Outlook Went Down? Microsoft May Owe You Money

Rest assured this week that while Outlook, Teams, and other Microsoft services were flatlining, the company’s billing operations were still firing on all cylinders. Copilot can’t run on air alone, after all. It needs cash.

The silver lining to the week is that, in the light of our global recovery from one of the most debilitating tech outages in recent memory, Microsoft now owes you compensation. And depending on the size of your operation and the degree to which you rely on Microsoft products, the payout could be substantial.

If you have a business relationship with Microsoft—a subscription to a Microsoft 365 Business plan, email hosted on Microsoft Exchange, or perhaps a Teams Premium tier—that relationship is governed by reams of documentation, among them being a Service Level Agreement.

Service Level Agreements, or SLAs, are old hat to large enterprises who use them to hold accountable service providers like web hosts and email services, ensuring they stay online and operational—and they are often in the realm of demanding 99.99 percent reliability or higher, as is the default promise with Microsoft Azure. If a provider fails to hit the promised availability level, the customer is due a refund (or credit towards next month’s bill, at least).

But SLAs don’t only apply to the Fortune 500. If you have a business account with Microsoft, no matter how small it is, your service is also governed by these promises. And now, Microsoft owes you compensation.

“Business account” is the key phrase in the above, mind you. If you have a Microsoft 365 Family plan or any other individual or personal plan, you are basically out of luck. Outlook could go offline for a month, and you wouldn’t be entitled to anything aside from a series of pointed Facebook posts.

The consumer Microsoft Services Agreement states that individual users can get refunds or credits at Microsoft’s “sole discretion,” but it doesn’t even mention SLAs and promises nothing in the way of uptime. In other words, if your email system wasn’t working for you on November 12, you can ask for money back, but your odds of receiving anything are low.

The Fine Print Is in Your Favor for Once

Business users are in a much more advantageous position, though Microsoft doesn’t exactly go out of its way to guide you through the refund process. SLA refunds are not automatic. You have to request them for each incident, and the process is hardly straightforward.

To figure out what you’re owed, start by taking a look at the SLA for Microsoft’s Online Services. (This is different than the above consumer Microsoft Services Agreement.) It’s more than 53,000 words long, and quite repetitive, but I’ll digest the important facts for you here.

While many of the promised service levels are identical, start by double-checking the specific Microsoft products you use, as the SLA is broken down by product. A search for “Exchange Online” reveals everything you need to know, in surprisingly plain English.