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Appropriate roles: User management admin | Helpdesk agent | Billing admin | Sales agent
You own the billing relationship with your customers. You're responsible for answering their billing-related questions. To help ensure timely payments to Microsoft, it's important to consistently follow good billing support practices:
Establish a clear collections policy: Outline your process, specify when nonpayment might impact access to subscriptions, services, or software.
Communicate proactively: Regularly remind customers of upcoming payments and their billing periods to avoid misunderstandings and help ensure that customers are aware of their obligations.
Take action if necessary: In cases of nonpayment, consider disabling access to products or services until the matter is resolved.
When you take these steps, you help maintain a smooth billing process, support timely payments, and foster a positive relationship with your customers.
Microsoft partner support guidance
Partners transacting in the Cloud Solution Provider program (CSP) model are the trusted advisor to their customers and own the entire relationship, including support when their customer has a question or issue. Through support touch points, partners can learn more about the customer and their business to identify new services and solutions that drive value.
To fulfill the support requirement, a partner might:
- Resell support from another entity.
- Outsource all or part of their support structure.
- Set up a structure to provide support directly.
- Charge for all or part of the support provided to customers.
The partner should articulate to their customers the support that the partner provides, the service hours and contact method, and the pricing (if charging for support).
Note
If you aren't a CSP and have questions about customer billing, see the specific portal for the appropriate products or services.
Partners must receive incoming support requests from customers, diagnose issues to the best of the partner's ability, and resolve issues that are within scope of the baseline support boundaries. If a partner is unable to resolve an issue, they can escalate issues to Microsoft using the following support vehicles:
Commercial issue support is available to all partners in the CSP program.
Technical issue support is available through:
- Premier Support for Partners (PSfP) (fee-based)
- Advanced Support for Partners (ASfP) (fee-based)
- Partner cloud support (included with Gold/Silver competency)
Billing, subscription management, and technical support
Each online service has specific and detailed requirements for how to provide billing, subscription management, and technical support to customers. For more information, see Types of billing and Common billing scenarios.