Client Conversation: Canon Europa

Hi again, and thank you for taking the time to talk about your experience with US Cloud. This conversation helps us go beyond the standard feedback forms and better understand your experience with our support.

Yes, and I’m happy to share feedback I’ve collected internally from everyone who has raised tickets through US Cloud.

Thank you. I’m excited to hear what you learned. To start, would you share a bit about your role at Canon and how you typically interact with service providers like US Cloud?

My name is Yuri Ishchenko, and I’m the End User Computing Tower Manager at Canon Europa. Our functional head office is based in the Netherlands, and our main sales and marketing office is in London.

My team supports services for most—or sometimes all—end users in Canon, including Microsoft services such as Office 365. I also manage the Unified Support contract for Microsoft services, which includes SQL, Windows Server, Active Directory, and others.

Thank you. So you would know our service quality very well. Before we dig into the survey results you mentioned before, one more question: Canon became a US Cloud client in December 2024. Can you recall what led your team to explore alternative support options and ultimately choose US Cloud?

We started looking for alternatives due to Microsoft’s aggressive Unified Support pricing. We reviewed Gartner research and saw that only a few options existed. US Cloud was one of them.

We connected with your team, completed a Proof of Concept using a small block of hours—maybe 30 or 40—and raised some tickets. That ran until around the end of last year or early Q1 this year.

Starting April 1st, we signed a 12-month contract. Our goal was to receive support equal or close to what we previously received from Microsoft, but with more predictable and manageable pricing.

Great. You’re definitely not the first team with that support wish list. Let’s talk about whether or not you found what you were looking for. For this next portion, since you have already gathered feedback, would you prefer to walk me through your findings?

I can share. After four months—one-third of the contract—we asked everyone who raised tickets how satisfied they were with US Cloud support. We wanted to compare it with our previous Microsoft experience.

During the Proof of Concept, we had a limited number of tickets, so we needed more data to understand whether the service would fully meet our needs.

The team that is mostly utilizing US Cloud’s service is our third-tier support team which handles the most technical issues in the company.

For these people, I sent a survey that got about a 55% response rate. Of those responses, three were positive (very or somewhat satisfied), three were neutral, and five were more negative.

For positive responses, someone noted immediate support as a standout point.

For negative or neutral responses, we asked what specifically didn’t meet expectations.

Some concerns are understandable—such as specialized knowledge belonging only to Microsoft.

We then asked whether they had raised tickets directly with Microsoft in the past. Most had. Their satisfaction with Microsoft wasn’t ideal either, but responses leaned slightly more positive toward Microsoft compared to US Cloud—though not by a wide margin. I think that’s probably because people are just paying attention to the name “Microsoft” in Microsoft Unified Support and leaning towards it without fully testing the alternative yet.

Lastly, we collected general comments and suggestions, which I can share if helpful.

My biggest priority is balancing cost savings—which senior management expects—with support quality. I want to find the right balance, so I’m still monitoring our support situation in this instance.

Thank you. Not everyone comes prepared with this level of data, and it’s extremely helpful. Your team is not alone—many organizations experience growing pains during the transition from Microsoft to US Cloud.

Often, decision-makers prioritize cost savings, while those actually submitting tickets need time to build trust in the new support model.

The best advice we tend to hear from clients is to continue submitting tickets and maintaining communication with your assigned engineers. As they learn more about your environment, things typically become smoother.

Yes, and I agree that not all dissatisfaction is avoidable. Some tickets were opened by our team without sufficient detail. Sometimes people expect an issue to be fixed the next day without offering the necessary information.

I plan to use this survey as a temperature check, repeating it every four months to measure progress rather than to judge performance absolutely.

Users also need to understand that working with US Cloud is different from Microsoft. Microsoft provides only a single-window support team for every kind of issue, whereas your model includes multi-layer support. That reflects a different way of working.

That’s helpful context. We’ve seen similar patterns across other clients. Feedback after ticket closure is also valuable—encouraging your team to provide that input can help us improve.

Thank you again for your preparation, honesty, and time. I’ll follow up via email. Have a great rest of your day and weekend.

Thank you.