Microsoft Unified Support Agreement Traps to Avoid.

Every Microsoft Unified Support agreement trap is laid with intention. They know that you need their services, so they have a bit of leeway to sneak in a pitfall here or there to leave you more vulnerable by the end of the contract. Whether you’re renewing or signing a fresh agreement, there are always traps to avoid.

They may not mention this in your agreement, but your data may not always be housed in the United States. A few years ago, Microsoft realized three things:

1. Microsoft makes more money selling their products than they do selling support services.
   Software sale margins are around 70-85%, while support service margins are around 35-50%. They aren’t financially incentivized to heavily invest in a service that doesn’t turn a similar or greater profit.
2. Microsoft Support tickets were increasing in volume.
   More products on the market meant more tickets were coming in from businesses of all sizes. In an effort to keep the biggest spenders happy, Microsoft opted to give large enterprises the lion’s share of support services.If you were willing to pay, your company would get more experienced engineers and faster response times. Everyone else was moved down the ladder and given access to Customer Success Account Managers (CSAMs), who were less experienced and more of a stopgap solution.
3. Microsoft couldn’t make support sustainable or even profitable without a reliance on external services.
   Combining both options resulted in a realization. This is when they started relying on overseas technicians from companies like Wipro and Mindtree to help offset the influx of tickets.They could maintain the price point of Unified and show off favorable numbers, but with a catch. Your data is no longer housed in the US when you are working with one of these “v-dash” vendors.This means you are no longer technically compliant with government regulations. If your data is breached or lost when being handled by an overseas entity, you aren’t protected by compliance laws.

Microsoft may not mention this in your agreement, but your data may not always be housed in the United States.

Make sure you bring up which support specialists you’re getting with your Unified package. If you see a v-dash in their name, you know that Microsoft is holding out on you.

To guarantee that you are working with an in-country engineering expert, you would have to go third-party with US Cloud. All of our engineers are US citizens, based out of the US, and have an average of 14 years of Microsoft product related experience.

We contractually guarantee that your support logs and tickets are encrypted and stay within the US. All support personnel working help desk tickets are rigorously screened US citizens. No matter where you are, you can rest assured that your tickets are in safe, reliable hands at US Cloud.

While this overlaps a bit with the previous point, Unified support quality across the board has slowly gone down over the years. Premier Support was recently retired completely, leaving many companies with only one option: Unified. However, while the quality of Premier was universally considered to be pretty good, Unified is not so lucky.

For starters, service delivery is lacking. The constant rollout of new products is great for business but bad for support times. As more Unified clients open tickets, Microsoft can’t keep up with the influx. Even with overseas support and requiring Cloud Solution Providers (CSPs) to handle low severity tickets for their customers, many companies are realizing that the quality of service doesn’t match what they’re paying.

Changes in Support Roles:

• Technical Account Managers (TAMs): Previously a baseline support role, now considered specialists like Designated Support Engineers (DSEs).
• Customer Success Account Managers (CSAMs): Replaced TAMs almost entirely, have less experience and qualifications, but now act as the main customer-facing role focusing on customer adoption and facilitating ticket movement.

TAMs used to be your main customer-facing relationship, offering support for low to medium severity tickets and keeping up with the needs of your company. They’ve been moved higher up the ladder to handle higher priority tickets, so now it’s just you and your CSAM.

CSPs and their customers are getting the short end of the support stick. CSPs are required by Microsoft to offer support for their customers, but many don’t have the means or experience to handle higher tier support for Microsoft products. Many are forced to escalate to Microsoft, which then puts them in a waiting list that can last weeks before hearing a response.

Key Considerations:

• Main Point of Contact: Know who will be your primary contact.
• Ticket Handling: Understand who will manage your tickets.
• Ticket Routing: Determine where your tickets are going.
• Resolution Timeframe: Establish expected times for ticket resolution.

These points should guide your discussions to ensure you fully understand what you’re receiving from your support agreement.

An even faster way of improving your support would be working with US Cloud to get your Microsoft Unified Support needs sorted.

Benefits of Working with US Cloud:

• Rapid Response: Financially backed SLAs guarantee a 15-minute response time for tickets of all severities.
• Fast Resolution: On average, our resolution times are twice as fast as Microsoft’s.
• Access to Expert Teams
  • Dedicated Support: Gain direct access to dedicated teams of Technical Account Managers (TAMs) and Designated Support Engineers (DSEs).
  • Proactive Service: These experts get to know your networks and proactively work to keep your services running smoothly.
  • Direct Escalations: If necessary, we can escalate directly to Microsoft for prompt ticket resolution, avoiding weeks of delay.

When you need faster Microsoft support for less, come to US Cloud.

As you may have noticed, the biggest traps to avoid are around the quality of your Unified support. Each year Microsoft finds new ways to reduce costs on their end while finding ways to charge you more. The cycle is endless and unless you come to your meeting with ammunition, they will find some way to make you pay more.

If you want to avoid these traps all together, US Cloud is the ideal solution. We save you 30-50% on your annual support costs through faster, more proactive Microsoft support. Instead of paying more for less, you pay less for better support.

15-minute guaranteed ticket response times, rapid resolution times, and an expert engineering team that are all US-based. When you need faster Microsoft support for less, come to US Cloud.