Frequently Asked Questions

 

1. How can partners maximise these offers?
Partners can include these offers in their current customer acquisition motions to enable new customers requiring a meeting solution to sign up with a partner. Throughout the offers, partners can showcase the value of Microsoft 365 and Teams as a meeting solution to new customers to drive a purchase decision. The Audio Conferencing promo presents partners with the opportunity grow Microsoft 365 sales by enabling the full Teams meeting capabilities, thereby increasing the value of the Microsoft 365 suites.

The Business Voice Promo provides partners with the opportunity to upsell existing Microsoft 365 Business customers to Business Voice, enabling customers on both callings and meetings scenarios through the addition of Phone System and Audio Conferencing (included in Business Voice).

2. How long will these offers be available?
The Audio Conferencing promo which will run from October 1st, 2020 to March 31st, 2021, and Business Voice without calling plan promo will run from August 1st, 2020 to January 31st, 2021.

3. What does “New Customer Only” mean?
The Business Voice without calling plan and Audio Conferencing offers only be available to the following types of customers:

• A net new customer tenant
• An existing customer tenant which does not have an active or recently cancelled (within the last 30 days) subscription on any of the following products across CSP, Web Direct, or any other Microsoft commercial channels

Product	Product/SKU GUID
Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing	0c266dff-15dd-4b49-8397-2bb16070ed52
Microsoft 365 Business Voice (without Calling Plan)	a6051f20-9cbc-47d2-930d-419183bf6cf1

4. How do I provision the promo subscription for my eligible customers?
You can provision the promo subscription for your eligible customers in PRISM portal directly.

5. How would I know that my customer is eligible for the promotion
If your customer is eligible for the promotion, you will not see the charges for the subscription in your monthly CSP invoices in the following month.

6. Does the promotion apply if my customer wants to cancel existing offer and repurchase?
Based on the new customer definition, the promotion will not be applied because the customer has an active or cancelled offer within 30 days.

7. What if my customer does not align to one of the eligible customer types?
If your customer is not eligible for either promotion, it is because they already have either Audio Conferencing or Business Voice. Your customer should continue paying their current rate for their Audio Conferencing or Business Voice subscriptions.

8. What happens if a customer wants to cancel or can no longer pay prior to completion of promo?
If an online service subscription is canceled before its fixed term expires, Microsoft will not invoice customers/partners for any future scheduled billings for that subscription and pro-rate the charges for the current month if applicable. At this time, online service subscriptions that are canceled will not incur an Early Termination Charge. At a future date, however, Early Terminations Charges may be incurred for new online service subscriptions that are canceled prior to their expiration.

9. Can I charge customers for their Free Audio Conferencing or up charge my customer for Business Voice during the promo period?
For Audio Conferencing, partners may choose to sell customers the free or paid license. For Business Voice, Microsoft expects partners to pass along the full promo value to customers during the promo period. Microsoft may audit partners to ensure compliance.

10. Do partners need to wait until the end of the promo to convert customers to higher paid SKU?
For the Audio Conferencing promo, partners can convert or upsell customers to Paid SKU’s via CSP at any time. When this happens, partners can cancel the subscription with the promotional rate and purchase the paid Audio Conferencing offer to void the promotion with the normal rate.
For the Business Voice without calling plan promo, partners do not have the option to convert customers early. Microsoft has applied a discount to the Business Voice SKUs in CSP from August 1 st , 2020 to January 31st, 2021 and there is not an option to switch partners to a fully priced version of product until after the promo period ends.

11. Does this offer apply to both monthly and annual billing frequency?
No. This promo applies only to monthly billing frequency. Customers who choose to pay annually will not receive any promotional pricing.

12. Is there a cancellation fee if customer wants to cancel the subscription within the 1-year subscription
There are no cancellation fees.

13. Is there a minimum or maximum quantity for the promo licenses?
The minimum quantity is one for both offers. For Microsoft Business Voice (without calling plans) maximum quantity is 300 but for Audio conferencing there is no limit.

14. When does the promotional pricing end?
The promotion pricing expires 12 invoices from the subscription start date.

Example 1:
- Customer purchases 10 x Microsoft Business voice without calling plan on Sept 2, 2020
- You will not be charged for the Microsoft Business voice without calling plan subscriptions from Sept 2nd to Aug 31, 2020 and the subscriptions will not appear in the 12 corresponding invoices
- You will be charged for the customer subscription from Sept 1, 2021 onward (11 months and 29 days)
- Note that any new licenses added after the promo period has ended (Jan 31st, 2021 for Business voice without calling plan and March 31, 2021 for Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing) will receive the regular price and needs to be added to a separate subscription

Example 2:
- Customer purchases 10 x Microsoft Business voice without calling plan on Sept 28, 2020
- You will not be charged for the Microsoft Business voice without calling plan subscriptions from Sept 28th to Dec 31, 2020 and the subscriptions will not appear in the four corresponding invoices.
- You will be charged for the customer subscription from Sept 1, 2021 onward (free for 11 months and 2 days)
- Note that any new licenses added after the promo period has ended (Jan 31st, 2021 for Business voice without calling plan and March 31, 2021 for Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing) will receive the regular price and needs to be added to a separate subscription.

15. Why am I not getting discount for my customer subscriptions for full 12 months?
Our systems currently cannot handle different discount in the same calendar month, which only became an issue when Microsoft is changing boundary conditions.

16. What happens when I increase seat count (remaining below maximum) on the promoted offers during the promotion period?
For subscriptions purchased with promotional pricing, new seats added to this subscription during the promotion period will receive the same promotion price for the same discount period. New seats added outside of the promotion period for Business Voice Without Calling Plan (January 31st, 2021) and the Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing (March 31st, 2021) Plan will receive the regular price. You will also need to create a separate subscription for the same SKU to continue to receive the promotional price.