Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using the website at accessnarrative.com (the "Site") or engaging any services provided by Narrative Consulting ("we," "us," or "our"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you are entering into these Terms on behalf of a company or other legal entity, you represent that you have the authority to bind that entity to these Terms.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you must not access or use our Site or services. We recommend that you print or save a copy of these Terms for your records.

2. Description of Services

Narrative Consulting provides identity governance consulting services to businesses. Our service offerings include:

• Identity Infrastructure Assessment: a comprehensive review of your organization's identity and access management posture, delivered as a fixed-scope engagement.
• Governance Buildout: design and implementation of identity governance policies, workflows, and technical controls tailored to your environment.
• Hardening Sprint: a focused engagement to remediate specific identity security gaps, tighten configurations, and prepare for compliance audits.
• Advisory Retainer: ongoing identity governance advisory services on a monthly retainer basis.

We also operate a marketing platform, content management system, and customer relationship management (CRM) tools on our Site to facilitate service delivery, client communications, and event management.

3. User Accounts and Responsibilities

Certain features of our Site and services may require you to create an account or provide personal information. When you do so, you agree to:

• Provide accurate, current, and complete information during registration and keep your account information up to date.
• Maintain the confidentiality of any account credentials and accept responsibility for all activity under your account.
• Notify us immediately at hello@accessnarrative.com if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.
• Not share your account credentials with third parties or allow others to access our services through your account without our prior written consent.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or that we reasonably believe have been compromised.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree to use our Site and services only for lawful purposes. You must not:

• Use the Site or services to send unsolicited bulk communications (spam), including through any event registration, newsletter, or contact features.
• Use the Site or services for any illegal purpose or in violation of any applicable local, state, national, or international law or regulation.
• Attempt to gain unauthorized access to our systems, networks, or data, or probe, scan, or test vulnerabilities without written authorization.
• Abuse, exploit, or misuse any assessment intake forms, event registration tools, CRM features, or marketing platform capabilities for purposes other than their intended use.
• Submit false, misleading, or fraudulent information through any forms, registrations, or service requests.
• Interfere with or disrupt the integrity or performance of the Site or services, including by introducing malicious code, overwhelming our infrastructure, or engaging in denial-of-service activities.
• Scrape, harvest, or collect data from the Site through automated means without our prior written consent.
• Impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with any person or entity.

We reserve the right to investigate and take appropriate legal action against anyone who violates this section, including removing content, suspending access, and reporting violations to law enforcement.

5. Intellectual Property

Our Property

The Site, including its design, text, graphics, logos, branding, software, marketing platform, CRM tools, assessment frameworks, and all associated intellectual property, is owned by Narrative Consulting or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. You may not reproduce, distribute, modify, create derivative works of, publicly display, or otherwise exploit any of our intellectual property without our prior written consent.

Your Data

You retain all ownership rights to the data, documents, system configurations, and other materials you provide to us during consulting engagements ("Client Data"). We claim no ownership interest in Client Data. We use Client Data solely to deliver the services you have engaged us for and as described in our Privacy Policy.

Deliverables

Unless otherwise specified in a separate written agreement, deliverables produced during an engagement (assessment reports, policy documents, configuration guides) are licensed to you for your internal business use. Narrative Consulting retains ownership of underlying methodologies, frameworks, templates, and tools used to produce those deliverables.

6. Payment Terms

Pricing and Invoicing

Service pricing is as published on our Site or as agreed upon in a signed statement of work (SOW). Fixed-scope engagements are invoiced in advance of work commencing. Advisory retainer fees are invoiced monthly at the beginning of each service period.

Payment Processing

Payments are processed through Stripe. By submitting payment, you agree to Stripe's Terms of Service. We do not store credit card numbers on our systems. All invoices are due within 15 days of issuance unless otherwise specified in a SOW.

Refund Policy

For fixed-scope engagements, if we have not commenced work, you may request a full refund within 7 days of payment. Once work has commenced, refunds are prorated based on the portion of work completed. Advisory retainer fees are non-refundable for the current service period but may be cancelled for future periods with 30 days' written notice. Refund requests should be directed to hello@accessnarrative.com.

Late Payments

Invoices not paid within 15 days of the due date may be subject to a late fee of 1.5% per month on the outstanding balance. We reserve the right to suspend services for accounts with overdue payments until the balance is resolved.

7. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Narrative Consulting, its owners, employees, and contractors shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, including but not limited to loss of profits, data, business opportunities, or goodwill, arising out of or in connection with your use of the Site or services, regardless of the theory of liability (contract, tort, strict liability, or otherwise).

Our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or related to these Terms or our services shall not exceed the total fees paid by you to Narrative Consulting during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

Our services involve advisory recommendations based on industry best practices. We do not guarantee specific security outcomes, audit results, or regulatory compliance. The implementation of our recommendations remains the responsibility of the client.

8. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Narrative Consulting, its owners, employees, and contractors from and against any and all claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or related to:

• Your use of the Site or services.
• Your violation of these Terms.
• Your violation of any applicable law or regulation.
• Any data, content, or materials you provide to us during an engagement.
• Any claim by a third party arising from your use of deliverables produced by Narrative Consulting.

9. Termination

Termination by Either Party

Either party may terminate a consulting engagement or these Terms at any time by providing written notice to the other party. For advisory retainer agreements, either party must provide at least 30 days' written notice prior to the end of the current service period.

Termination for Cause

We may terminate your access to the Site or services immediately and without prior notice if you breach any provision of these Terms, including the Acceptable Use provisions, or if we reasonably believe your continued access poses a risk to our systems, other users, or our business.

Effect of Termination

Upon termination, your right to access the Site and services ceases immediately. Any fees owed for services already rendered remain due and payable. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (including Intellectual Property, Limitation of Liability, Indemnification, and Governing Law) shall survive.

Client Data will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy, including our 14-day engagement data purge commitment.

10. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, without regard to its conflict of law principles.

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or our services shall first be resolved through good-faith negotiation between the parties. If a dispute cannot be resolved through negotiation within 30 days, it shall be submitted to binding arbitration in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania under the rules of the American Arbitration Association. Each party shall bear its own costs of arbitration.

Nothing in this section shall prevent either party from seeking injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual property rights or confidential information.

11. Changes to These Terms

We reserve the right to modify these Terms at any time. When we make material changes, we will update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page and, where practicable, notify affected users by email. Your continued use of the Site or services after the effective date of any changes constitutes your acceptance of the revised Terms.

For active consulting engagements, material changes to these Terms will not apply retroactively to the scope, pricing, or deliverables of an engagement already governed by a signed statement of work.

12. Miscellaneous

• Entire Agreement: These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and any signed statement of work, constitute the entire agreement between you and Narrative Consulting regarding the subject matter herein.
• Severability: If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.
• Waiver: Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.
• Assignment: You may not assign your rights or obligations under these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign our rights and obligations without restriction.
• Force Majeure: Neither party shall be liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, acts of government, pandemic, internet outages, or other force majeure events.

13. Contact Information

If you have questions about these Terms of Service, contact us: