Connect with customers

Article
12/08/2023

Appropriate roles: Global admin | Admin agent

This article describes how to invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with you and how to remove that relationship.

To transact with customers in Partner Center:

You must have a Partner Center account.
Your customers must be set up in Partner Center.
You must establish reseller relationships with your customers.
Your indirect provider must also have reseller relationships with your customers to purchase subscriptions and services on your customer's behalf.

Connect with existing customers

Once you successfully enroll as an indirect reseller, you can see the same customers in Partner Center that you might already do business with in other portals, such Microsoft 365 admin center or the Azure portal.

When you connect with an indirect provider, you don't automatically gain the indirect provider's customers.

Likewise, the customers you work with either on your own or through your indirect provider, but not through the Partner Center, won't automatically appear in your customer list when you enroll in the Partner Center.

You must establish a reseller relationship with customers to transact in the Partner Center. To do so, you email them an invitation to connect with you on Partner Center.

Invite an existing customer to establish a reseller relationship with you

To invite a customer to a reseller relationship, use the following steps:

Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
Select a customer from the Customer list and then select Request a reseller relationship.
On the next page, review the draft email message.

You can open the draft message in email or you can copy the message to your clipboard and paste it into an email message.

You can edit the draft email message, but be sure to include the URL because it's personalized to link the customer directly to your account.
Select Done.
Send the email to your customer.

After your customer accepts your invitation, they appear on your Customers page. You can then manage their subscriptions and service from there.
To manage the customer's account, services, users, and licenses, select the customer's record and then select what you want to do.

Connect with new customers

When you attract new customers, you need to connect with them on Partner Center. You can get new customers through multiple channels, including:

Your own marketing activities
Microsoft referrals
Indirect providers

Important

To manage a customer's subscriptions and services on their behalf, you must have a reseller relationship with them.

To allow your indirect provider to submit orders on your customer's behalf, the indirect provider must also have a reseller relationship with them.

To get administrator permissions to manage a new customer's subscriptions and services and allow your indirect provider to submit new orders on their behalf, you can invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with both you and your provider at the same time.

Invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with you and your indirect provider

Use the following steps to invite a customer into a reseller relationship with both you and your indirect provider.

Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
Select New relationship to invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with both you and the indirect provider at the same time.

The provider must have a reseller relationship with your customer so they can submit orders on your customer's behalf when the customer wants to buy new subscriptions or add new licenses to existing subscriptions.
On the next page, review the draft email message.

You can open the draft message in email or you can copy the message to your clipboard and paste it into an email.

You can edit the text in the email, but be sure to include the URL because it's personalized to link the customer directly to your account.
Select Done.

After the customer authorizes you and your provider to be their resellers of record, you'll have administrator permissions to manage their subscriptions, licenses, and users on their behalf. Your indirect provider can also submit orders on their behalf.

To manage the customer's account, services, users, and licenses, select the customer's record and then select what you want to do.

Remove a relationship with a customer

Use the following steps to remove a relationship with a customer.

Sign in to Partner Center and select Customers.
Select the customer whose relationship you want to remove, and then select Account.
Select Remove customer relationship.

The customer will no longer appear in your customer list.

Important

If you establish a relationship with a customer and you remove that relationship, any delegated admin privileges granted will be removed.

You represent that the decision to discontinue your relationship with the customer was made in good faith, for a legitimate business purpose, and in accordance with your agreement with your customer or partner, and you agree to defend and hold Microsoft harmless from and against any third-party claims to the contrary.

You must provide legal notice of termination to your customer or partner if your agreement requires it. This tool does not generate notice to the customer or partner.