Microsoft Unified Advanced Support in the Form of Third-Party Options.

The term “Microsoft Unified Advanced Support” is just a fancy way of saying Microsoft Unified Advanced Support. There is no higher tier of support directly from Microsoft. Instead, those looking for advanced assistance with their Microsoft products and services should be looking for third-party options like US Cloud.

Third-party support is not only advanced in that it’s the core focus of what they do, but the support variety and financial constraints are less limited than with Microsoft.

To reiterate, there is no such service as Microsoft Unified Advanced Support. Any mention of it is just a different way to say Microsoft Unified Support. There is no secret or public higher tier of support from Microsoft. To find that, you would have to look outside of the company.

Microsoft Unified “Advanced” Support isn’t real.

While Microsoft offers support for their products and services, they aren’t as financially motivated to provide the best support possible. While their product line accounts for roughly 60-70% of revenue, support only brings in between 15-30%.

They are far more incentivized to sell you a product than to maintain it. While their support services have undergone multiple changes over the past few years, such as retiring Premier in favor of universally using Unified, they still feel lacking.

With Premier out of the way, the only option left is Unified Support. While Microsoft is adamant that Unified is the ideal support option for businesses across the world, it doesn’t always feel that way.

Unified offers support services for every Microsoft product under the sun, but without a guarantee on when your ticket will get an initial response. Their website and sales team will say that it’s around 1 hour for critical and 4 for low severity, but that’s a rough estimate.

You could sit for hours and not hear back until the end of the day, and this wouldn’t go against your contract.

Microsoft Unified “Advanced” support sets a low standard,

You aren’t always supported by local teams either. Depending on the severity of your ticket, you could be part of the large volume of low severity tickets that Microsoft sees every day. There are so many of these tickets that Microsoft outsources some of them to overseas technicians at companies like Mindtree and Wipro.

Not only are you not dealing directly with Microsoft Support anymore, but these v-dash vendors are also outside of US compliance regulations. Since they are overseas entities, they aren’t beholden to the same requirements that stateside support is, meaning your data isn’t as secure or under the same protections that would normally be afforded to you.

Finally, the price has steadily increased over the past few years, resulting in a service that suffers from bloat and forcing you to pay for it. Under Premier, you could pick and choose which services you needed support for and add any that were added to your workflow.

Unified Support provides support for all its products, which means you are paying for support for services you will hypothetically never use.

This cost goes up when you factor in Azure, server, and user spend from the last 12 months, then goes up again if you are a company outside of the US, as Microsoft has a habit of increasing their prices based on economic shifts.

This table highlights the differences in service selection, cost, price trends, global pricing, and response times among Premier Support, Unified Support, and third-party support through US Cloud.

After reading into what Unified Support does (and doesn’t) offer, you may wonder if there really is anything that could be considered as Unified Advanced Support out there. While it may not be called that by name, third-party support through US Cloud is as advanced as it gets.

A truly advanced Unified support option would put their money where their mouth is, so to speak. Giving vague promises of eventually getting to a ticket gives Microsoft wiggle room to work through their backlog, but also leaves clients in a perpetual waiting game. Will they respond quickly, or will this ticket sit for a while?

US Cloud provides financially-backed Service Level Agreements (SLAs), Microsoft doesn’t.

With US Cloud, we cut out the waiting game and get straight to the point. Our financially backed SLAs guarantee that your ticket will get a response within 15 minutes of submission, regardless of the severity. A prompt response is something that every client deserves but rarely gets. We flip that on its head at US Cloud.

Worrying about where your ticket and the data along with it is going isn’t part of your contract. You came for support, not to play a guessing game on who is going to handle your ticket this time around.

Why Choose US Cloud?

• US-Based Team: An advanced support service would use a fully US-based team, like US Cloud.
• Expertise: Our team of professionals has an average of 14 years of Microsoft product and service experience, ensuring you get the best assistance possible.
• Data Protection: All your data is handled by US-based engineers, meaning your data is always protected by compliance regulations.

Proactive and Reactive Services

• We get ahead of potential issues to keep them from spiraling in the future.

We provide support 24/7, so no matter what time zone or country you operate from, we have engineers ready to assist.

Microsoft Unified Support may provide support for every Microsoft product and service out there, but that isn’t what you need. You’re paying for services you don’t use, on top of additional costs for services you do use. As the price of Unified continues to climb and the number of products it supports continues to grow, you’ll soon find that you have to start making cuts to keep certain projects moving forward. An advanced Unified support service would save you money, not cost more.

US Cloud saves you 30-50% on your annual support costs. This isn’t a boast or a brag; it’s a fact. You buy a bucket of hours from us and then use that bucket in any way you want. Those hours can be used for reactive support for an Azure cloud issue or consulting on the best way to implement Copilot. How you use the time is up to you.

On top of this, our proactive services keep issues from cropping up so you have more time and money to focus on projects that matter.

When you need advanced Microsoft Unified support, US Cloud has you covered.