Negotiating a hosting agreement for your website

Action list

1. Establish what services you want: for example, website hosting, online shopping, links with your computer system and so on.
2. Describe the quality of service you need to enable you to achieve your business objectives.
3. Agree how these translate into measurable ‘deliverables’: for example, a set level of bandwidth availability and monthly usage reports.
4. Specify your requirements for security and confidentiality of data.
5. Establish what backup facilities are available; ensure that you have a disaster recovery plan.
6. Check that you are happy with your responsibilities: for example, uploading content, notifying the hosting company of any problems.
7. Establish a performance monitoring and fault reporting system; timetable periodic review meetings.
8. Agree how faults will be dealt with; consider an escalation procedure for referring continuing problems to more senior managers.
9. Plan a change control process to allow changes to the contract to be negotiated as circumstances and your needs evolve.
10. Negotiate charges and payment schedules.
11. Negotiate any penalties for failing to meet service standards; consider incentives for successful service delivery.
12. Consider including a dispute resolution procedure for problems that cannot be resolved between you and the ISP.
13. Establish how either party will be allowed to terminate the agreement.
14. Ensure that your termination agreement includes a migration procedure, providing time and any help required to move to another ISP.
15. Incorporate all the key terms in a written service level agreement.

Cardinal rules

Do:

• see developing the agreement as a co-operative process
• focus on service levels that will affect the service your customers receive
• communicate problems as soon as possible
• plan ahead for changes to the agreement

Don’t:

• have unrealistic expectations
• try to negotiate excessive penalty clauses
• set performance standards that cannot, or will not, be measured
• tie yourself into an inflexible agreement
• set performance standards that cannot, or will not, be measured
• tie yourself into an inflexible agreement
• tie yourself into an inflexible agreement