Uptime and Access

Consistent Uptime

On the topic of SLAs, uptime is an essential element of a good service provider. Guarantees may seem cheap or unrealistic at times, but they really do matter when it comes to choosing an outsource company. You will need to find a company that has consistent uptime and guarantees that they do. Anything less than that is unacceptable and insufficient for a business such as yours. After all, if you rely heavily on email, every minute of email downtime could mean loss of productivity, business and profits.

Web and Mobile Access

In the current business climate, email should not only be accessible through the desktop client in the office. Email should also be available from home or on the go through web access or specific tools allowing email to be "pushed" to mobile devices. It’s always a good idea to look for a company that offers you the ability to access email through web mail or an online access portal to your mail through a web browser. This way, if you are at home or away from your office computer you can still access your email in a convenient manner.

These features should be explicitly described in the SLA, and while they may cost more (beyond the per-mailbox base price) it is the sign of a good, cutting-edge provider that they have the features available. Some companies have multiple redundancies when it comes to alternative modes of email access, including alternate websites for web mail, VPNs or Virtual Private Networks, and even dial-up modem access.

This is a sign that a company fully appreciates the necessity and importance of email in the modern business environment.