Almost every SME has one. Or thinks they have one.

An SLA. A Service Level Agreement. It sounds reassuring, professional even. But if we’re honest: for many business owners, it remains a vague concept somewhere in a contract, among other paragraphs that are rarely re-read.

Until something goes wrong.

Suddenly the mail is down. Or no one can work in the file anymore. And then the confusion begins. Who should you call? How soon should you expect a response? And above all: hadn’t you “covered” this through that SLA contract?

An SLA is not a technical document. Nor is it IT jargon for specialists. At its core, it is nothing more than a set of agreements about expectations. What does your IT partner do when something goes wrong, how quickly does it happen, and how important is your problem rated relative to other customers?

The latter is crucial, and at the same time where things often go wrong.

Many SMEs think “urgent” means the same thing to everyone. But it rarely does. What is business downtime for you may be a problem that can technically “wait a while” for an IT partner. A good SLA makes that difference explicit. Not based on how complex a problem sounds, but on what it does to your day-to-day operation. If billing, scheduling or communications are down, that’s how it should be treated. Period.

Related to that is speed. Not so much how quickly everything is solved, because not every problem can disappear in ten minutes. It is how quickly someone is working on it, how quickly you get feedback and whether you know where you stand. Entrepreneurs can put up with a lot, but uncertainty is fatal. An SLA is supposed to remove that uncertainty.

Yet in practice, we often see the opposite. Contracts with vague wording such as “best effort” or “as soon as possible,” with no concrete agreements. No clear delineation of what is included and what is not. No time for evaluation. On paper everything seems settled, but in reality there is no grip when it comes down to it.

And let’s be honest about this: an SLA is not a magical protection against IT problems. It does not prevent errors or guarantee perfect operation. What it does do is provide predictability. You know where you stand, who takes responsibility and what steps will follow when things go wrong. That’s not a luxury, that’s basic comfort for a company that wants to grow without constantly putting out fires.

So the real value of an SLA is not in technical terms or impressive promises, but in clear agreements that fit your business. Not every company has the same needs. What works perfectly for one SME is totally inadequate for another. That’s why a standard SLA rarely works really well.

The question you need to ask yourself is actually quite simple. If tomorrow your IT partner is unreachable, do you know exactly what will happen? Who will take over? How quickly? And according to what agreements? If the answer to this is not crystal clear, then you may have an SLA on paper, but no SLA in practice.

And you won’t feel that difference until it’s too late.

Those who take a moment to reflect on their SLA today will avoid frustration, downtime and discussions tomorrow. Not by thinking more technically, but by making more human agreements. The way it should have always been.