Windows Server 2016 Call Script

1-Opening

“Good morning/afternoon/evening! My name is [ENTER NAME] from [ENTER COMPANY NAME]. I am calling on behalf of Microsoft.”

“Can I speak to [CONTACT NAME] please?”

[If none of the contacts are available/no longer work there/away for travel ask for the IT Manager or person responsible for IT infrastructure purchase decisions]

2-Context

“I’m calling to find out more about your current IT infrastructure security challenges that directly impact your business. Many customers are affected by issues like ransomware, hacking and data leakage apart from the typical virus and malware issues. In addition, not sure if you are aware

  • Security Breaches,
  • System Failures,
  • Human Errors,
  • Natural Disasters

are amongst the top 4 contributorsto IT disaster —I want to better understand how to help you as a valued customer and discuss some new breakthrough capabilities in our latest technologies to secure and protect your business needs.”

3-Permission

“We will probably need about 10 to 15 minutes to discuss. Is thisOK with you?”

(if you get agreement/consent, proceed to below or reschedule call if not available)

4-Discussion

Discovery

Firstly, thank you for agreeing to this discussion. I’d like to better understand your IT infrastructure environment and your business goals. With this, I want to share in more detail how the latest Windows Server 2016 can address your business needs and challenges, if you are interested, we can agree the next steps we can take to evaluate if Windows Server 2016 is right for you and the business case on how it will help secure your servers,reduce costs and downtime, even automate backup and provide comprehensive disaster recovery.

I’d like to suggest that we have a discussion about

1-your existing server infrastructure

2-your server security in terms of antivirus and antimalware protection

3-your server high availability capability

4-your backup and disaster recovery plans

5-Then I can share an outline of how we might be able to help

6-And then if you’re interested we can discuss what steps to take next to further explore

Let me start by asking a couple questions.

Q1.What’s your involvement in the server infrastructure strategy and operations for [COMPANY]?

Q2.On average, how old are your existing servers?

Less than 12 months old
1 – 2 years old
2 – 5 years old
More than 5 years old
Don’t know/not sure
Refused

Q3.What Windows Server operating systems do you currently use? Can you share approximate number of systems for each operating system?

Operating System versions / Number of servers
Windows 2000 Server
Windows Server 2003/2003 R2
Windows Server 2008/2008 R2
Windows Server 2012/2012 R2
Other [PLEASE SPECIFY]
Don’t know/not sure
Refused

Q4.[If any Windows Server 2003] Were you aware that WS 2003 End of Life was July 14th 2015? This means that there will no longer be any security patches nor any support to you or any reseller on this platform?[Windows Server 2016 Opportunity]

Yes – Have you done any upgrades in the last 6 months?
No – Would you be open to our guidance and help to upgrade to the latest Windows Server 2016?

Q5.Many of our customers are doing virtualization. Are you using virtualization for server consolidation and maximizing resources today? [Windows Server 2016 Opportunity]

Yes – Can you share what virtualization solution you are using?
Can this solution provide a built-in disaster recovery at no additional cost?
No – Would you be open to our guidance and help to explore Windows Server 2016 built-in virtualization solution called Hyper-V can help you save money and be more resilient to disasters?

Q6.Do you currently use any antivirus and antimalware solution for your Windows Servers?[Windows Server 2016 Opportunity]

Yes – Tell me about your antivirus/antimalware solution
How does this solution update itself, like the patterns and engine? Do you need a separate server for this purpose?
No - Do you know how long it would take to get your data and systems cleansed of such menace if you were hit by anoutbreak?

Q7.Are you prepared to protect yourself against ransomware? Would you like to hear more on how Microsoft can help you defend against ransomware [AZURE BACKUP OPPORTUNITY]

Q8.To support recovery of systems and data, many customers do backup. Do you do backup of your server’s operating system with the applications and data?[AZURE BACKUP OPPORTUNITY]

Yes – Tell me about your backup solution.
Do you do tape backup? Do you do bare-metal system backup? How long can you keep your backup?
No – Do you keep copies of important documents and data?If Yes, how long can you keep them and how about updated data? If no, is there a reason preventing you from doing backup?

Q9.Are your VMs secure? i.e. If an employee wanted to make a copy of the data in a VM, could they access the data? Could they take a copy of the data? [Windows Server 2016 Opportunity]

Yes – Tell me how you protect the data on your VMs from unauthorised access or copy
No - Do you know how you can isolate the data on a VM from network administrations or storage administration or backup administrators to protect your confidential data? [Shielded VM (Datacenter Edition) in Windows Server 2016 Opportunity]

Q10.[If anything older than WS 2016] What time frame would you be looking to upgrade your server infrastructure?

Immediately [LEAD]
1 – 3 months[LEAD]
4 – 6 months[LEAD]
7 – more than 12 months

Q11.[If meet offer criteria, see target customer list] Were you aware we had offers in market currently that you might be interested in? Namely when you purchase Software Assurance with a new Windows Server 2016, you can get up to 45% off Azure Virtual Machines in the Cloud. As such if you plan to move to the Cloud in the future, this future proofs your investments you are making today.

Offer / Azure Hybrid Use Benefit
Sales Play / Drive consumption of Azure &
drive upsell of SA
Description / When a customer has WS SA, they can get up to 45% off on Azure VMs.
Assets / Web Page | Datasheet | Customer Deck | Target Account List
Go Do /
  • Drive Azure Consumption by creating offer awareness with your customers
  • Upsell Software Assurance to your customers

Thank you very much for all this information - It’s a great time to talk about upgrading your aging servers to Windows Server 2016 which includes a lot of new capabilities and features.

5-Closing

Before suggesting a course of action, ask the customer what he/she thinks should happen next. If we think the customers’ suggested next steps are missing something then make a suggestion to help advance the process and get the customer agreement. See below for ideas.

Q1.Are you already commercially engaged with, or have you started the planning process with an IT service provider or a 3rd party consultant for these plans?

Yes – we are already working with a Partner/Provider for these plans OR we are not interested in working with a partner

[NO LEAD AND END THE CALL – THANK YOU]

No – but we have already started implementing WS 2016 internally

No – we are not working with a Partner/Provider yet

Q2.[If NO] Could I suggest we do the following: given all that we’ve discussed, I believe there are a number ways we can help you meet your business objectives. We have a set of partners trained on Windows Server 2016 Suite. Would you like to have one of these partners to engage with you to do a free one hour technology review of your IT infrastructure and then use that to build preliminary business case of what might be the setup, benefits, ongoing costs and the cost savings of upgrading your infrastructure?

[LEAD AND PARTNER MATCH – THANK YOU]

Q3.Q3. [Check offers per customer in Excel provided] In closing our call, I just wanted to ensure you were aware of the current Microsoft offers we had in market.

  1. Azure Hybrid Use Benefit – for all customers with Windows Server with Software Assurance, you can get Windows Servers Virtual Machines on Azure, the Microsoft Cloud up to 43% off [SEND AHUB+STEPUP OFFER EDM]

“Thanks for taking the time to speak with me today, [Insert customer’s name]. I really appreciate it.

[IF YES] You will hear from the partner within the next 3 days”

Action items

  1. Leave behind notes – in email format and a link to more resources at

Windows Server 2016 allows you to:

  • Leverage a simple to use built-in antivirus and antimalware called Windows Defender that gets updated through the familiar Windows Update
  • Encrypt your data and systems using BitLocker technology
  • Tap into a leading world-class, built-in and yet free virtualization solution with enterprise class capabilities called Hyper-V to host multiple applications on the same physical server, taking full advantage of your server’s processing power and getting the most out of your hardware and reducing costs
  • Reduce downtime, cut data loss, and recover quickly from disaster with an affordable built-in disaster recovery solution. If this is not enough, through Cloud services, it gives you multiple more options including using Microsoft’s own datacenter as a disaster recovery site
  • Provide great connectivity to Cloud services to support backup that goes to 99 years of retention

[BACKGROUND INFORMATION ONLY – GOOD TO GET YOU EQUIPTED –

ONLY USE AS PART OF THE SCRIPT AS REQUIRED]

Read this First -

Windows Server 2016

Summarized edition:

Windows Server 2016 is the cloud-ready operating system that delivers new layers of security and Azure-inspired innovation for the applications and infrastructure that power your business.Windows Server 2016 delivers powerful innovation across three key areas:

  • Built-in Security with Advanced Multi-layer SecurityWindows Server 2016 gives you the power to prevent attacks and detect suspicious activity with new features to control privileged access, protect virtual machines and harden the platform against emerging threats.
  • Software-defined DatacenterWindows Server 2016 delivers a more flexible and cost-efficient operating system for your datacenter, using software-defined compute, storage and network virtualization features inspired by Azure.
  • Cloud-ready Application PlatformWindows Server 2016 delivers new ways to deploy and run both existing and cloud-native applications – whether on-premises or in Microsoft Azure – using new capabilities such as Windows Server and Hyper-V containers, and the super lightweight Nano Server installation option.

Expanded edition:

Windows Server 2016

Built-in Security with Advanced Multi-layer Security: When you read the news these days, you will see regularly new headlines about security breaches. Attacks have become more sophisticated, so organizations must respond with a more sophisticated environment that presents new layers of defense at every level of potential compromise. As the operating system that runs mission-critical applications and databases, Windows Server can play a strategic role in an organization’s security arsenal. Windows Server 2016 gives IT the power to help prevent attacks and detect suspicious activity with new features to control privileged access, protect virtual machines and harden the platform against emerging threats. Learn more about the new security features.

Software-defined Datacenter: Many people don’t realize that our Azure public cloud is actually one of my Windows Server customers. This means they use Windows Server and Hyper-V at a massive scale to deliver some of the most efficient datacenters in the world. Not every organization needs this type of scale, but every organization can definitely benefit from the new models of cloud efficiency. We worked hard to build that into this release so every customer can benefit. As a result, Windows Server 2016 delivers a more flexible and cost-efficient operating system for any datacenter, using software-defined compute, storage and network features inspired by Azure. Learn more about the new software-defined datacenter features.

Cloud-ready Application Platform: Applications are at the heart of every organization and its ability to serve customers and compete effectively for their loyalty. As the digital transformation accelerates in every organization, nearly every application needs to transition or transform. Windows Server 2016 delivers new ways to deploy and run both existing and cloud-native applications – whether on-premises or in Microsoft Azure – using new capabilities such as Windows Server Containers and Hyper-V Containers, and the lightweight Nano Server deployment option. And to make life easier for developers, today we announced with Docker a new agreement that will make the Commercially Supported Docker Engine (CS Docker Engine) available to Windows Server 2016 customers at no additional cost. Learn more about the new application platform features.

[CONVERSATION STARTERS –

ONLY USE AS PART OF THE SCRIPT AS REQUIRED]

“Servers today are more powerful than ever. The latest comes with as small as 4 all the way to record-breaking 22 and 24 cores per Intel CPU.Most IT organizations use only a small fraction of the total computing capacity. To help leverage such hardware investments, many businesses like yours are running applications on virtual servers (virtual machines) and running them side-by-side on the same physical server. This is known as virtualization. Running more applications on a few servers means you can save on hardware and related expenses, like maintenance, datacenter floor space and power bills. The physical servers providing virtualization are often combined together to provide high availability known as clustering. Virtualization with clustering reduces costs and simplify IT tasks. It’s also easier to move around and manage virtual servers with no impact to users who are using the applications, and ultimately this means IT can respond to business needs faster. Virtualization is also the first step on the path to cloud-based services. This opens up a whole new set of benefits, like reduced up-front capital costs and extremely fast time to build and deploy applications.

To ensure the systems are always available to users, the security of your systems must always be high. This can be challenging when you need to continuously invest in additional software to secure the systems. Having a natively built-in antivirus and anti-malware solution is very important baseline for security. In addition to this encryption is often used to make sure data cannot be easily stolen and retrieved without proper access rights. Therefore, with encryption built-in, it further simplifies and makes the solution more cost effective.

Once virtualized securely with high availability using clustering, you need to make sure there are backup of the systems so that in the case of a disaster like data corruption and accidental deletion, you can restore from backups. This is particularly important for your data. Most businesses keep up to 7 years of data backup for compliance and business needs.

What happens when failure affects even high availability? It could be hardware and software failure, security breaches, human errors and natural disasters like fires, floods, tsunamis. Users will definitely encounter disruption. With a good disaster readiness plan, it ensures a replicated copy version of this system in a different location comes to the rescue so that users can quickly resume their work. This could be achieved in a separate server rack in the same facility and also in another physical site.”

[For objections handling to mitigate challenges and battlecard, please see accompanying document–

ONLY USE AS PART OF THE SCRIPT AS REQUIRED]