1. Customer Support Services
SecureTrading will provide the following Customer Support Services:
- Customer Service Help Desk – see Section 2.
- A dedicated Account Manager to assist with non-technical and commercial queries.
- Access to the Online Transaction Manager.
- Timely availability of any ad hoc service and/or software upgrades.
SecureTrading will use reasonable endeavours to maintain system availability for the provision Services, with a target availability of 99.75% on our Payment Pages integration method and a guaranteed uptime of 100% on our Xpay and SecureTrading API integration methods.
2. Help Desk
Customer Service Help Desk: 06:30 to 23:30, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays) – any support or integration queries. Outside these hours and bank holidays, emergency system support only.
SecureTrading will provide Help Desk services to respond to customer service and technical questions and enquiries. The staff will be knowledgeable personnel with appropriate technical and communication skills. They will aim to assist in resolving Product or Service issues and to impart necessary relevant technical knowledge or understanding related to any SecureTrading Service.
Such personnel shall be contactable via the appropriate Telephone and fax numbers and via mail and e-mail.
The appropriate contact details for all Help Desk communication are as follows:
| Telephone: | +44 1248 672050 |
| Fax: | +44 1248 672099 |
| E-mail: | [email protected] |
| Customer Support SecureTrading Parc Menai Bangor Gwynedd LL57 4BL United Kingdom |
The following information will be required when reporting an incident to the Help Desk:
- SecureTrading site reference no.
- Authorised person’s contact name.
- Short Description of the nature of the problem.
- Email address (if incident not reported via email) and customer contact telephone number.
SecureTrading will provide the merchant with a unique case reference number and a classification and estimated resolution time based on the Incident Severity Level Table detailed below. This will be communicated via our on-line reporting facility.
The following information will be needed when a status update is required on any previously reported incident: SecureTrading site reference no., and the relevant case reference number.
Upon the successful resolution of the incident, SecureTrading will notify the merchant via e-mail, and the case will be closed.
3. Faults, Priorities and Responses
For the purpose of prioritising and escalating SecureTrading faults, faults will be categorised as either Critical, Serious, Degraded or Minimal.
3.1 Incident Severity Level Table
| Classification | Criteria |
|---|---|
| Level 1 Critical |
The Services are at a standstill. The SecureTrading Payments System or all Payment Gateways utilised for a particular acquirer or Customer are unavailable. |
| Level 2 Serious |
The Services are significantly impaired and key business processes, such as transaction authorisations cannot be conducted without significant delay, but payment systems are available. |
| Level 3 Degraded |
Live Payment services such as settlement processing, cannot be carried out without significant delay, but all systems are operational. |
| Level 4 Minimal |
Integration and test system issues, minor incidents and enquiries. |
The target time for SecureTrading to respond to all faults is outlined below, the target time being from fault notification. SecureTrading will update the Customer at the target interval indicated until a solution is found.
| Classification | Step 1 – Identify Source | Step 2 – Temporary Fix | Step 3 – Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level 1 Critical |
30 minutes | Immediate and continuing best efforts but in no event more than 2 hours (on a 24X7 basis) | Within 1 calendar day |
| Level 2 Serious |
60 minutes | 4 hours (on a 24X7 basis) | Within 2 calendar days |
| Level 3 Degraded |
5 hours | 1 calendar day (on a 24X7 basis | Within 3 calendar days |
| Level 4 Minimal |
1 business day | On a time available basis | As appropriate |
The following shall define the actions to be taken per the problem’s assigned level:
- Step 1 represents the acknowledgment of the problem and the beginning of the information gathering process. SecureTrading will notify the merchant on identification of the problem if a case has not already been reported and classified.
- Step 2 represents the target time frame during which the problem is being actively addressed and a temporary patch, correction, or workaround is provided. The goal will be to provide a fix or a work-around for a problem as soon as possible. Critical problems will be worked on continually until a satisfactory problem resolution can be reached.
- Step 3 represents the target time within which a permanent solution will be available which meets SecureTrading’s quality standards.
In addition it is emphasised that any security related fault that is bought to the attention of SecureTrading will be prioritised as critical.
4. Escalation
4.1 Incident Escalation
Incidents reported to SecureTrading Help Desk will be escalated in line with the details below. SecureTrading management will be made aware of issues according to the below timeframes. Elapsed time represents the number of clock hours that have passed since the issue was first classified by SecureTrading. Resolution is deemed to have been achieved if a temporary fix is created.
SecureTrading Support Manager – if incident is not resolved within target time.
General Manager – if Level 1 or 2 are not resolved within 1hr of target resolution time, Level 3 within 6hrs of target resolution time.
Chief Technical Officer – If Level 1 or 2 and not resolved within 2hrs of target time, Level 3 within 12hrs of transaction time.
5. Service Credits
The SecureTrading target system availability is:
API is our service for merchants who want to use their own secure servers, but wish to use SecureTrading's payment network as part of their own e-commerce application. It has all the capabilities of SecureTrading STPP Payment Pages, but in addition you can use our service in a more sophisticated way.">SecureTrading API and API, Web Services enables merchants to use their own secure servers with SecureTrading's payment network. Unlike the SecureTrading API, Web Services does not require a Java installation.">SecureTrading Web Services – 100%
SecureTrading Payment Pages – 99.75%.
If the SecureTrading network availability is less than that shown above per acquirer for the Customer in any one calendar month a service credit will be given for each full hour of downtime above the SLA target.
This is equivalent to 1.8 hours a month per merchant site reference, based on a calendar month of 30 days.
The Service Credit shall be 1.5% of the total fee for transactions processed during that calendar month. The maximum limit for service credits shall be 15% of the total fee for transactions processed during that calendar month.
Scheduled outage for system maintenance previously communicated to the Customer is not to be included in the above determination of system availability for the calculation of service credits.
6. General Disclaimer
As SecureTrading does not control the availability of Acquirer, Merchant ISPs or your networks, the System will not be deemed unavailable if the source of the problem lies with the networks controlled by these entities.
Once SecureTrading has been made aware of a problem relating to its system, the burden of proof as to where the problem occurs lies with SecureTrading. SecureTrading will take all commercially reasonable efforts to find a speedy resolution of any problems. In the event a Third Party is responsible, SecureTrading will communicate such information as it has available to the merchant.
