Connect with customers
Appropriate roles: Global admin | Admin agent
To transact with customers in Partner Center, you must have a Partner Center account, your customers must be set up in Partner Center, and you must establish reseller relationships with them. To allow your indirect provider to purchase subscriptions and services on your customers' behalf, the provider must also have reseller relationships with your customers.
Connect with existing customers
Once you successfully enroll as an indirect reseller, you will see the same customers in the Partner Center that you already do business with in other portals. Such other portals include Office 365 admin center or the Azure portal. To see your customer list, select Customers from your Partner Center menu.
When you connect with an indirect provider, you do not automatically gain customers of the indirect provider. Likewise, the customers you work with either on your own or through your indirect provider, but not through the Partner Center, will not automatically appear in your customer list when you enroll in the Partner Center. You will need to 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 the Partner Center, as described below.
Invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with you
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Customers tile.
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.
You can edit the text in the email, but be sure to include the link as it is personalized to link the customer directly to your account. Select Done when you've completed this step.
Send the email to your customer.
After the customer accepts your invitation, they'll 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 select what you want to do.
Connect with new customers
When you attract new customers, you'll need to connect with them on the Partner Center. You may get new customers through multiple channels, including:
- Your own marketing activities
- Microsoft referrals
- Indirect providers
To manage a customer's subscriptions and services on their behalf, you need to 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 the 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 at the same time
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Customers tile.
Select Invite new customers to invite a customer to establish a reseller relationship with both you and the indirect provider at the same time. The provider needs to 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. Just be sure to include the link as it is personalized to link the customer directly to both your account and your provider's account. Select Done when you've completed this step.
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.
Remove a relationship with a customer
To remove the relationship with a customer, complete the below steps:
Sign in to the Partner Center dashboard and select the Customers tile
Select the customer whose relationship you want to remove, and then select Account.
Select Remove customer relationship.
The customer will no longer appear in the customer list.
Important
If you established relationship with a customer and you remove that relationship,any delegated admin privileges granted will remain unchanged. You represent that the decision to discontinue your relationship with 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.