SLO & Reliability Practical By Samson Tanimawo, PhD Published Nov 15, 2025 4 min read

SLOs as Customer Trust

Public SLOs build trust.

Public commitment

Status page reports SLO achievement publicly. Customers verify reliability over time.

Achievement reported quarterly. Honest numbers; no spin.

Builds trust through transparency. Customers respect honest reporting more than polished claims.

Engineering investment matches the public commitment. Otherwise commitment is theatre.

Per-tier delivery tracked. Premium customers get the premium SLO; verified.

Annual review: are we delivering what we promised? Adjust pricing or capacity if not.

Year-over-year track record. Customers see consistent delivery.

Reduces churn. Reliable customers stay; reliability is sticky.

Premium pricing justified. Customers pay for proven reliability.

Honest postmortem when SLO missed. Don't hide.

Concrete remediation. What we're doing differently to prevent recurrence.

Customers respect honest recovery more than perfection. Acknowledged misses build more trust than hidden ones.