Three FastTrack updates to make customer adoption easier than ever
By Gavriella Schuster, General Manager, Worldwide Partner Group Microsoft on February 1, 2016
We all know intuitively that a customer’s satisfaction and usage can be significantly impacted by their onboarding experience.
According to our Microsoft-led research, a user’s attitude towards new technology is set in the first 90 days. If, in those critical 90 days, users see a clear value proposition, trouble-free integration, and minimal disruption to workflow, they’re more likely to fully leverage the solution. Their satisfaction also grows.
Just having lots of seats or lots of customers isn’t enough—adoption and usage are what really drive growth of Office 365. A successful onboarding experience can encourage increased usage and opportunities to add on additional high-value products and services.
You want to get new Office 365 customers started. And you want to show your customers how to quickly and fully realize the value of the technology they've purchased. To help you do that, we're expanding the FastTrack service center offerings in three key areas, effective February 1, 2016.
Here’s how we’re doing it:
1. We’ve extended the FastTrack customer success service to support SMB customers starting at 50 seats.
For more than two years, Microsoft Office 365 has experienced triple-digit growth, making it our fastest-growing cloud service yet. But, as I said, sales of seats is not enough—usage drives growth, and a successful onboarding experience is key to driving usage.
Collectively we need to support our customers to make the most of their technology purchases. To continue to drive active usage, we will now ensure that SMB customers will receive the support they need to get up and running—whether through you directly or by going through Microsoft.
The details:
Small and medium business customers (SMBs) that purchase between 50 and 149 seats of qualifying plans and those that do not have a Digital Partner of Record* can now get onboarding and data migration guidance from a FastTrack manager from within the product. These customers will be contacted by the FastTrack Center once they provide a contact phone number in their admin portal.
Based on the customer’s needs, that FastTrack manager can then connect the customer to a qualified partner through the FastTrack QuickLeads lead generation service.
Customers working with a partner can also utilize the FastTrack benefit by working through their partner via the FastTrack web experience.
What’s more, these customers and their partners will now be eligible to receive FastTrack benefits as they relate to Office 365 Business, Business Essentials, and Business Premium—meaning a bigger potential customer base for all Microsoft Partners.
*Subscriptions sold through the CSP licensing program automatically qualify as Partner of Record and will not see the option to provide a phone number in their admin portal.
2. The FY16 Adoption Offer has been extended and expanded.
We know that driving active usage of non-Exchange workloads can be a challenge as well, so now we’re putting money back into your pocket to help make that process as easy as possible.
The details:
We’ve expanded our current Adoption Offer to include payouts for customer purchases starting at 50 seats (across all licensing vehicles), and including Office 365 Business, Business Essentials, and Business Premium SKUs. We’re also extending the offer to June 30, 2016. Now these customers will qualify for $25 per seat for 50-149 seats to be redeemed through partners. For seats above 150, customers will continue to redeem the amount of $15 per seat as shared previously, with a maximum of $60K per customer.
3. We’re making migration easier.
More customers on Office 365 means more opportunities for partners to deliver high-value services such as business process consulting, managed services, Line of Business integration, and app development.
However, migrating from another cloud service can make accomplishing any of these things a daunting task for customers without support.
The details:
To simplify the migration process, now customers with 150+ seats qualify for a preview service to help migrate their files from Google Drive to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint sites.
Plus, new Adoption Guidance, now enabled for each customer you manage, will help you anticipate customers’ future needs to drive ongoing usage.
Be sure to check out the tools and resources there, and walk your customer through the pre-populated trial to demonstrate the planning resources and business user scenarios available to them. Then, access the technical labs to get them started building the skills they’ll need and want to make adoption as easy as possible.
When it comes to maximizing the value your customers derive from their new cloud solutions, delivering a great onboarding experience is critical. With FastTrack resources and your guidance, your customers will get just that.
I often hear from partners that they admire Microsoft’s culture of innovation. And it’s true that we encourage experimentation and innovation at every level.
“You want that customer for life. But it is more than the solutions that you sell. It is the ongoing communications and education that you provide them.
