Effective as of April 5, 2024
This Service Level Agreement (SLA) delineates the benchmark service quality and support protocol that our clients can anticipate when engaging with 321 Web Marketing’s support system when the website is hosted on 321 Web Marketing’s server.
Clients under a hosting plan benefit from included services such as WordPress and plugin updates, server management, backups, and security checks.
Support Procedure
To initiate a support request, please forward all queries to support@321webmarketing.com. We utilize a sophisticated, web-based ticketing system, ZenDesk, to meticulously monitor and manage our support workflow. This system ensures that various team members can efficiently review and address your inquiries.
Access your support ticket history at any time by logging into https://321hub.zendesk.com. This portal showcases all tickets associated with your email, offering a transparent view of your support interactions.
Response Times
During business hours (9 AM to 5 PM ET, Monday through Friday), we discuss all tickets at 9:30 AM ET and aim to acknowledge requests within 24 hours. Emergencies will receive a response via email within 30 minutes.
Outside of these hours, including weekends and holidays, our support team’s availability may vary. For immediate concerns such as site outages, a text message to 703-810-7557 is advised. Note: Specific arrangements are required for after-hours assistance (refer to the section on rush and after-hours rates).
Support priorities are as follows, with associated response times:
- Emergency (e.g., Website/server outage): Within 30 minutes
- High (e.g., Critical issues or project warranty requests): Within 4 hours
- Medium (Time-sensitive but not critical issues): Within 12 hours
- Neutral (Non-time-sensitive requests): Within 24 hours
Target Completion Times
Outlined below are common support tasks and their respective target completion times, contingent upon receipt of all necessary information and approvals. Rush service may incur additional fees.
- Content Updates: Less than 2 business days
- Design Adjustments: Custom quote basis
- Email Deliverability Issues: Less than 1 business day
- Plugin Installation: Less than 1 week
- DNS Modifications: Less than 1 business day
- New Feature Requests: Custom quote basis
- Page Redirects: Less than 1 business day
- Analytics Reports: Less than 1 week
- Site Outages: Less than 1 hour
- Tracking Implementation: Less than 2 business days
- User Account Management: Less than 1 business day
- Website Backup Requests: Less than 2 business days
Updates Frequency and Scheduling
- WordPress Core Updates: Critical security updates are applied within 24 hours of release. Major and minor updates are scheduled and communicated in advance, typically within 1 week of their release, to ensure compatibility and minimize disruption.
- Theme Updates: 321 Web Marketing exclusively develops using Genesis Themes. Updates to Genesis parent theme and child themes developed by 321 Web Marketing are applied within 3 business days of their release, pending a compatibility review with the current WordPress Core version and plugins.
- Plugin Updates: Critical security plugin updates are implemented within 24 hours. For non-critical updates, we aim for a deployment window within 5 business days, ensuring thorough testing for compatibility and performance.
Testing and Compatibility Assurance
Before applying updates, our team conducts comprehensive testing in a staging environment to ensure compatibility with your website’s specific configuration. This includes:
- Functional testing to verify that key website features operate correctly.
- Performance assessment to ensure that loading times and responsiveness meet our standards.
- Security evaluation to confirm enhancements and the remediation of vulnerabilities.
Clients may request for a plugin to be added, where 321 Web Marketing will test in a staging environment before uploading to ensure the plugin does not conflict with other code, slow the website down, or cause security issues.
Rush & After-Hours Rates
Our expedited service rate is $225 per hour. This applies when a project requires prioritization over scheduled tasks or during non-business hours. Our standard operational hours are 9 AM to 5 PM ET, Monday through Friday.
Estimations and Approvals
Upon submitting a support request, clients may ask for an estimate. The absence of such a request implies consent to proceed. Estimates provided are based on hourly rates and may be subject to adjustments based on actual time spent.
For complex tasks exceeding 5 hours, the case may transition to our sales team for a quote and a formal Statement of Work (SOW).
Non-response and Billing
Tickets with no response from the creator after seven days will be closed, with applicable charges invoiced. Our standard support rate is $150 per hour, billed in 15-minute increments. Monthly invoices are issued for the preceding month’s support activities, payable within 15 days.
Payment Methods
Payments are accepted via bank transfer (ACH) or check, with details provided on invoices. Credit card payments are available upon request, subject to a 3% processing fee.
For further assistance or to arrange credit card payments, please reach out to support@321webmarketing.com.
Website Ownership
When 321 Web Marketing is accountable for hosting and managing a WordPress website, we limit downloading plugins on the production server because new plugins can break the website, slow down the website, or cause future security issues. This policy ensures website uptime, speed and security, in addition to better control change management on code.
To ensure clients always own their code and database, designated points-of-contact may ask for a website backup at any time or request to host their website elsewhere for the following situations:
- Clients prefer to have another vendor manage hosting
- Clients want to terminate the contract, but would rather announce that the relationship is being terminated after a website backup is in possession.
- Clients just want to have a backup (note: this is very common)
