SAM engagement managers are measured partly on customer satisfaction, and the SAM group is on notice from CEO Steve Ballmer that Microsoft will pull the plug on the program if customer satisfaction plummets, Rivera said.

Rivera noted that his group is working on both internal and external education programs, and that it conducts training sessions for SAM engagement managers. But its influence extends only so far. He said that Microsoft's regional subsidiaries ultimately have autonomy over the actual scripts used with customers.

And in the U.S., discretion on the wording of e-mails is left to individual engagement managers, according to Jackie Carriker, director of the SAM program for Microsoft's U.S. subsidiary.

"We provide our SAM engagement managers with guidelines on the messages and positioning we want to communicate to our customers," Carriker wrote in an e-mail response to a question. "But we are not prescriptive on the tone or style of individual communication pieces."