Today I have on my customer hat as I attend our Partner’s 2nd annual customer conference.

Now that we’re in a virtual office environment, we’re looking at taking our Microsoft Dynamics CRM and Exchange Server online. Based on our company size and needs, both look to be great options for us.

It’s interesting and valuable to sit amongst other customers, listening to my Partner’s team members strut their proverbial stuff.

In a cloud session this morning, after discussing the “sale” pricing of CRM Online, a customer asked the $8 million dollar question.

” So what’s the benefit of a Partner promoting CRM online? Doesn’t that mean less revenue for you?”

Perceptive little bugger.

As luck would have it, the president of the Partner org was in the room to field the question. He shared that yes, cloud computing will cause them to make a change to their business model but a customer’s need for customization and training will remain. (I’m paraphrasing here. He did a much better job of conveying this message to the customer.)

And you know what? Sitting in that room as a customer, remembering what the Partner did for us to customize CRM to our needs in the first place, and knowing that I have no desire to learn how to customize or troubleshoot this kind of stuff myself, I felt relieved that they would still be involved even if we are in the cloud.

Taking off my customer hat and thinking about this change Partners are facing, I was glad to hear that our Partner is addressing how they will continue to support customers “after the cloud.”

This conference is just one aspect of that continued support. The cloud might be in the forecast, but the need for service is still here.