What “I respond” actually means
“Fast, personal support” is what everyone writes and nobody can be held to. What follows is what I actually owe you, in numbers I hold every month rather than numbers that read well.
And if I miss one, I would rather settle it with you directly than write terms for a lawyer to interpret. That part is at the bottom of the page.
What I owe you, and how fast
It is down, or your data is at risk
Mail not flowing, files unreachable, a suspected compromise, a failed disk.
Acknowledged within four hours, any day of the year. From there the work continues without interruption until it is resolved or downgraded. The machines are watched day and night and the alert wakes me; the four hours are what I promise even when it lands while I am asleep.
Something is degraded but you can work
One service slow or intermittent, a sync failing on one device, a feature not behaving.
Acknowledged the same day, with a fix or a workaround within two.
Questions and changes
A new account, a new device, a new service, “how do I…”.
Answered within two working days, scheduled with you if the work is larger.
You set the severity when you write to me. I will not quietly downgrade one to make a number look better; if I disagree I will say so and tell you why.
The rest of the commitments
How my day works
I keep no office hours. The working hours are mine to place, so an answer can come early, late or on a Sunday, and what I promised above does not depend on which. Monitoring runs day and night either way, and when I am away for more than a day you hear it from me beforehand rather than from the silence.
Planned maintenance
Announced at least 7 days ahead, carried out between 06:00 and 08:00 CET, and expected to be invisible to you. Emergency security work can happen at any time; you are told within the hour.
Security updates
Within 14 days. Vulnerabilities under active exploitation within 72 hours — see the security page.
Backups
Nightly, offsite, restores tested twice a year with the result written into your report.
Incidents
You hear from me in writing within 24 hours of my becoming aware, and get a written report within 15 working days.
What is not covered
Stated so that it is never a surprise during an outage:
— Your devices and network
Your own devices, and your home or office network.
— Connectivity
Your internet connection, and mine, beyond the backup line I have committed to (failover).
— Third-party services
Third-party services you keep outside this estate, and anything that depends on them.
— Your own deletions
Data you delete yourself, beyond what the retention window holds.
— A lost key
Recovering an account whose only key was yours and is now lost. That is the cost of my not holding it, and it is the trade you are buying.
If I miss these
I tell you before you have to ask, and I tell you why. Then we agree what makes it right: time back, work not charged for, whatever is proportionate to what it cost you. I would rather settle that between the two of us than have either of us reading clauses.
If it keeps happening, it stops being a negotiation. You leave without notice and without penalty, taking your data, your domain and your hardware with you, exactly as described in if I stop. A service level with no consequence attached is a marketing sentence, not a commitment.