Blog |

Have You Taken These 3 Actions to Prepare For the New Commerce Experience?

Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Reading time: 5 minutes

Since March 10, 2022, the New Commerce Experience Cloud Solution Provider program (NCE-CSP) is the program to add new Microsoft Cloud customers (see related Microsoft information here).

However, not everyone is comfortable with these changes and the differences between the NCE-CSP and the legacy-CSP we are used to.

When we are thinking about the NCE within the Microsoft CSP, let us first remember that NCE brings no change in Microsoft products or in Microsoft product licensing principles. The change NCE brings is related to the Terms. In this blog, we’ll share the key three recommended actions to safely adapt to the change within your organization.

Action 1

Secure your Microsoft Commerce Incentives, Join the Program

Microsoft’s Partner incentives programs are designed to reward Partners for participating in the Microsoft ecosystem and meeting their customers’ needs through value-added services. Recently, to complement NCE program developments, Microsoft released new incentive and investment offers within the Microsoft Commerce Incentives program, supported with an enhanced Partner Center experience, providing Partners with a single destination to manage their engagement opportunities and incentives.

Join the Microsoft Commerce Incentive program and check out Microsoft Commerce Incentive Resources for details here

Having difficulty navigating Microsoft’s programs? Companials are here to help – give us a call.

Action 2

Get Set Up to Collect Customers’ Subscription Term Preferences

NCE offers different subscription periods with no ability to decrease seat number before the subscription term ends:

  • 30-day trial (free)
  • 1-month (at 20% price premium) 
  • 12-month
  • 36-month

Throughout the subscription term there is the ability to increase the number of seats (without the ability to decrease that new number of seats before the subscription period end date), as well as the ability to mix seats with different subscription terms (and therefore serve peak periods).

30-day trials with no action automatically convert in to an annual subscription.

Therefore, consider:

  • Verifying trial, ordering, and subscription term description in the sales documents.
  • Ensuring sales materials include collecting customer’s preferences for the post-trial action and subscription term.
  • Getting your team ready to have discussions with your customers about what mix of monthly plus 12 or 36-month subscriptions would be best for them.
  • Putting trial management and cancellation processes in place.
  • When the customer places the order, you need a control process in place to document the customer‘s consent of the applicable subscription period.
  • Designing your customer experience to include controls for the discussion of the renewal.
  • Having discussions with your legacy-CSP customers and optimizing for customer experience (well-informed customer, decision on the subscription terms, and a number of users). Migration to NCE can happen at any time (preferably all on the same date), but make sure you collect customer’s preference before June 2022.

Looking for a platform to ease administrative headaches? Join Companial, a 24/7 self-service CSP ordering and management platform that enables you to manage NCE migrations and schedule trial cancellations or seat decrease/increase actions to proactively serve your customers’ needs.

Action 3

Assess Your Credit Collection Practice

NCE has a firm cancellation policy: cancellations after the 7-day cancellation window will not receive a pro-rated refund for the rest of the subscription period. Instead, the subscription will run to its end-date and then be canceled, and the Partner will receive an invoice for the cancellation fee equal to the remainder of the entire subscription period.

Moreover, the Partner cannot transfer subscriptions between customers. Licenses need to be assigned to a customer at the moment of transaction and cannot be transferred mid-term to another customer – the original purchasing Partner and customer owe that obligation until it expires. 

The obligation to collect payment from the customer and pay Microsoft for the entire subscription term lands on the Partner‘s shoulders.

To mitigate the accounts receivables risk, please consider the following strategies:

  • Verify trial, ordering, and subscription term descriptions.
  • Check out the ‘Pricing and payment’ terms in the Microsoft Customer Agreement for insight into on what to expect in your pricing and payment terms with your customer.
  • Add subscription term descriptions to the sales documents.
  • Consider an up-front payment option.
  • Consider reviewing your credit management policy, including but not limited to:
    • Customer credit check (e.g. https://www.dnb.com/).
    • Your actions in case of non-collection, like notification rhythm and subscription states (e.g. pausing subscription as part of the collection process to block customer’s access to the environment).
  • Consider built-in operational charges.
  • Consider business insurance, non-payment insurance, or trade credit insurance.

Looking for guidance to get to the smoothest, shortest path and save time, hassle, and worry? Learn how to join Companial.

Agnė Balkevičiūtė-Lajienė