Support Policies and Procedures for Subscription Services...These Policies describe the current...

2014 Aspect Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited.

Aspect® Customer Care

Support Policies and Procedures for

Subscription Services

Revision Level: 14.07

Revision Date: July 21, 2014

Effective Date: July 21, 2014

LIMITED RIGHTS NOTICE (DEC 2007)

(a) These data are submitted with limited rights under Government Contract No(s). TIRNO-09-D-0009 and DTFAWA-05-C-00031, as

applicable. These data may be reproduced and used by the Government with the express limitation that they will not, without written

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(b) This notice shall be marked on any reproduction of these data, in whole or in part.

Aspect Support Policies and Procedures for Subscription Services

ASPECT SOFTWARE PROPRIETARY & CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION

2014 Aspect Software, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use prohibited. 2

Contents

1. Introduction ......................................................................................................................................................... 3

2. Revisions to these Policies ................................................................................................................................. 3

3. Obtaining Support .............................................................................................................................................. 3

3.1. Telephone Support .................................................................................................................................. 3

3.2. Online Support ......................................................................................................................................... 4

3.3. Case Tracking ......................................................................................................................................... 5

3.4. Aspect Community .................................................................................................................................. 5

4. Support Service .................................................................................................................................................. 8

5. Severity Levels and Response Times ................................................................................................................ 9

5.1. Severity Levels ........................................................................................................................................ 9

5.2. Response Times.................................................................................................................................... 10

5.3. Product Specific Response Times ........................................................................................................ 10

5.4. Case Updates and Closure ................................................................................................................... 11

5.5. Escalations ............................................................................................................................................ 11

5.5.1. Aspect Internal Notifications ............................................................................................................. 11

5.5.2. Customer Escalations ...................................................................................................................... 11

6. Maintenance and Scheduled Downtime ........................................................................................................... 11

6.1. Moxie Hosting Service ........................................................................................................................... 11

Scheduled Maintenance windows .................................................................................................................... 11

7. Responsibilities ................................................................................................................................................ 12

7.1. Aspect Responsibilities ......................................................................................................................... 12

7.2. Customer Responsibilities ..................................................................................................................... 12

8. Items Not Included in Maintenance Support Services ..................................................................................... 13

9. Aspect Customer Care Definitions ................................................................................................................... 13

10. Appendix A – Changes to these Policies from the Previous Version ............................................................... 16




1. Introduction

These Policies describe the current policies and procedures under which Aspect will provide support to Customers who have purchased an Aspect® Subscription Service.

Capitalized terms are defined either in the Definitions section located at the end of this document or in the agreement between Customer and Aspect for the purchase of Products and Services. In the event of any conflict, the Definitions section of this document will control.

2. Revisions to these Policies

Aspect may update or revise these Policies from time to time. Aspect will use commercially reasonable efforts to limit material revisions to once annually. The current version of the Support Policies can be found in the Support Resources section of the Aspect Customer Care Center (login required).

3. Obtaining Support

Customer must have the following information available when contacting Aspect to request support:

• Subscription Service Asset Number • Customer Contact Information • Problem Description • Problem Details • Business Impact

3.1. Telephone Support

Aspect Customer Care is staffed globally 24x7 365 days a year. Customers can contact Aspect by telephone to report issues and ask questions regarding Aspect products and services.

A complete list of international phone numbers for Aspect Customer Care can be found at www.aspect.com under the Customer Resources option.

http://www.aspect.com/




When contacting Aspect by telephone, a valid Asset Number is required to properly route your call to the appropriate Customer Care support team.

All Severity 1 cases must be reported to Aspect by telephone.

3.2. Online Support

Support can also be obtained through the Aspect® Customer Care Center web site support.aspect.com.

The Aspect Customer Care Center requires a login and offers Customers access to the following resources:

A. Product Documentation

B. Knowledge Base

http://support.aspect.com/




C. Policy Information

D. Product Life Cycle information

E. Information on the latest software updates

F. Case administration and collaboration with Customer Care representatives

a. Open a Severity 2-4 Case

b. Update cases

c. View cases

d. Collaborate with Customer Care using Chatter

To request a login navigate to the Customer Care Center Login from Customer Resources on www.aspect.com or go directly to support.aspect.com.

Click on “Request a Login” from the login page.

3.3. Case Tracking

All technical problems reported to Aspect are assigned a case number for tracking purposes. All Customer inquiries on the reported problem should refer to the assigned case number.

3.4. Aspect Community

Aspect hosts a peer-to-peer community forum where Customers can interact to share ideas and solutions.

The community is open to all users of Aspect products and solutions and can be accessed at community.aspect.com.

http://www.aspect.com/

http://support.aspect.com/

http://www.community.aspect.com/




The following features and content are available on the Aspect Community:

A. Product focused discussion boards for Customer collaboration

B. Aspect Blogs

C. Innovations area where Customers can interact with Aspect Professional Services

D. Ideas area where Customers can submit and vote on product enhancements

E. Aspect Software Users Group (ASUGA) area where Customers can collaborate with other contact center professionals and find out about user groups and meetings in their local area

Users of Aspect products may request a login by clicking on the “Get Started” logo on the main page of community.aspect.com.

http://www.community.aspect.com/




4. Support Service

Unless otherwise specified with respect to a particular Subscription Service, Aspect Support Services includes:

Unlimited remote telephone or web support 24 x 7x 365 for named Customer contacts

Access to Aspect’s Customer Support Portal for case administration, Knowledge Base, documentation and Software Updates

Beginning on Customer’s Effective Service Date, Aspect will provide Internet and telephone support for the Subscription Service as follows:

A. Remote troubleshooting to determine the cause of a technical problem relating to the functionality or disruption of the Subscription Service,

B. Technical assistance relating to Subscription Service functionality or disruption,

C. Internet access to ; Problem reporting, tracking, management and status updates in accordance with these Support Policies;

D. Remote update/upgrade support “as available” for Aspect provided Software installed on Customer’s premises, if any;

E. Periodic “as available” updates/upgrades to the Subscription Service during Scheduled Downtime; and

F. Where applicable, minor configuration modifications.

Support Service is contingent on Customer’s fulfillment of its obligations under these Support Policies.

Support Service also includes investigation and remediation of known problems and bug fixes for the Subscription Service as available.

Support Service does not include: guaranteed bug fixes for all problems; problems resulting from any service or product not provided by Aspect or other problems that are not within Aspect’s control (including without limitation Internet service failures or delays); consulting or on-site services; training or usage assistance; problems resulting from Customer’s error or misuse of the Subscription Service; third party services; problems with Customer’s hardware, software, voice or data network infrastructure and services, or Internet access; or Customer’s failure to perform its obligations under these Support Policies.




5. Severity Levels and Response Times

5.1. Severity Levels

Aspect Customer Care will establish the Severity Level of each incident based on Customer’s assessment of business impact. As troubleshooting progresses, Aspect will work with Customer to reassess the technical and business impact of the problem and, if appropriate, adjust the case severity level.

Severity Level 1

Critical

Failure in the production operation of the Covered Service that causes cessation of or severe impact on Customer’s operations. No workaround acceptable to Customer available.

Severity Level 2

High

Intermittent failure in the production operation of the Covered Service that causes moderate degradation in performance or, resulting in a major operational impact to Customer’s ability to conduct business. No workaround acceptable to Customer available.

Severity Level 3

Medium

Minor impact in the production operation of the Covered Service where the solution is operational, but a technical issue needs resolution. Includes reported Documentation issues. Workaround acceptable to Customer is usually available.

Severity 4

Low

No impact in the production operation of the Covered Service.




5.2. Response Times

All timeframes specified in the tables below are targeted maximum allocations; Aspect may advance to the next level in the escalation process prior to expiration of a specified time frame. Targeted resolution time frames begin when the case number is created. Targeted response times for telephone and web-initiated cases are the same.

5.3. Product Specific Response Times

Resolution target time frames for the Subscription Service listed below will be limited by the available support hours as defined by Aspect’s third party vendors.

Aspect® Social Severity 2-4 issues

Sunday 6:00pm – Friday 6:00pm PST (Excluding Holidays)

Moxie Hosting Service Severity 3-4 issues

North America: 6:00am – 7:00pm PST M-F, excluding Holidays

Europe: 7:00am – 6:00pm GMT M-F, excluding Holidays

APAC: 7:00am – 7:00pm IST M-F, excluding Holidays




5.4. Case Updates and Closure

Aspect will communicate to Customer and document in the case notes the status and eventual resolution of a reported problem and will notify the Customer prior to closing a case. Aspect will attempt to confer with Customer to ensure mutual agreement to close the case, but will close a case without consent when the Customer (i) does not contact Aspect within a week after Aspect provides advice or resolution, (ii) does not respond to Aspect communications and case troubleshooting cannot continue without Customer involvement, or (iii) is in the process of implementing a resolution.

5.5. Escalations

5.5.1. Aspect Internal Notifications

Aspect employs several methods to ensure that management teams have real time awareness of key issues as they happen in their regions and for the Subscription Service that they support. Management dashboards and portals provide real time and historical views of issues and automated workflow management systems notify management when defined case thresholds have been met on Severity 1 issues. Notifications include Customer name, Asset number, time of the incident, case number, Aspect case owner, case number, and pertinent details about the case.

At any time in the case cycle, an Aspect Customer Care Analyst, Professional Services representative or other Customer advocate may initiate an internal escalation to management teams, engineering or other groups within Aspect as required to resolve Customer’s issue. Internal escalation is completed via email, Instant Message and telephone during business hours and via on call processes after hours.

5.5.2. Customer Escalations

Customers who wish to escalate a case can request that an Aspect Customer Care representative engage the manager on duty or can contact the case owner’s manager. Once a case has been assigned to an Aspect Customer Care representative customers can find the case owner and support manager contact information in the automated case update emails.

6. Maintenance and Scheduled Downtime Aspect will establish and notify Customer in advance of maintenance windows during which the Subscription Service will not be available due to performance of maintenance activities (“Scheduled Downtime”). Aspect may at times need to perform emergency maintenance services with no notice. Emergency maintenance services are undertaken in instances of service degradation or other events to alleviate a critical impact to Subscription Service traffic or to prevent further Subscription Service degradation. Aspect also may perform proactive maintenance of the Subscription Service during off peak minimal traffic periods without notice. These periods of maintenance will not exceed 15 minutes per weekday or one hour on a weekend.

6.1. Moxie Hosting Service

Moxie reserves the following scheduled maintenance periods which may in some situations result in Customer’s temporary inability to access the Subscription Service:

Scheduled Maintenance windows

Tuesday 2am – 6am PST

Thursday 2am – 6am PST




Saturday 2am – 6am PST

Period Description Maintenance Duration

Nightly Nightly backups of data files 1 hour

Weekly System Maintenance 2 hours

Weekly Database Maintenance 2 hours

Monthly System Maintenance 6 hours

7. Responsibilities

7.1. Aspect Responsibilities

Aspect will:

A. Provide technical assistance and troubleshooting to resolve problems or defects the Covered Service

does not function substantially as described in the published technical specifications.

B. All assistance and troubleshooting for the covered Service will be delivered in English. Aspect may offer

limited assistance in languages other than English based on resource availability

C. Provide problem management and reporting using Aspect’s case tracking system.

D. Use best efforts to respond to reported problems within the targeted time frames and provide status

updates during the resolution process.

E. Provide Maintenance Support Services for Covered Service until the published EOSL date.

F. Make commercially reasonable efforts to provide Customers with a minimum notice of 12 months prior

to discontinuing Maintenance Support Services for Covered Services releases or features

G. Install included Software Updates during Scheduled maintenance windows

7.2. Customer Responsibilities

Customer must:

A. Provide accurate and complete User contact information at all times to enable Aspect to send email or

other notifications from time to time, and such other information as is required by Aspect under these

Support Policies to enable Aspect respond to requests for Support Service.

B. If required by Aspect, provide Aspect remote access to Customer systems as necessary to enable

Aspect to perform Support Services.

C. Purchase from Aspect and provide to Users Aspect’s recommended training classes and maintain such

training as may be required by Aspect based on Customer’s Subscription Service, including at all times




a minimum of two named Users, who will be Customer’s primary contacts to call Aspect for Support

Service.

D. Cooperate with Aspect to agree upon times for Scheduled Downtime as defined in section 2.5 for

maintenance as required.

E. Install, configure and maintain on-premise facilities as required by Aspect for use of the Subscription

Service, including (i) the latest version of any Software provided by Aspect where applicable, (ii) all

hardware, software, voice and data network infrastructure, services and equipment, and (iii) any other

environmental dependencies as specified by Aspect from time to time.

F. Report problems to Aspect by telephone or via website access to Aspect’s issue tracking system

located on the Aspect Customer Care Center at support.aspect.com.

8. Items Not Included in Maintenance Support Services

The following items are not included in Maintenance Support Service. If Customer with an active Support plan requests assistance for, or as a result of, any of these items, Aspect may offer to provide assistance at the then current Aspect time and materials rates by issuing a quotation or statement of work. If the occurrence of an excluded item results in Aspect’s inability to fulfill its Maintenance Support Service obligations to Customer, Aspect will not be responsible for meeting those obligations.

A. Defect support for non-current Maintenance Release versions.

B. Problems arising from Customer’s failure to properly use Covered Service in accordance with applicable

Documentation.

C. Support for Customer’ network.

D. Product changes or other applications or services requiring development assistance (for example, IP

address changes, IVR scripting, specialized reports or databases).

E. Changes to, resolution of, or support for resolution of problems or errors caused by telephony, network,

desktop, or host configurations, hardware or software other than the Covered Service.

F. Modifications to initial or subsequent configurations covered under an Aspect Professional Services

Statement of Work.

G. Project management.

9. Aspect Customer Care Definitions

Ancillary Product Third party product provided by Aspect with the Software or Equipment.

Asset Deployment of Software or Hardware with a defined set of licenses at an Aspect data center or to which

distinct Aspect Customer Care support plans or Managed Service offerings can be assigned.

Business Day Monday through Friday

Business Hours 8 am to 6 pm Business Days Local Time




Code Modification

(or Code Mod)

A collection of Software defect fixes that may encompass several components of a Product.

Continuous Effort

Severity 1 cases are worked on continuously during Plan Hours until a final root cause and

resolution/workaround plan is established.

Covered Service Subscription Services covered under an active contract provided by Aspect or its contracted representatives.

Customer The entity signing an Order Document or Order for the purchase of Subscription Service.

Day Calendar day.

Dispatch Entry of a request for on-site Support using the Aspect case management system.

Equipment Aspect proprietary hardware and third-party hardware provided by Aspect.

Holidays Official holidays observed in the customer’s “installed at” location

HotFix A code fix for a Severity 1 issue required to restore production before the next tested Update Package release

Local Time Time of day at the Customer’s business location as specified in the “installed at” information in an Order

Document.

Maintenance Release Service Pack, Code Modification (Code Mod), Update Package or Hot Fix developed by Aspect Engineering to

resolve issues with Supported Releases.

Maintenance Support

Service or Support

Technical support provided by Aspect or its contracted representatives or vendors for Products as described in

these Policies.

Major Release Highest tier of numbering used to designate feature releases for Software Products (X.). Major Releases often

include significant new feature sets or technology upgrades.

Minor Release Second tier of numbering used to designate feature releases for Software Products (X.Y). Minor Releases

may include new features, third party embedded software updates or adjustments.

Named Customer Contacts Customer employees who have completed training and/or who are authorized to contact Aspect Customer

Service to open cases.

Order Document A quotation or statement of work provided by Aspect to Customer that describes the Subscription Service,

applicable fees, an Aspect reference number and other information specified in Customer’s agreement for

Subscription Service.

Plan Hours The coverage hours, Local Time, included in a Support plan.

Product Software Products and Equipment.

Professional Services

Applications

Software Product customizations or other deliverables such as interactive voice response (“IVR”), voice portal,

agent screen pops, and connectors or integrations to 3rd party products developed by Aspect for a Customer.

Professional Services

Application Support

Support for eligible Professional Services Applications.

Resolution/Workaround Time to provide a fix or acceptable workaround to customer.




Response Time to respond to initial Customer contact.

Restore Time to return a Subscription Service to a customer acceptable of functionality.

Service Pack Collection of Software Product defect fixes and possibly minor feature enhancements, delivered as an overlay

to the Software Product, and which must be installed in conjunction with the Software Product to be

operational.

Software Product Aspect with Aspect proprietary software and Ancillary Product.

Software Update Implementation of a Maintenance Release on a Software Product.

Software Upgrade Implementation of a Major Release, Minor Release or Service Pack on a Software Product.




10. Appendix A – Changes to these Policies from the Previous Version

Date Version Changes Author

January 4,

2013

1.0 Updated format, addition of screenshots and links to Support partal and resources,

Consolidation of inclusions and exclusion sections, rebranded

P. Boucher

January 1,

2014

14.0

Rebranded document.

Added Escalation Process and retired “Aspect Global Customer Support Management

Escalation Policy” (Sept 2009)

Added Definitions Section

Updated Screenshots and links - New Aspect.com Links and screenshots of new

Aspect.com web site and Customer Area - Community.aspect.com / ASUGA links

Updated Response Times chart to include distinction of plan vs business hours,

Restoration time target for Sev 1 issues, Root cause analysis for Sev 1 issues, Change Bi

weekly to every 2 weeks.

P. Boucher

July 2014 14.07 Updated Aspect Technical Services to Aspect Customer Care

Updated screen shots and references to Aspect Customer Care Center

Changed System ID references to Asset Number and added Asset Definition

Added references to Moxie Hosting Service and Aspect Social Severity 2-4 Restoration

targets

Addition of Aspect Social and Moxie Hosting Service Scheduled Maintenance Windows

Updated Escalation process

P. Boucher

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