Microsoft Customer Agreement: The Journey Toward Excellence

According to research 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience, which tells you everything you need to know about how to drive your business forward.

Businesses need something that will “WOW” the consumer base quickly and provide exceptional experiences that keep bringing them back to your doorstep – it's quite literally a game of seconds.

Microsoft understands this concept well and looks to provide its customers with a better and more friendly consumer experience. How does it plan to do that? You might ask. The answer is the Microsoft Customer Agreement (MCA).

Launched in 2019, the Microsoft Customer Agreement has slowly advanced, offering a streamlined approach to managing and purchasing license-based services.

Come 2024, an updated version of MCA is set to take complete charge of these services. All renewing customers will be auto migrated to MCA set to an annual term with the same billing plan and seat counts.

So, what is MCA? Is it for you? Why should you make the leap to it early? We’ll cover all these questions in our blog and gain a better understanding of MCA – so you can make an informed decision about your business with Zones supporting you all the way through.

Explore the sensation: New and Improved MCA

For years, consumers of Microsoft’s cloud services were utilizing the Microsoft Customer Agreement to manage their licenses, billing, and subscription plans. However, the older MCA has some operational limitations, like complex billing structures and subscription models that customers must work around or go with it.

Managing and purchasing licenses according to your business needs is already a tedious yet necessary task, but the lack of flexibility can damper customer experience.

To eliminate these issues and provide a refreshing experience for their valued customers, Microsoft developed the updated Microsoft Customer Agreement. This improved version aims to transform how services like Microsoft 365, Dynamic 365, Microsoft Intune, etc., are purchased and managed.

So, let’s look at what the updated MCA truly offers and what it means for partners and customers.

Subscription models

MCA brings with it three subscription models – monthly, 12-month subscription, and 36-month subscription. Each subscription caters to a different partner and customer base, but this change ensures no one gets left behind.

Monthly

It provides the flexibility to make changes on a month-to-month basis according to your seats and plans without any annual commitments. However, this subscription model of MCA does incur an uplift of 20% across all online service plans.

12-month subscription

CSP also had an annual subscription model, so what is the difference? The difference is that payments can now be made monthly or annually.

36-month subscription

The latest addition to MCA is the multi-year pricing model. It offers the option to make monthly, annual, or upfront one-time payments, which will save costs, and that price will be locked for three years regardless of price fluctuations. It also has the option to increase seats as needed but not decrease them.

Benefits to mention

• Flexible options and add-ons: 

  CSPs now have more options, such as the new M365 with multiple add-ons – giving them precisely what they need for their business model.

• Optimized billing:

  Annual and long-term options enable customers to acquire the required services and save on costs, as the original prices will be maintained for the entire subscription period regardless of price fluctuation.

The Next Step? Migrate with Zones and Microsoft

Here we are, at the last stop of our destination. Bringing game-changing innovation is precisely what is expected of Microsoft, and it didn’t disappoint. Hopefully, you have a better understanding of what the updated MCA is, what it has to offer, and how it can change your business’s operations.

With many new features and benefits, there is no reason not to migrate to the new and improved MCA and begin a new era of operational efficiency for your business. However, shifting from something familiar to foreign can be unnerving as many business elements must be considered and catered to.

This is where Zones, a direct CSP partner of Microsoft, jumps onto the scene to ease you of your worries. Having years of experience in providing end-to-end IT solutions to organizations, you can leave the heavy lifting and tedious tasks for Zones – so you can experience a seamless transition to the updated Microsoft Customer Agreement – and towards greater heights.