Turns out you still love Microsoft! Like a long-term marriage, there are ebbs and flows in the relationships. You’ve had your peaks and valleys in the Microsoft relationship, but at the end of the day, we’re family, and blood is thicker than water. Such are the findings in my well-received Microsoft Satisfaction survey for partners. I’ll share the results here.
Question 1: What is your overall satisfaction level with Microsoft?
As you can see in the figure, the largest response category was “High” when asked about satisfaction levels. I was surprised to see that initially, but I have further thoughts about that. Microsoft is a popular company and also a “public figure,” so it’s subject to outsized media coverage. But at the end of the day, when you thoughtfully responded to this survey, you realized it’s a functional relationship, and one you continue to embrace.
Furthermore, if you look at the numbers closely, taking the Very High category + the High category + half of the Neutral category, the positive satisfaction level was 50.55 or just over half. Not only is that number good enough to win an election, but this result is in alignment with the newly released “CNBC/Burson-Marsteller Corporate Perception Indicator: A Global Survey from Main Street to the Executive Suite.” The relevant finding was “In developed economies, 52% of the general public has a favorable view toward corporations versus 72% of the general public in emerging economies.”
Question 2: Ease of doing business with Microsoft.
View Fig. 2 above and you’ll see a classic bell curve, which doesn’t surprise me. Microsoft is a big company, and it takes a while to turn the bow of the ship! So the largest response category, Neutral, passes the litmus test as correct. I’d generously offer this is a gentleman’s C grade with room for improvement. More on that in the feedback section.
Question 3: Number of unique Microsoft account(s) you have overall (MPN, CRM, O365, Hotmail, Skype, vendor eInvoice, etc.)
A simple majority of the respondents have over four (typically more) Microsoft passwords. The reason I asked this was based on my own experience. End-to-end, I have over five accounts in my Microsoft interactions. I understand why but I’d like to cut that in half to improve my overall experience with Microsoft. Bottom line is that you are having the same type of experience.
Free Form:
You had no shortage of opinions when asked the open-ended question “Tell us what you think (essay) about support, licensing, billing, certification exams, etc. This is an open-ended essay format. Tell us your tales from the trenches.”
The responses can be categorized as the following:
- Support
- Certifications
- Licensing
- Partner program
- Lead generation
- Service interruptions
I’ll end by sharing this presentative comment that, I think. Summarizes many comments (over 70 free form comments) and captures the result of this survey.
“I have been primarily a Microsoft IT Professional for most of my career. There have been highs and lows, but overall, I am still pro-Microsoft. Currently, our organization utilizes Office 2010/2013 and Office 365, as well as Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2. All are stable and functional, but regularly test me with random weirdness. Office 365 is not as reliable as it should be. There are way too many service interruptions, even if they are often invisible to the end-user. Office 2013 is very complex and requires significant computer resources to fully implement. Error codes for Office 2013 issues are nearly nonexistent and often the only solution to problems is to completely uninstall and reinstall the software. Support is decent, but I try and avoid using it whenever possible.”
Next steps!
Read this article, 4 Simple Ways Smart Companies Track and Nurture Crazy-Happy Customers, by Ramon Ray, who is a speaker at our SMB Nation Fall conference September 26-28, 2014 at Microsoft Redmond. Pay close attention to third point on surveying your customers. Go ahead – do it – and consider it an active takeaway from this blog.
