Microsoft 365 outage: what UK small businesses should put in place now

On Thursday evening and through Friday 13 November, a Microsoft outage took down Outlook, Exchange Online email and parts of Teams, OneDrive and other Microsoft 365 services for users around the world. UK businesses from banks to retailers were hit. For a small practice or local business, a day without email can mean missed enquiries, confused clients and a lot of "did you get my message?". Here is what happened and what to put in place so the next outage costs you less.

What happened

• Microsoft says the problem began at about 6:15pm UK time on Thursday 12 November. Outlook on web, desktop and mobile, Exchange Online email delivery, Teams calendars and meeting scheduling, OneDrive, SharePoint features and Copilot were affected (ABC News live coverage).
• Microsoft said a large number of servers became unexpectedly unavailable and that it was reversing a recent network configuration change. It said there was no sign of a cyber attack.
• Microsoft extended its email timeout window to 48 hours, so most delayed emails should still arrive rather than bounce. Recovery was gradual and patchy through Friday.
• Businesses including NatWest and Asda were hit (City AM).

Why it matters for small businesses

Most small firms run on one email account and one calendar. When that goes down, so does the main way new clients reach you. Delayed emails can arrive hours later, so a new client who emailed on Friday morning may hear nothing and book with someone else. If your website form sends enquiries only to your Microsoft inbox, those enquiries are stuck too.

Five things to put in place this week

1. Give people a second way to reach you. Put a tappable phone number and a WhatsApp link on every page of your website, not just the contact page. When email is down, these keep working.
2. Make your website save every enquiry. Good form tools store each submission on the website as well as emailing it. Check yours does. Then an outage delays the email, but you never lose the enquiry, and you can reply once you see it.
3. Send form notifications to two addresses. Add a second address on a different provider, for example a personal Gmail or Yahoo account you check, as a copy for website enquiries. It is a five-minute change in most form tools.
4. Know where to check. Bookmark your provider's service status page. For Microsoft 365 it is in the admin centre under Health, then Service health. Checking it first saves an hour of resetting passwords that are not the problem.
5. Have a short "we're having email problems" message ready. Two lines for your website banner, Google Business Profile update and social media: what is affected, and how to reach you instead. Post it as soon as you know.

After the outage

Once things settle, look through Friday's inbox for delayed messages and reply to new enquiries first. Check your website's saved form submissions for anything that came in while email was down. If your form only emails and does not save, that is the first thing to fix.

Want a website that keeps working when email does not?

We build sites with tap-to-call, WhatsApp, saved enquiries and backup notifications as standard. Tell us about your business, or see how our counselling demo handles enquiries.