, no third

party location or alternative locations for exercises should be booked. Redcentric does not

accept any liability or commercial costs for Business Continuity or Disaster Recovery

exercises booked outside of these parameters.

Any changes requested for out of hours work will be subject to the standard consultancy

overtime rates in force at the particular time.

Before access can be granted to any of Redcentric‟s Data Centre locations, you must first

raise an access request with Redcentric Customer Services. This can be raised by calling 0345

120 7070, by sending an email to support@redcentricplc.com or via our customer portal

www.redcentricplc.com. Please provide a minimum of 24 hours notice.

All access requests must be submitted by an authorised contact and must include the

following information:

Full names of all visitors attending

Date and time of the visit

Redcentric site and areas therein that the visitor(s) require access to. Please note

that private hosting suite customers will only be able to access their own suite.

Any special requirements - for example, a requirement to access under floor cables.

In these circumstances, a member of the Facilities team may have to be present to

marshal the works and ensure that isolations to fire detectors are put in place.

Details of any equipment planned to be removed from/brought into the facility

during the visit, which will be recorded in the interaction raised as this is a

requirement of our Security Policy.

If under floor access is required, for example, for cable work, this needs to be stated in the

access ticket and a Risk Assessment and Method Statement must be provided – this will be

checked prior to the visit and must be approved by the Facilities department in advance of

the visit. Where cable trays are provided, these must be used.

Once the access request has been recorded, an interaction reference number will be

provided, which must be quoted by visitors upon arrival.


There are two different escalation paths detailed below; one is for support related escalations

where you may have an open support ticket and the other relates to on-going projects for

new deliveries and installations.

The Redcentric Customer Services and Support teams take pride in ensuring that all incidents,

service calls, change requests or simple advice and guidance requirements from our

customers are dealt with efficiently and effectively within clearly defined timescales.

If however, you feel that your requirement is not being dealt with effectively or you wish to

escalate a particular issue from either a management or technical aspect, you can request this

action from any of our Customer Service and Support teams. The team will escalate the

request and will confirm how your request has been escalated in accordance with our defined

escalation process as set out below.

We ask that all escalations and urgent requests are done so by telephone.

Helpdesk N/A 0345 120 7070 –


Ask for Duty

Shift Leader

Duty Shift Leader 01423 877530 –


Incident

Management

Hunt Group

Fully managed Incident

Management desk during core

business hours.

01423 877600 –

support.escalation@redcentricplc.com

Paul

Williamson

Customer Services Manager 01423 877574 –

paul.williamson@redcentricplc.com

Joel Murray-

Kydd

Voice & Network Support Team

Leader

01423 850016 – joel.murraykydd@redcentricplc.com

James Purcell Applications & Infrastructure

Manager

01423 877526 –

james.purcell@redcentricplc.com

Tim Wilkinson Operations Director 01423 877510 –

tim.wilkinson@redcentricplc.com

Helpdesk N/A 0345 1207070 –


Ask for Duty Shift

Leader

Duty Shift Leader 01423 877530 –


On-call engineering

team

3 line support team Escalation via duty shift leader


1 st Level – 2

hours until

SLA breach

4 th Level –

Further 2

hours

5 th Level –

Further 4

hours

2 nd Level –

Further 1 hour

3 rd Level –

Further 1 hour

Customer call logged – unique ticket number assigned – action taken by Redcentric Support Team to resolve.

Escalate to Tech Support Shift Leader

0345 1207070 (24x7x365), support@redcentricplc.com

Escalation Management Hunt Group

01423 877600

support.escalation@redcentricplc.com

Paul Williamson

Customer Service Manager

01423 877574

paul.williamson@redcentricplc.com

Joel Murray-Kydd

Voice & Network Support Team

Leader

01423 850016

Joel.murraykydd@redcentricplc.com

James Purcell

Applications & Infrastructure

Manager

01423 877526

James.purcell@redcentricplc.com

Tim Wilkinson

Operations Director

01423 877510

tim.wilkinson@redcentricplc.com


Call logged directly with Redcentric

Customer Support team

Tel: 03451207070 (24x7x365)

Customer Portal: http://

www.redcentricplc.com

Email: Support@redcentricplc.com

In business hours?

(Between 09:00 and 17:30 Mon to

Fri)

Yes

A support ticket is logged and

assigned to our Service Desk

team.

A unique customer interaction

ID is issued to the customer.

No

Alert received in

monitoring

A support ticket is logged and

assigned to our 24x7 2 nd line

Tech Support team.

A unique customer

interaction ID is issued to the

customer.

Redcentric analyse the issue

and give the ticket a priority

based on impact and urgency.

The Support Ticket is raised

against an identified

Configuration Item from our

CMDB

Redcentric Support team liaise

directly with the customer and

provide updates. Regularity of

updates based on priority. All

progress is recorded within the

ticket journal.

The assigned team complete

Technical Boundaries; this is the

minimum expectations based

against each level of Support.

This includes triage steps and

information gathering.

Customer satisfied?

No

Escalation Process

Functional Escalation: Ticket is

progressed to a technical team

with a higher level of expertise

to aid in resolution.

Hierarchic Escalation: A member

of the Escalations Management

team takes ownership until

resolution, following up with

engineers working the case and

with the customer.

The ticket is escalated to the next

team; Service Desk to Tech

Support – Tech Support to 3 rd

Line Resolvers – 3 rd Line Resolvers

to Core Platform Teams

Yes

Customer issue resolved?

No

Yes

Assigned Team update

Support Ticket to ‘Restored in

Monitoring’ or ‘Resolved’

Status in the Service

Management system.

Assigned engineer modifies

ticket status in Service

Management System to

‘Closed’.

Ticket is closed

PUBLIC


Each individual managed service has one or more SLAs which we aim to achieve or exceed as

a business goal. Some service SLAs are based on a % availability rating as detailed in the

service definition.

Reporting against these SLAs is a standard agenda item in our service review meetings but in

the near future, all of these reports will be available online via our customer 'Inform' portal.

This plan has evolved over many years and is designed to cater for any type of major incident.

A major incident is defined as a complete loss (or loss of resilience) to any core piece of

Redcentric or supplier infrastructure which affects multiple customers.

Example 1: a power outage at a Redcentric data centre with backup generators running

(classified as a MI because services are operating in non-resilient mode).

Example 2: An outage at one of our UK „points of presence‟ (POPs) such that all customer

circuits into that POP are effectively disconnected from the core network.

When managing a MI there are 2 key objectives:

a) To coordinate the restoration of normal service operation to customers as

quickly as possible with minimum disruption to customers and their business;

b) To provide timely, informed communications throughout the major incident life

cycle, both internally to the business and externally to customers and suppliers.

For a full copy of our MI plan please contact your account team or Tim Wilkinson on 01423

877510.

From time to time faults do occur within our infrastructure which may affect your service. We

will endeavour to contact customers by telephone or email during these times. We will always

try our best to provide a full Incident Report within 5 working days following confirmed

resolution, however; there are a numbers of tasks which need to be completed before these

can be distributed:

- Tidy up of associated customer interaction records including checking all customer services

have returned to normal and all affected customers have been updated.

- Complete technical investigations and root cause analysis.

- Perform internal Major Incident Reviews with engineers and Support management teams.

- Communicate with supplier where relevant and pend receipt of their supporting RFO

documentation.

- Drafting of the report and Director level approval before distribution.

Redcentric is committed to continually improving and expanding its core network and data

centre capabilities, thus striving to provide the highest levels of service to its customers. In

order to facilitate these improvements, it is necessary to carry out essential work from time to

time. These activities are carefully scheduled through the use of an internal change control

process which is designed to present maximum visibility of that change and thereby ensure


that planning and implementation are carried out to minimize the effect on customers and

their network services.

For the benefit of customers we will allocate a pre-determined planned window which will be

utilised to carry out any core infrastructure changes which may carry a minimal risk of

disruption to service, or in some instances a period of service downtime which would be kept

to an absolute minimum. In either instance, customers will be notified of the full details of the

requirement with a minimum of 14 days‟ notice prior to the maintenance window. Generally

we will endeavour to carry out any improvements in the reserved windows listed below;

however unforeseen circumstances might dictate that we carry out improvements at other

times. Notwithstanding such notice Redcentric shall still provide the Services in accordance

with the applicable Service Level.

Redcentric will endeavour to give the customer as much notice as possible.

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 04:00 to 06:00 for all services except MBS/MAS (Tuesdays and

Thursdays 11:00 to 15:00).

Please note that in very exceptional circumstances, there may be an emergency requirement

to instigate work outside of these maintenance windows; however, every effort will be made

to avoid disruption during core service hours and prior notification will be issued at the

earliest possible opportunity. Please see the below extract from the Redcentric

There may be occasions when there is a requirement for an Emergency Change to be carried

out; please refer to Redcentric‟s

for further information (available

upon request from the Operations Director or via your Account Management Team).

The customer must make formal complaints in writing, address to Mr Stuart Pooley,

Redcentric, Central House, Beckwith Knowle, Harrogate, HG3 1UG. Redcentric will respond

to a formal complaint within 10 Business Days.

Service Review Meetings can be held regularly between representatives of the Account

management Team and the customer, to discuss things such as provisioning performance,

project updates, incident statistics, product roadmap and general feedback.


Once the faulty hardware is returned to Redcentric, further diagnostics will be performed to

identify the root cause of the failure. Manufacture defects are reported to the vendor and

other issues are resolved internally via our incident management process.


Dear Customer,

At your earliest convenience, could we please ask that you repack any faulty/old hardware into the

packaging that your new equipment arrived in and post it back to the following address?

FAO IT Support Co-ordinator

Redcentric Solutions Ltd

Central House

Beckwith Knowle

Harrogate

HG3 1UG

We would appreciate it if you label up the box with our Interaction Ref _____________

and place this note inside the box so that we are aware of who returned the device.

Redcentric Solutions Ltd require all old equipment to be returned within 14 days of receipt.

Please note charges may be raised for delayed returns.

If you have any questions or queries please don’t hesitate to call 0345 120 7070 and ask for the IT

Support Co-ordinator.

Thank you in advance

Redcentric Solutions Ltd

Notes/References: ______________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________

______________________________________________________________________



Customer Services Plan v3.5

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