We’re excited to announce a new project onboarding feature is now available in the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal. The portal makes it easier to deploy Dynamics 365 projects successfully by guiding you from the start of your project to the end, giving you valuable insights and recommendations along the way. All you need to do to get started is create your implementation project in the portal, and the new onboarding wizard makes it easy. Here’s how:

User-friendly interface removes technical barriers. The onboarding wizard’s intuitive and user-friendly interface is designed to make the onboarding process accessible whatever your technical background. It acts as a virtual assistant, walking you through each step of project creation with clear instructions and prompts.

Projects are ready to use immediately. On completion of the onboarding process, your Dynamics 365 implementation project is instantly available, streamlining collaboration and ensuring that stakeholders have swift access to project resources.

Data is protected automatically. If the implementation project targets a tenant other than the one you’re signed in to, the onboarding wizard starts an approval flow. Two reviewers for the targeted tenant must both approve the request before information such as the customer name and telemetry insights are made available. This automatic review process ensures compliance with data protection regulations and builds trust with customers.

Successful Dynamics 365 implementations by design

The Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal is based on Success by Design, a systematic approach for successful cloud deployment that was developed by Microsoft. Success by Design provides prescriptive guidance for designing, building, and deploying your new Dynamics 365 solution. The onboarding wizard represents a pivotal advancement in the journey towards a successful Dynamics 365 implementation. By guiding you through the creation of your implementation projects, facilitating reviews, and offering relevant insights, the Implementation Portal and the onboarding wizard help your business harness the full potential of Dynamics 365 with confidence and efficiency.

Next steps

Sign up for the Dynamics 365 Implementation Portal and read the documentation.

Learn more about the onboarding wizard.

Have feedback or questions about the onboarding wizard or the Implementation Portal? Let us know! Email us at ftd365ip-support@microsoft.com.

Not yet a Dynamics 365 customer? Take a tour and get a free trial.

The post Create Dynamics 365 implementation projects easily with the new onboarding wizard appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

At Microsoft, trust is the foundation of everything we do. As more organizations adopt Copilot in Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, we are committed to helping everyone use AI responsibly. We do this by ensuring our AI products deliver the highest levels of security, compliance, and privacy in accordance with our Responsible AI Standard—our framework for the safe deployment of AI technologies.

Take a moment to review the latest steps we are taking to help your organization securely deploy Copilot guided by our principles of safety, security, and trust.

Copilot architecture and responsible AI principles in action

Let’s start with how Copilot works, how it keeps your business data secure and adheres to privacy requirements, and how it uses generative AI responsibly. Watch this video for a quick overview.

First, Copilot receives a prompt from a user within Dynamics 365 or Power Platform. This prompt could be in the form of a question that the user types into a chat pane, or an action, such as selecting a button labeled “Create an email.”

Copilot processes the prompt using an approach called grounding, which might include retrieving data from Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft Graph, or external sources. Grounding improves the relevance of the prompt, so the user gets responses that are more appropriate to their task. Interactions with Copilot are specific to each user. This means that Copilot can only access data that the current user has permissions to.

Copilot uses Azure OpenAI Service to access powerful generative AI models that understand natural language inputs and returns a response to the user in the appropriate form. For example, a response might be in the form of a chat message, an email, or a chart. Users should always review the response before taking any action.

How Copilot uses your proprietary business data

Responses are grounded in your business content and business data. Copilot has real-time access to both your content and context to generate answers that are precise, relevant, and anchored in your business data for accuracy and specificity. This real-time access goes through our Dataverse platform (which includes all Power Platform connectors), honoring the data loss prevention and other security policies put in place by your organization. We follow the pattern of Retrieval Augmentation Generation (RAG), which augments the capabilities of language models by adding dynamic grounding data to the prompt that we send to the model. Our system dynamically looks up the relevant data schema using our own embedding indexes and then uses the language models to help translate the user’s question into a query that we can run against the system of record.

We do not use your data to train language models. We believe that our customers’ data is their data in accordance with Microsoft’s data privacy policy.  AI-powered language models are trained on a large but limited corpus of data—but prompts, responses, and data accessed through Microsoft Graph and Microsoft services are not used to train Copilot for Dynamics 365 or Power Platform capabilities for use by other customers. Furthermore, the models are not improved through your usage. This means that your data is accessible only by authorized users within your organization unless you explicitly consent to other access or use.

How Copilot protects business information and data

Enterprise-grade AI, powered by Azure OpenAI Service. Copilot is powered by the trusted and compliant Azure OpenAI Service, which provides robust, enterprise-grade security features. These features include content filtering to identify and block output of harmful content and protect against prompt injections (jailbreak attacks), which are user prompts that provoke the generative AI model into behaving in ways it was trained not to. Azure AI services are designed to enhance data governance and privacy and adhere to Microsoft’s strict data protection and privacy standards. Azure OpenAI also supports enterprise features like Azure Policy and AI-based security recommendations by Microsoft Defender for Cloud, meeting compliance requirements with customer-managed data encryption keys and robust governance features.

Built on Microsoft’s comprehensive approach to security, privacy, and compliance. Copilot is integrated into Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. It automatically inherits all your company’s valuable security, compliance, and privacy policies and processes. Copilot is hosted within Microsoft Cloud Trust Boundary and adheres to comprehensive, industry-leading compliance, security, and privacy practices. Our handling of Copilot data mirrors our treatment of other customer data, giving you complete autonomy in deciding whether to retain data and determining the specific data elements you wish to keep.

Safeguarded by multiple forms of protection. Customer data is protected by several technologies and processes, including various forms of encryption. Service-side technologies encrypt organizational content at rest and in transit for robust security. Connections are safeguarded with Transport Layer Security (TLS), and data transfers between Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Azure OpenAI occur over the Microsoft backbone network, ensuring both reliability and safety.  Copilot uses industry-standard secure transport protocols when data moves over a network—between user devices and Microsoft datacenters or within the datacenters themselves.

Watch this presentation by James Oleinik for a closer look at how Copilot allows users to securely interact with business data within their context, helping to ensure data remains protected inside the Microsoft Cloud Trust Boundary. You’ll also learn about measures we take to ensure that Copilot is safe for your employees and your data, such as how Copilot isolates business data from the language model so as not to retrain the AI model. 

Architected to protect tenant, group, and individual data. We know that data leakage is a concern for customers. Microsoft AI models are not trained on and don’t learn from your tenant data or your prompts unless your tenant admin has opted in to sharing data with us. Within your environment, you can control access through permissions that you set up. Authentication and authorization mechanisms segregate requests to the shared model among tenants. Copilot utilizes data that only you can access. Your data is not available to others.

Committed to building AI responsibly

As your organization explores Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, we are committed to delivering the highest levels of security, privacy, compliance, and regulatory commitments, helping you transform into an AI-powered business with confidence.

Learn more about Copilot and Responsible AI

• Trust and responsible AI in Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Copilot in Power Platform 

• Copilot data security and privacy for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform FAQ

• Copilot availability

• Microsoft Responsible AI Standard

• How other organizations are using Copilot to improve operational efficiency and customer experiences

• Responsible AI FAQ for Microsoft Power Platform

• Responsible AI FAQ for Dynamics 365

The post Building digital trust in Microsoft Copilot for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The world has changed rapidly since generative AI first attracted mainstream popularity in late 2022. Standing behind our company mission to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more, Microsoft made a once-in-a-generation strategic shift by introducing generative AI capabilities that we refer to as Copilot, designed to revolutionize every Microsoft Cloud experience. From empowering knowledge workers and transforming business processes to enabling anyone to create low-code and no-code solutions, we’re delivering Copilot capabilities that work alongside you, embedded in applications that millions of people use every day. One area we are truly excited about is how the customer service experience will be transformed by this new era of Copilot experiences.

Successful service engagements are no longer measured solely on whether a customer issue is resolved. The latest benchmark for service organizations is based on delivering personalized, fast service experiences at every touchpoint through all engagement channels. The most successful service organizations differentiate themselves by building long-term customer loyalty and transforming operations with modern, AI-enhanced capabilities across all service processes and interactions. These differentiators are what continue to propel Dynamics 365 Customer Service. 

2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center

Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader

Read the report

It is with great pride that Microsoft has been recognized as a Leader within the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center. We believe this placement recognizes Microsoft’s continued rapid pace of innovation and our customers’ success using our service as well as our broader end-to-end CRM (customer relationship management) solutions and cloud functionality.  

Gartner defines CRM customer engagement center (CRM-CEC) as a cohesive set of software built around core case management tools used to provide customer service and support by engaging with customers, while intelligently orchestrating the processes, data, systems, and resources of an organization. CRM-CEC applications also offer workflow management capabilities and may be used as a system of record for customer interactions.

What is customer service modernization?

By harnessing the power of data, AI, automation, and collaboration, customer service modernization enables service organizations to deliver an end-to-end, flexible service platform for transforming operations, driving greater efficiency, and generating outcome-based value for customers. Service agents are empowered with AI Copilot experiences and automation to help fuel collaboration and productivity for delivering world-class customer service at scale. That way, their customers can engage in their terms, at their optimal times, and on their channels of choice.

Lufthansa Cargo manages record-breaking growth with a “360-degree view of the customer”

Take, for example, Lufthansa Cargo, one of the world’s leading companies in airfreight transportation. The company transports shipments to nearly 300 destinations in more than 100 countries with speed, efficiency, and care. Experiencing record-breaking growth and with ambitious innovation goals on the horizon, the organization needed a more advanced and centralized way to manage its customer service and sales information.  

An aging system had left Lufthansa Cargo with siloed information, duplicated data, and limited functionality. The organization embarked on a CRM migration project with a clear goal in mind: to replace their outdated system with something more streamlined, efficient, and accessible. They built a new CRM platform powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Dynamics 365 Customer Service, and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to pull all their information and communication channels into a single location.

With the new solution, sales and customer service teams have centralized access to all customer information and their related shipments, as well as proactive suggestions that empower them to provide standout sales and service to customers.  

Xiaomi improves its customer service and post-sales supply chain management

Another great example of customer service transformation is Xiaomi, a China-based electronics company that manufactures mobile phones, tablets, and smart home devices sold in more than 100 markets. As Xiaomi expanded into overseas markets, it used siloed service tools and channels instead of an integrated service platform. This created challenges with providing consistent customer service experience across countries.  

As Xiaomi experienced rapid growth and expansion, its self-developed, fragmented customer service system struggled to keep up with the massive demand for human resources and time. The system’s third-party apps were completely independent of one another, so users were required to communicate information via phone and instant messaging. Customer service teams received customer requests from different channels, queried information in different systems, and then returned to the corresponding channel system for feedback. 

To address these challenges, Xiaomi decided to build a unified CRM platform on Dynamics 365 Customer Service to support multi-language capabilities, compliance, and unified management levels. The new system covers 34 countries and supports 19 languages and provides a unified workbench for multiple communication channels (online, email, social media) and for financial processes, data integration, and security authentication. 

The bottom line

Microsoft is continuously evolving to meet the customers where they are with a generative AI-powered platform that leverages the conversational and transactional data generated by an all-in-one customer engagement solution. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service can help you transform your service organization with differentiated, best-in-class service experiences that offer enhanced productivity and collaboration to help agents increase their efficiency. That way, agents can focus on delivering more cutting-edge service experiences by harnessing available data and using the power of generative AI to deliver consistent, personalized customer experiences, maximize their productivity, and optimize service operations. And with our comprehensive service platform that includes automation, knowledge management, collaboration, and more, you can streamline case management, enable more personalized service, and get a clear, 360-degree view into how your service organization is performing. 

We’re excited to be positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and are committed to bringing you a comprehensive, flexible, and secure platform for providing efficient and effective customer service engagements. You can depend on the multidimensional capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Service to empower you to provide seamless, end-to-end experiences within a single solution built on the Microsoft Cloud to deliver consistent, connected support across channels. 

Next steps

Read the 2023 Gartner Magic Quadrant for CRM Customer Engagement Center report.

Learn more about:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Dynamics 365 AI

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for the CRM Customer Engagement Center, Pri Rathnayake, Wynn White, Drew Kraus, 1 November 2023.

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved 

This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from this link. 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

The post Microsoft is named a Leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for the CRM Customer Engagement Center appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

 
Microsoft is delighted to announce that the new Dynamics 365 Community is now live, marking a significant milestone in our journey of empowering users, fostering collaboration, and driving innovation. 

With its fresh new look, streamlined experience, and a suite of powerful features, the new Dynamics 365 Community sets a new standard for user engagement and knowledge sharing. We have listened to your feedback, studied your needs, and made significant enhancements to ensure a seamless and immersive experience. Our aim is to create a platform that not only meets your present requirements but also inspires you to explore new possibilities and accelerate your success. 

Here are the highlights of some of the new and future features of our new community: 

1.  Enhanced User Experience: Navigate through the community effortlessly and find the answers you need quickly. With intuitive search functionality, personalized recommendations, and a modern interface, your journey within the community has never been smoother. 
2.  Achievements Elements: Get ready for a fun and rewarding experience! Engage in community activities, earn badges, and unlock new levels as you contribute and grow. We believe that recognizing your valuable contributions is vital to building a thriving community.
3.  AI-Powered Assistance: Our AI-assisted moderation ensures a safe and inclusive environment for all community members. By leveraging intelligent algorithms, we can maintain the quality and relevance of discussions while fostering a sense of belonging and respect.  

This is just the beginning of an incredible journey! We are committed to continuous improvement and will be rolling out regular updates and new features to address your evolving needs. Your feedback and suggestions are invaluable to us, and we encourage you to share your thoughts to help shape the future of the Dynamics 365 Community. 

As we embark on this exciting chapter together, we are excited to see the positive impact that this community will have on your professional growth, collaboration, and innovation. The Dynamics 365 Community is more than just a platform; it’s a catalyst for driving positive change in the world of business applications. 

Microsoft would like to express our sincere gratitude to our incredible community members, MVPs, and User Group leaders who have played an instrumental role in shaping the Dynamics 365 Community. Your passion, expertise, and dedication continue to inspire us as we strive to create an inclusive and thriving ecosystem. 

Thank you for being a part of this remarkable community. We invite you to explore the new Dynamics 365 Community at http://community.dynamics.com/ and embark on a journey of learning, collaboration, and success. Together, let’s unleash the full potential of Dynamics 365 and shape the future of business applications. 
 
Take a look for yourself! Experience it today: New Microsoft Dynamics 365 Community 

The post Introducing the New Dynamics 365 Community – A Catalyst for Collaboration and Innovation  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Human interaction is at the cornerstone of every experience and today’s world has dramatically shifted what that means. Customers expect each touchpoint with businesses to be authentic, timely, and efficient, which has led to a rapid acceleration of customer engagement tools. Perhaps most important is customer service scenarios, where businesses must act on customer feedback to deliver in the moment. However, many businesses are falling short on this key activity, leading to more dissatisfaction and inefficiency.

61 percent of companies don’t close the loop with customers who gave feedback (Forrester)¹

Customer service is paramount to the success and longevity of customer relationships. That’s why Dynamics 365 Customer Voice brings powerful data, sentiment, and satisfaction analysis to Dynamics 365 Customer Service. With easy-to-use tools, your team will be empowered with the right information at the right time. To learn more about how to get started using Dynamics 365 Customer Voice with Dynamics 365 Customer Service, read our free e-book, “The Power of Knowing Your Customers.”

Panduit boosts loyalty by automating surveys 

Companies that emphasize customer service are at the forefront of delivering great experiences. They adapt their systems to meet customer demands while elevating how they operate in a digital environment.

Panduit, a global electrical and network infrastructure manufacturer, took this to heart as they rebuilt their customer service group into a broader customer experience organization. With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice and Customer Service, Panduit built a single platform to create a data-driven culture centered on the customer. They used survey results to track its Net Promoter Score as a strategic way to monitor overall customer sentiment and loyalty.

“For us, Dynamics 365 trumped its competitors because it’s such an easy platform to use. Now that [our customer service teams] get near real-time feedback in the voice of the customer, our advocates understand exactly what they need to change or continue doing” – Jim Dillon, Director of Order Fulfillment, Panduit.

A connected service and voice of customer program doesn’t just impact the customer’s experience, it positively shifts how the company operations. Streamlined data and real-time insights into the customer make exceeding customer expectations simple, freeing up time for developers to work on other impactful projects. No longer can silo data be an effective form of understanding customers, and companies need to shift their systems into comprehensive platforms to provide the best customer experience.

Read more about how Panduit used Dynamics 365 to understand their customers.

Accelerate empathy and effectiveness of agents

Your customer service department is arguably the doorstep to your brand, products, and perception. From online chats to support agents, each avenue is a make-or-break moment for the customer and their relationship with your brand. These moments are built on two things: empathy and efficiency.

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice maximizes the effectiveness of the support you give customers, creating tailored interactions and cultivating longevity. Within Dynamics 365 Customer Service, chat agents can send surveys after a purchase or service, automatically capturing direct feedback. Additionally, surveys can be created as a feedback and customer service mechanism, giving businesses the opportunity to resolve complaints. Watch the video below to learn how to easily use surveys in Dynamics 365.

Agents who have access to automatically analyzed feedback from Customer Voice can help customer service departments continually understand their customers. And, with automation tools, agents can gather satisfaction scores and utilize the data to create more effective and efficient service calls and support chats. True digital transformation of customer service departments starts with the customer and with quality data, but ends with authentic connections. The technologies of tomorrow can create unparalleled value for organizations as agents can continually learn about the customer, improve their own effectiveness, and elevate brands.

The future of connected customer service

Connectivity is essential in a digital-first world, not just with customers but within companies. While each department has its own responsibility, they can all interact with the same singular customer making it critical that everyone is aligned on who that customer is, what their satisfaction is, and how to deliver on their wants and needs. A connected environment increases the chances for a positive experience, even in situations where a response is needed quickly.

63 percent of companies don’t have a cadence of sharing in line with decision making (Forrester)¹ 

Aligning technologies across the department, from voice of customer solutions to customer service solutions to your customer data platform, creates a wealth of unified data that all agents can tap into. This can create a level of consistency and proactiveness unmatched by competitors. Connecting technologies isn’t just about aligning on data, it’s also elevating the knowledge of agents and their understanding of customers. The future will demand tailored, consistent experiences, and creating a comprehensive solution that pulls all your data together for every scenario will leave a lasting impact on your valued customers.

Learn more

To learn more about listening to customers and aligning data across your organization, visit the Dynamics 365 Customer Voice website or start your free Dynamics 365 Customer Voice trial today.

To learn more about delivering great customer service, visit the Dynamics 365 Customer Service website or start your free Dynamics 365 Customer Service trial today.

Download our free infographic to learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Voice.

1- The State Of CX Measurement And VoC Programs, 2020, Faith Adams, Forrester, May 3, 2021.

The post Deliver authentic customer service with Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s digital landscape, sellers face new changes at a rapid pace, making it more important than ever to be equipped with the right information when connecting with customers. The sales journey is like a game of strategy—you have to carefully deliver the right details at the right time in order to successfully provide great customer experiences. However, many sellers miss the opportunity to source customer feedback—a proven way to improve the buying experience and deepen customer relationships. According to a Walker study at the end of 2020, customer experience overtook both price and product as the key brand differentiator.¹

Customer feedback is an essential source of data for optimizing your customer experience throughout the sales process. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice works with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales to source feedback, engaging with customers at key points within the buyer journey. This captures input on critical steps within the sales process to gain relevant, contextual customer feedback that companies can leverage to improve the customer experience. Learn more about seamlessly connecting Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice in our free e-book, “The Power of Knowing Your Customers.”

KPMG leverages automation for customer obsession

Successful companies that prioritize customer experience aren’t afraid to ask customers how they can improve. They seek to understand how their customers feel about the product, service, and sales engagement in order to recognize patterns that reveal opportunities for improvement. A constant loop of gathering feedback and making improvements drives toward the best possible customer experience.

One organization that’s harnessing the power of understanding customer needs is KPMG Australia. The company deployed Dynamics 365 Sales as its end-to-end sales solution to deliver more value to customers in every interaction. After capturing and analyzing customer feedback, KPMG leverages these insights from Dynamics 365 Sales to develop strategies their sellers can use to generate more satisfied customers.

“We are using Dynamics 365 Customer Voice and Dynamics 365 Sales to provide the right solution to the right customer at the right time. And, using automation, we provide our teams the important feedback from our clients in the form of data and tasks that not only help sellers be more effective and successful in the upfront pitch, but also help them provide the greatest value in delivery.”– Anthony Coops, Head of Major Projects and Pursuits, KPMG Australia

To stay in sync with the customer, feedback is critical to continued success. The right data keeps sellers constantly learning about changing customer needs, driving a customer-centric culture that leads to stronger relationships and life-long customers.

Capture feedback during the buying process

Sellers and customers know that the buying process can be complicated, but by listening to your customers, this process can be simplified.

With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, sellers can easily capture feedback on the buying process, seamlessly connecting the data into Dynamics 365 Sales. Your sellers can become more agile and effective in their interactions with contacts, accounts, and opportunities with rich insights from customer feedback. Watch the video below to learn how to easily capture feedback with surveys in Dynamics 365.

Once the survey is sent, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice automatically adds the customer feedback to the contact or account record and updates the status of the survey. Responses, customer sentiment, and trigger words are all compiled into survey results within Dynamics 365 Sales, allowing users to view trends and access data quickly. Now, sellers can be empowered to collect feedback throughout any point of the buying process, utilize the data to adapt their selling strategy in the moment, and optimize their customer engagement.

The value of personalization in selling

Customers feel understood and prioritized when sellers make each interaction personalized. Many organizations know the value of personalization but don’t leverage it effectively to increase sales. KPMG utilized the power of the Dynamics 365 suite to evolve their practice and processes, turning interactions into personalized experiences.

“We are always thinking about how to use core systems to bring our teams closer to our clients in order to drive improved quality and client experience. As we mature and leverage our technology in new ways, our obsession with quality and client value has moved from an “here’s what you should do next” approach, to a system with specific personas that recognize our teams’ and our clients’ unique needs and preferences.”– Anthony Coops, Head of Major Projects and Pursuits, KPMG Australia

Surveys give your customer a voice in optimizing the sales process. With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, sellers engage customers more effectively because feedback is integrated into the unified view of the customer. Combined with Dynamics 365 Sales, seller productivity gets a boost because seller feedback improves automated processes and next best activity workstreams. By leveraging the power of customer feedback, sellers are more equipped than ever to drive revenue through every opportunity.

Learn more

To learn more about Microsoft’s feedback management solution, visit the Dynamics 365 Customer Voice website or start your free Dynamics 365 Customer Voice trial today.

Watch Dynamics 365 Sales demos or take a guided tour to see how Dynamics 365 Sales can empower your sellers with actionable insights. Start a free Dynamics 365 Sales trial today.

Learn more about seamlessly connecting Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice in our free e-book, “The Power of Knowing Your Customers.”

¹“Customers 2020: A Progress Remote”, Walker, 2020

The post Empower seller excellence with customer feedback solutions appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s complex economic landscape, your business needs the latest digital capabilities to engage customers, connect people, insights, and processes across the organization, and grow revenues. 2021 release wave 1 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 continues our commitment to continuously deliver capabilities that help you adapt to rapid change in your industry, innovate and solve challenges collaboratively, and harness insights to stay focused on what matters.

Designed to help you build agility and resiliency into every layer of your business, this six-month release wave of new and updated capabilities spans end-to-end customer experience and commerce, including supply chain and finance.

Connected customer experiences

Customer experience is built on consistent and personalized experiences—from the customer’s first interaction with the company through purchase and support. Microsoft is committed to helping you deliver personalization at scale, starting with rich insights to better understand preferences and needs, coupled with orchestrated customer journeys that open doors to new ways to attract, engage, and delight customers with a more human and empathetic approach.

Microsoft customer data platform (CDP)

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights—the Microsoft customer data platform (CDP)—connects data sources to gain the most comprehensive view of the customer, providing real-time insights that drive action in moments that matter.

This release wave extends audience and engagement insights for a more holistic view of customers. Audience insights enable every organization to unify and understand their customer data to harness it for intelligent insights and actions. Engagement insights enable individual and holistic interactive analytics over web, mobile, and connected products customer journey touchpoints. New turnkey integrations make it easier to share insights with other Microsoft or third-party applications, including Bing Ads, Google Ads, Facebook, HubSpot, Marketo, and many other popular services.

In addition, we’ve added AI-powered suggestions to help segment customers for more personalized messages, as well as features like predicted customer lifetime value and transaction and subscription churn to identify high-value and at-risk customers.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights works in lockstep with customer journey orchestration capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing (below) to power even more personalized experiences.

Read more 2021 release wave 1 highlights for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice empowers organizations to easily scale feedback capture for agile responses and personalized customer experiences, all in a robust feedback management solution. The new wave of updates enhances personalization and analysis capabilities, making it easier than ever to understand your customers and build better experiences.

Custom survey headers provide more flexibility and personalization in outreach to customers, while customer survey scoring empowers users to create and unlock the insights that matter to their business.

Read more about updates to Dynamics 365 Customer Voice.

Marketing

New customer journey orchestration capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing bring together the worlds of customer experience and marketing automation to engage customers in real-time based on interactions across marketing, sales, commerce, and service. And the enhanced cross-journey customer insights and analytics capabilities in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights help create more personalized experiences.

A completely redesigned email editor leverages AI to help you quickly create impactful, professional, and personalized content and deliver it at the right time. And enhanced integration with Microsoft Teams adds new webinar capabilities within Teams and the improved event participant engagement functionalities within Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Read more 2021 release wave 1 highlights for Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Sales

Release wave 1 updates for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales showcase the best of Microsoft productivity, collaboration, and intelligence in one business app to guide sellers to close deals faster.

Sellers can automate time-consuming sales tasks, such as creating and sending emails to customers, as well as updating customer records with up-to-date profile data from LinkedIn. Conversational intelligence automatically extracts actionable insights directly from sales calls.

An embedded Teams chat experience allows sellers to share Dynamics 365 information in Teams chats and channels and access linked Teams chats and channels within Dynamics 365. And an optimized seller workspace helps sellers understand pipeline health with out-of-box interactive charts and metrics and course-correct fading deals with AI-driven relationship and opportunity scores.

Explore more 2021 release wave 1 highlights for Dynamics 365 Sales.

Service

New capabilities help customer and field service teams deliver more consistent and engaging experiences, from the call center to on-site visits.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service is delivering the all-in-one contact center, now with first-party voice built on Microsoft Azure Communication Services and intelligent, skill-based, and omnichannel routing across channels. In addition, we are enhancing agent productivity capabilities in knowledge management, timeline, email, and agent dashboards.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service introduces a comprehensive experience for customers that will allow them to self-schedule service and rate technicians to ensure maximum satisfaction. Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, and Microsoft Teams enable field technicians to stay connected to work orders, information, and experts in real-time.

Learn more about updated capabilities to transform customer service and field service.

Connected operations

Complex organizations depend on the seamless flow of data, consistent business processes, and collaboration across finance and operations departments. This release wave further brings together people, data, insights, and processes with cross-app capabilities.

Commerce

Earlier this year, we announced the preview of business-to-business (B2B) e-commerce capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, bringing together business-to-consumer (B2C) and B2B e-commerce capabilities onto a single unified retail and commerce platform. The 2021 release wave 1 will further empower Dynamics 365 Commerce users to better understand, serve, and engage with their customers while efficiently running operations across the value chain.

B2B e-commerce capabilities previously in preview are now generally available, bringing intelligent and user-friendly features available to B2C e-commerce retailers to business partners. This release offers partner onboarding, order templates, quick order entry, account statement, invoicing management, and more. In addition, we are delivering native integration to Dynamics 365 Sales and Customer Service for unified customer engagement across touchpoints.

Other enhancements include new AI-powered intelligent shopping features for more personal and relevant shopping experiences, such as the ability to shop similar looks and similar descriptions. We’ve also invested in expanding omnichannel capabilities, including the ability for retailers to notify frontline workers on mobile devices through the Microsoft Teams mobile app.

Retailers will also be able to synergize task management between Dynamics 365 Commerce and Microsoft Teams to improve productivity. And support for curbside pickup scenarios allows customers to pick up orders with a safe, contactless experience.

Retailers can further connect experiences across the end-to-end shopper journey with Microsoft Cloud for Retail, announced at NRF 2021.

Read a comprehensive overview of updates to Dynamics 365 Commerce.

Fraud Protection

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection brings together account protection, payment protection, and loss prevention, providing a 360-degree view of the fraud landscape to merchants.

Two new features significantly improve insights that can help better detect suspicious activity. Velocities help customers prevent loss from fraud by using the relationships and patterns between transactions to identify suspicious activity. External calls let Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection ingest external data from third-party information providers or in-house data models.

Read more about updates to Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection.

Finance

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance provides real-time visibility into operations, predictive outcomes, and data-driven decisions that drive business agility and growth.

Release wave 1 brings intelligent cash flow forecasting to preview with automation based on predictive results. These updates include users’ experience out-of-the-box machine learning, including when customers are predicted to pay, forecasting the budget, and viewing forecasted cash positions based on actual accounts payable, accounts receivable and project transactions, and predicted outcomes.

Finance insights bring the power of AI into finance processes, with configurable and extensible models to help you accurately and intelligently predict your company’s cash flow. Globalization capabilities deliver localization for Egypt, general availability of a new electronic invoicing service, public preview of tax calculation service, and several other highly requested features.

Explore the full set of updates in the release plans, and our deep dive overview article detailing updated globalization capabilities.

Supply Chain

Major shocks to supply and demand over the past year have exposed the fragility of the global supply chain. Moving forward, organizations must architect resiliency into their supply chains with the capacity to scale operations to meet demand and proactively remedy disruptions, as well as streamline order fulfillment.

We are introducing new capabilities to ensure a smooth-running production line and improve day-to-day work on the factory floor. The new Cloud and Edge Scale Unit add-ins for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management enable companies to easily scale production and distribution during peaks and keep critical processes running at high throughput on the edge.

Additional updates increase the visibility of inbound goods and automate landed cost calculation, streamline and automate rebates and royalties, help overcome disruptions by managing changes in process manufacturing master data, and improve overall warehouse operating efficiency.

Read how these updates help you architect resiliency into your supply chain.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, announced at Microsoft Ignite, is a new application that can help accelerate omnichannel transformation across order and fulfillment. It provides the flexibility companies need to capture orders from any order source, including e-commerce, marketplace, mobile apps, or traditional sources like electronic data interchange (EDI).

Service-based operations

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations unifies operational workflows to provide the visibility, collaboration, and insight needed to drive success across teams from sales to finance. Updates in release wave 1 deliver rich new experiences with the ability to forecast, use, and invoice non-stocked materials on projects. Also included is the ability to set up contractual commitments like billing methods and chargeability rules by task or by work breakdown schedule. Customers using Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Service Automation will be able to upgrade to Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

Read more about updates to Dynamics 365 Project Operations.

Business management for small and midmarket organizations

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central provides a connected cloud business management solution for growing small to medium-sized businesses (SMB), bringing together finance, sales, service, and operations teams within a single application. Updates in this release wave help you adapt faster, work smarter, and perform better. New customer onboarding capabilities provide getting started checklists and in-app contextual guidance to help speed time to productivity for employees. Improved interoperability with Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Excel empowers a more collaborative, productive organization. In addition, this release wave expands availability to more countries, including India, Greece, Romania, and Turkey.

Discover the latest innovations for Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Human Resources

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources provides HR leaders with the tools needed to optimize workforce programs such as leave and absence, benefits, and compensation, as well as transform the employee experience with self-service. A new app for Microsoft Teams enables employees to view time-off balances and submit leave requests from within the unified collaboration workspace they already use. The app has been enhanced to include support for benefit notifications and a summary statement providing a consolidated view of benefits for employees. Other updates continue to broaden the human capital management (HCM) ecosystem through integration APIs and strategic partnerships.

Learn more about new and planned capabilities for Dynamics 365 Human Resources.

Catch up on the 2021 release wave 1

For a complete list of new capabilities, please review the Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform 2021 release wave 1 plans, as well as the overviews of new capabilities for Dynamics 365, integrated Microsoft Teams experiences, and new Power Platform capabilities announced at Microsoft Ignite in early March.

The post Highlights from 2021 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In a rapidly changing landscape, interactions between customers and organizations have become the cornerstone to bottom-line success and brand loyalty. That’s why Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice empowers organizations to easily scale feedback capture for agile responses and personalized customer experiences, all in a robust feedback management solution.

With the 2021 release wave 1 updates for Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, we’ve enhanced our personalization and analysis capabilities, making it easier than ever to understand your customers and build better experiences.

Personalize every interaction with customers

Enhanced survey header customization for maintaining a consistent brand identity

Understanding customers begins with capturing the right data in the right place at the right time. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice empowers feedback collection across every channel; from email to web, SMS, and QR codes. Now, we are bringing custom survey headers to the survey creation process giving organizations more flexibility and personalization in their outreach to customers.

Users can now upload custom images or select from ready-made images for more beautiful surveys. New features such as formatted text, alignment, color selection, sizing, and cropping let organizations stay consistent in how their brand looks, feels, and resonates with customers.

Simplified and customizable data analysis for agile decision making

Data analysis can be intimidating and time-consuming, and in today’s world organizations need to be quick to stay ahead of the competition. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is easy to use, making it stress-free to surface rich insights about customers. With this update, we are bringing custom survey scoring to the data analysis process, empowering users to create and unlock the insights that matter to their business.

Users can now create and customize their own satisfaction metrics by assigning point values to questions. Directly within the dashboard, users can create a scoring index and calculate average points across questions, allowing them to analyze data in their preferred way. These scored responses make it easier to uncover the trends and rich insights about customers so organizations can make better and quicker customer engagement decisions.

Other updates to Dynamics 365 Customer Voice from attaching a file, over surveyed management, and pause and resume surveys, are now available to view on our 2021 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 Customer Voice documentation.

Transform how you understand customers with partner solutions

Alongside the built-in capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, our partner ecosystem brings enhanced solutions, templates, and workflows to create a comprehensive customer experience solution. These added capabilities expand how organizations understand customers and transform engagement in the moments that matter.

Clarabridge

Our partnership with Clarabridge, through the Microsoft Business Applications ISV Connect program, provides organizations with more complete insights about their customers’ experiences by unifying survey feedback along with calls, chats, messages, emails, social, and more. Clarabridge offers an omnichannel best-in-class natural language understanding AI engine that uncovers valuable insights about customer sentiment, effort, intent, loyalty, and emotion. The fully integrated solution enables organizations to drive action by automatically identifying friction and high-effort touchpoints along the customer journey, reducing customer churn, and diving into the root cause of traditional key performance metrics such as NPS, CSAT, and customer lifetime value. This information is then made available for issue tracking, aggregated reporting, and close loop case management in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Learn more about the Clarabridge and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice solution.

Download the Clarabridge and Microsoft Datasheet.

Solgari

Solgari brings real-time customer feedback through voice and text to Dynamics 365 Customer Voice so organizations can quickly deploy secure, compliant, and scalable surveys to customers. Now available, organizations can utilize Solgari to automate phone and SMS surveys directly within the application using survey questions, workflow, and reporting functions. Customer feedback is captured instantly and integrated directly within Dynamics 365 Customer Voice where the Microsoft Power BI dashboard can surface rich insights about customers. This solution enables businesses to have more effective decisions across any use case—customer, prospect, staff, and student feedback. Phone and SMS surveys typically have a higher response rate, and now with Solgari and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, organizations can be flexible and more personalized in their feedback capture. Learn more about the Solgari and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice solution.

Understand your customers like never before

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is here to help you deliver value to your customers by truly understanding them and responding in the moments that matter. We are continually making product updates, from privacy improvements in January to orchestrating customer journeys at Spring Ignite, and deeper integrations with other Dynamics 365 applications. We are excited about the future of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice as a complete feedback management solution that can transform customer engagement, drive a customer-centric culture, and deliver better business outcomes for your organization. Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Voice.

Interested in a demo of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice and our partner solutions? Contact customervoice@microsoft.com.

Download our latest e-book to learn more about understanding your customers or sign up for a free trial of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice. See available offers that will help empower organizations to evolve their customer experience approach.

The post New features personalize customer experiences in Dynamics 365 Customer Voice appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

2020 was a call to action for every business. As we all move forward, our vision is to help empower businesses with digital technology that unlocks the potential to be resilient and sustainable through the next decade and beyond.

This morning at Microsoft Ignite, we are announcing new Microsoft Dynamics 365 capabilities that will help businesses adapt and evolve to elevate customer experiences, including:

• The April preview (for North America and Europe) of real-time customer-led journey orchestration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing, more insights from ecosystem-wide data in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and real-time survey capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to help organizations drive personalized interactions with customers.
• The April preview of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, a new application that enables organizations to orchestrate and automate order fulfillment intelligently with a range of order capture and fulfillment options.
• A powerful and seamless integration of Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 that includes embedded Teams collaboration experiences in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service; enhanced digital selling tools in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales; and the ability for individuals to set up, promote, and report on events hosted on Teams directly from Dynamics 365 Marketing. 

Be sure to watch today’s featured Microsoft Ignite session—Elevating the end-to-end customer experience with Dynamics 365—for a deep dive into these additional capabilities. Also, be sure to catch up on what’s next for Microsoft Power Platform and watch the featured session at Microsoft Ignite to learn how low-code Power Platform solutions that can work together with Dynamics 365 to drive innovation and customer excellence across the organization.

Driving personalized interactions across the customer journey

Customer expectations have changed significantly. Marketing needs to expand from segment-based campaigns to moment-based marketing, from megaphone messaging to personalizing a holistic customer journey for each individual. Updates to Dynamics 365 Marketing, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice help businesses reach this goal.

We are announcing real-time customer journey orchestration capabilities in Dynamics 365 Marketing slated for preview release as part of the April release wave 1 updates in Europe and North America. Any team driving customer experiences can engage customers in real-time based on interactions across marketing, sales, commerce, and service to win customers and earn loyalty faster. The solution enables teams to personalize experiences with artificial intelligence (AI) across digital and physical touchpoints, and build customer trust with a unified, adaptable platform.

At Microsoft Ignite, we are announcing updates to Dynamics 365 Customer Insights that power even greater insights from ecosystem-wide data and direct activation on new destinations, including Microsoft Advertising and third-party services. Deep integration with Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics empowers organizations to build custom AI models and improve relevancy with advanced segmentation and targeting.

Direct feedback is key to growth, whether gathering employee feedback to improve company culture or continuously tracking customers’ perception of your services and products. At Microsoft Ignite, we are also announcing real-time survey capabilities in Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, enabling organizations to be agile in their collection and analysis of direct customer feedback. In addition, within Dynamics 365 Marketing, people can now use customer journeys to create automated campaigns with workflows triggered by survey responses. For example, if a customer is displeased with a specific product feature or service, the response can notify an account manager for follow-up or send a coupon by email.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) works tirelessly in more than 190 countries and territories to save the lives, defend the rights, and help fulfill the potential of millions of children, from early childhood through to adolescence. Private donors and volunteers who contribute their resources, effort, and influence to support UNICEF are essential to the mission’s success. The contributions are collected by local UNICEF committees in 35 countries, such as UNICEF Netherlands. With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and customer journey orchestration in Dynamics 365 Marketing, UNICEF Netherlands can better engage donors and build lifetime loyalty by delivering real-time, meaningful, and personalized messages across the right touchpoints at the right time.

Together, these connected applications help companies elevate customer experiences across all touchpoints in a customer’s journey and build deeper customer relationships with more meaningful engagement across both digital and physical channels.

Read our deep dive feature story to learn how to start driving personalized interactions across the customer journey.

Building supply chain resilience, leading through change

All customers expect seamless omnichannel buying and after-purchase experiences with multiple fast delivery options. Companies need to centrally and intelligently manage the entire lifecycle of an order from intake to fulfillment so that they respond fast to constraints and disruptions and still deliver on the order promise. And they need to do so by integrating modern solutions into existing enterprise systems, improving time to value and reducing costs. 

At Microsoft Ignite, we are announcing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, an application that enables companies to intelligently orchestrate fulfillment and automate it with a user-friendly, easily configurable rule-based system using real time omnichannel inventory data, AI and machine learning. They can measure fulfillment effectiveness and model the order fulfillment journey using easy to use designer tools. Gone are the days of static rule hard-coded into systems.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management truly enables omnichannel order capture and fulfillment. The application helps organizations easily scale to support new order intake, fulfillment, and delivery partners with pre-built connectors. Companies can get up and running quickly as it integrates seamlessly with any enterprise resource planning (ERP), customer relationship management (CRM), warehouse management, fulfillment, and delivery systems and has no dependencies on other Dynamics 365 products.

Organizations like Breville can use Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management to truly enable omnichannel order capture and fulfillment. The application will help companies easily scale to support an ever-changing business landscape of new order intake, fulfilment, and delivery partners with pre-built connectors– and easily extend into new business models. Companies can get up and running quickly, as it integrates seamlessly with any order or fulfillment channel: digital ordering channels (such as e-commerce or marketplaces or apps), traditional ordering channels (such as EDI), and various fulfillment and micro-fulfillment options.

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management will be available in preview in April. Watch the on-demand session Intelligent fulfillment orchestration for optimized delivery at Microsoft Ignite and read our deep dive feature story to learn more.

Improve collaboration and engagement for enhanced customer experiences with Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365

It’s no coincidence that businesses with a culture built around teamwork and collaboration are often highly agile, innovative, and in tune with customers. Time and again, we spot this trait at organizations that use both Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams together to access, share, and collaborate on information.

In a featured session at Microsoft Ignite, as well as in a deep dive feature story on this blog, we’re spotlighting additional capabilities to more seamlessly collaborate and connect on business priorities.

A more connected and engaging experience with Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365 makes it simple to meet, chat, call and collaborate right from within your Dynamics 365 workspace. Similarly, while working in Teams, you can seamlessly access and share records, and information from Dynamics 365—so everything you need to stay focused and productive is in context of the task at hand.

In addition, updates to specific Dynamics 365 applications enhance collaboration experiences tailored to the way people across departments and teams work together and engage customers.

Boost collaborative digital selling and engagement

Sales teams are rapidly shifting to digital selling, where sellers guide and collaborate with customers remotely. A new embedded Teams experience helps sellers leverage Teams chat directly in Dynamics 365 Sales for real-time collaboration with the sales team. Sellers can see chats, channels and people related to a customer record, start a conversation without leaving Dynamics 365, and see suggested actions to help close deals.  

We are also introducing both an embedded Teams dialer experience for Dynamics 365 as well as an extensible Teams meeting experience—video or audio—that seamlessly ties back to Dynamics 365 Sales. Conversation Intelligence in Dynamics 365 Sales automatically transcribes calls and analyzes content, sentiment, and behavioral style. In this release, we’ll introduce the ability to generate Teams calls right from within the sellers’ workflows, inside their CRM, with conversational KPIs and advanced business insights surfaced on top of those calls. These collaborative experiences help improve the way sellers connect with other sellers, prospects, and customers. 

Today, sales teams can monitor career movements of contacts using LinkedIn Sales Navigator, and can connect sales records to Teams without Leaving Dynamics 365 Sales. Now there’s a new way for sellers to get even more value from LinkedIn Sales Solutions. When you integrate LinkedIn Sales Insights with Dynamics 365 Sales you can automatically import the latest company profile data—such as size and growth of specific departments and job titles—from LinkedIn Sales Insights into a matched account in Dynamics 365, to help keep your data up to date. This combination helps sales ops teams by providing more reliable, trusted data that’s updated in real time, so that sales ops can focus sellers on building relationships with accounts with the most opportunity. 

Turn event attendees into loyal customers

With Teams and Dynamics 365 Marketing, planning online events and nurturing your attendees is fast and easy. Today we’re announcing that customers can set up, promote, and report on events hosted on Microsoft Teams from within Dynamics 365 Marketing. In a few simple steps, they can export attendee data and view customer segments created in Dynamics 365 Marketing based on audience attendance. Customer journeys, including starter emails, are also automatically created to nurture attendees. Users can then further customize the content and experiences for attendees based on how they engage and orchestrate personalized customer journeys.

Also announced today, commercial Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 customers will soon get six months of Dynamics 365 Marketing at no additional cost. We’ll have more details on this offer to share soon, along with eligibility details, and we are excited to see you reap the benefits of these solutions together.

Resolve customer service issues collaboratively

As organizations leverage capabilities like Power Virtual Agents to enable customers with faster self-service, issues that get to agents are more complex. New intelligent routing and assignment capabilities leverage rule-based and machine learning classification to ensure incoming work items are routed to the best-suited agent or queue. However, sometimes customer service agents need deeper subject matter expertise from the broader organization.

With Teams capabilities embedded in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, customer service agents can easily find and collaborate with the right, available subject matter expert directly from the flow of their work to rapidly resolve customer issues. While working on a case, agents can access queue members and supervisors, discover agents who have resolved similar cases, or subject matter experts with relevant skills. Customer service-initiated chats are visually differentiated from other Teams chats for faster discoverability.

In addition, agents can link relevant chats to the underlying records so context is never lost. These features coupled with a new administration experience streamlines the setup and configuration of the system, enabling the organization to get up and running quickly. We are excited about how these features will empower agents to deliver timelier and more empathetic customer experiences. 

Enhance collaboration across field service

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, and Microsoft Teams enable field technicians to stay connected to work orders, information, and experts in real-time. For example, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Teams enables surgeons at hospitals within the Mount Sinai Health System in New York to advise counterparts 7,000 miles away at Kyabirwa Surgical Centre in Eastern Uganda.

Today we are announcing new customer engagement capabilities for Dynamics 365 Field Service (generally available on April 1, 2021) that enable end customers to find their technician and rate their visit. In parallel, we are also previewing self-service scheduling on April 1, 2021, which will be generally available later in the year.

Customers can schedule on their own time directly from their devices, providing a more personalized experience, reducing scheduling errors, and rescheduling events. This can help to reduce your organization’s back-office costs by reducing scheduling call volume, freeing up resources to focus on other tasks.

Automated service visit reminders will ensure customers are ready and available when the technician arrives, eliminating wasted trips due to customer unavailability. Real-time location tracking while the technician is on route helps your customers better plan their day around a service visit. Following a service visit, customers can submit direct feedback, helping to drive improvements within your field service technician workforce.

In addition, we will introduce streamlined onboarding experiences such as adding new users, accounts, and workers. This will greatly improve administrators’ ability to deliver faster time to value to their service organizations.

Collaborate across the organization

Learn more about collaboration and engagement capabilities heading to Dynamics 365, including how we’re enabling retail teams to showcase best practices, highlight urgent tasks, and build a stronger community among store locations; as well as how HR professionals can enable employees to view time-off balances and submit leave requests from within Microsoft Teams.  

We will continue our investment in innovation to turn work the way it was, into work the way we want it to be: More efficient, more collaborative, more insightful—and ultimately, more productive. The Microsoft Cloud is built from the ground up to enable just this, and we can’t wait to see what you will do with it. 

Catch the next wave of Business Applications updates

These solutions join hundreds of additional capabilities that will be released between April 2021 and September 2021. You’ll learn about many of these updates over the next few days at Microsoft Ignite, so be sure to check out the full line-up of Dynamics 365 sessions and connect with your global community in the Connection Zone. To get started, check out these featured sessions:

• Microsoft Teams and Dynamics 365: The unified collaboration platform for modern business.
• Elevating the end-to-end customer experience with Dynamics 365: Infusing intelligence from front to back office.
• What’s new and what’s next for the Microsoft Power Platform.
• Driving a Data Culture with Power BI

The post Announcing new Dynamics 365 capabilities at Microsoft Ignite appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

As companies navigate an environment of rapid change, raised safety standards, and a new digital world, transformative approaches are needed to successfully maintain a healthy, thriving business. That’s why Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Voice has bridged the gap between collecting feedback and building informed responses. Employee safety is paramount to sustaining business in our current world, but more importantly, how your organization responds to feedback and data has a lasting impact on morale and the bottom line.

Today, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is introducing dynamic survey capabilities that offer personalized responses to direct feedback. For example, show your commitment to providing great experiences with a response to unhappy customer feedback such as, “We are sorry you had this experience. Please contact us to speak to an assistant so we can make this right” or let employees know whether they are cleared to return to work or not.

Toyota and MTO Group are just two of many companies employing personalized responses in their return to work initiatives. Read about their implementation of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice below or visit the Dynamics 365 Customer Voice website to learn more.

Create meaningful, personalized connections

Collecting feedback is an essential function to understanding your employees and creating strong relationships. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice takes your knowledge of employees, their health condition, and feedback one step further with built-in AI analysis and conditional survey responses.

During a return to work scenario, employee safety is critical to detect potential health risks of employees spreading COVID-19 at work. With Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, gauge your employees’ health with questions such as, “Have you had symptoms in the last 14 days?” then, if they respond that they have symptoms, show your support, direct them to stay home, and/or share important resources. For example, if they respond with “I’ve had a fever,” organizations can automatically send personalized responses such as, “Please stay home, your health and safety is important. Someone will contact you with next steps.” See this feature in action in the demo video below.

Organizations need to react quickly with a solution that they can deploy in a short period of time to implement health screening and maintain safety. Dynamics 365 Customer Voice is not only easy to deploy and use, but its integrated technology that companies already have expertise in, such as Microsoft Power Platform, enables rapid responses to customer feedback. Microsoft Power BI enables visualized data and responses in the dashboard to gain powerful insights into employee feedback and make personnel decisions that impact the bottom line. It has never been more important to listen and connect with your employees and Dynamics 365 Customer Voice allows you to do just that.

Make better, informed decisions for returning to work

Organizations around the world are using Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to fuel their response to the pandemic and see it as an integral part in their plan for return to work.

Toyota Motor North America, one of the world’s leading automotive manufactures, recently used Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to rapidly deploy a health and safety plan for employees returning to the workplace. Toyota was faced with the challenge of safely and efficiently returning to work during an unprecedented time. However, they turned to Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to generate a deep understanding of employee health status’, deploy personalized responses, and ultimately make informed decisions on continued operations.

Toyota was able to quickly build an entire automated employee health screening solution in one week through Dynamics 365 Customer Voice to keep a pulse on employee wellbeing at scale. They visualized and monitored health data in real-time, with Dynamics 365 Customer Voice always-on feature and Power BI integration, to support their leaders in re-opening recommendations.

“Using Dynamics 365 Customer Voice, we were able to rapidly build a solution to survey our 47,000 team members in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. With Power BI automatically updating survey results, we were able to make informed business decisions that allowed our team members to safely return to work building cars and trucks.”—Trever T White​, Group Manager, Information Systems, Toyota Motor North America

Using Microsoft Power Automate, Toyota effortlessly sent out responses in real time that cleared, or did not clear, employees to return to work. Now, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice has set Toyota up for the future in continuously monitoring each employee and plant’s health so they can be agile in their responses to an ever-changing environment.

Another company deploying Dynamics 365 Customer Voice in their return to work initiative is MTO Group, a company in South Africa focused on transforming and shaping the African timber and agriculture landscape responsibly and sustainably. For the timber industry in a developing country like South Africa, a low-cost solution that is easy to deploy and easy to maintain is critical in determining whether it was safe or not for employees to return to work at MTO Group. Using Power Automate, they pushed Dynamics 365 Customer Voice surveys through email and SMS alerts, then visualized the data using Power BI to make informed decisions. Watch MTO Group’s implementation of Customer Voice during COVID-19 below or watch the Microsoft Ignite session on returning to work with Dynamics 365 Customer Voice.

Transform your response during COVID-19

Dynamics 365 Customer Voice allows you to harness the power of collecting feedback directly from employees and customers so your organization can build powerful, personalized responses. During times where its critical to have a digital solution to listening and understanding the environment around us, Dynamics 365 Customer Voice empowers you to analyze results and succeed in decision making.

Interested in learning more about Dynamics 365 Customer Voice? Visit the Dynamics 365 Customer Voice website or begin your free trial of Dynamics 365 Customer Voice.

The post Personalize responses to employee feedback to transform return to work appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.