This article was originally posted by the FTC. See the original article here.
When you talk with friends and family over the holidays, you may hear about new puppies, old sports rivalries, and dreams of the next vacation. As you join the conversation, why not share some ideas from the FTC’s Pass it On campaign to protect the people you care about from scams?
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Omnichannel has become a dominant force in how companies meet customer expectations, and for good reason. Ninety-eight percent of Americans switch between devices on the same day, using multiple channelsvoice, social, chat, email, and SMS. Omnichannel engagement allows customers to reach out on nearly any device, on their preferred channel while managing all engagement channels uniformly on the back end, creating a seamless customer experience.
True omnichannel support ensures an effortless transition and consistent experience from one channel to the next without causing agents to lose context or the customer having to repeat information. In short, omnichannel allows customers to pick up where they left off on one channel and continue the experience on another.
Omnichannel collects and harnesses information from every interaction across channels to drive stronger, more meaningful customer relationships, improve operational performance, and increase revenue. Plus, businesses that adopt omnichannel strategies achieve 91 percent greater year-over-year customer retention rates compared to businesses that don’t.
Multichannel and omnichannel are often used interchangeably, but they are very different. Like omnichannel, multichannel support offers customers more than one method for contacting customer service. However, rather than working in parallel, each channel lives in its own silo with its own dedicated team of agents. This limits the sharing of communication or information between channels, and often creates a poor customer experience.
For instance, take this scenario: the customer uses one channel to contact support and that team creates a ticket, but if the customer contacts the company again through a different channel, another ticket is created by that team. Each team has a ticket and tries to resolve the same issue. In this example, the customer must repeat the same information shared with the first agent to the second agent, and so on as each new siloed channel is used to contact support. Not only is the customer experience poor, but it’s also highly inefficient for the organization.
Omnichannel shifts this paradigm. Instead of customer ticket resolution, the emphasis is on the customer relationship. Omnichannel provides customers the freedom to move from one channel to the next when contacting support. The one constant is the customer, creating consistency from channel to channel so communications are threaded, making it easy for the customer to pick up where the conversation left off. Omnichannel creates a consistent customer experience at every touchpoint regardless of channel. With omnichannel support, channels are integrated so agents can view the conversation and still maintain context even if the experience leads to multiple channels.
It is the consistency of the customer experience that leads to positive customer engagement and retention. As customer interactions become more frequent and sentiment toward your brand increases, a positive cycle of interactions occurs, often leading to up- and cross-sell opportunities.
Omnichannel engagement strategies help companies better understand their customers through every interaction as the data is tethered to the customer, not the case number. Through consistent service delivery across channels, customer issues are resolved more efficiently, and this is particularly important in increasing customer satisfaction and building long-term engagement.
We all know that the pandemic has created significant barriers for most organizations. However, this disruption has fueled a pioneering spirit of ingenuity and innovation as “how we always did it” has now been replaced with “this is how are we do it now.”
With stay-at-home orders, businesses transforming how they reach customers, and social distancing, maintaining quality customer service can be daunting to even the most capable of organizations. However, omnichannel can be a life ring to organizations in the pursuit of meeting customer expectations during this pandemic. In stressful times, providing customers the ability to reach out on their preferred channel is one less trigger for discontent. But that’s just part of the story. Providing the right channels is important as well.
Take for example, the San Diego Workforce Partnership. This nonprofit is reimagining workforce development by delivering programs that help job seekers meet current and future workforce needs. Part of their core beliefs include the understanding that an integrated approach is key to attain durable self-sufficiency. When state and local regulations forced Workforce Partnership to close its physical headquarters and surrounding offices, it became very difficult to service the growing volume of displaced workers.
San Diego Workforce Partnership quickly pivoted. Their core beliefs came into play as the Workforce Partnership reimagined itself leading to a long-lasting transformation, not just a short-term fix. The Workforce Partnership adhered to their foundational beliefs by creating an integrated approach to attain resilience during the crisis and beyond. By leveraging Microsoft Teams, a website chatbot built with Microsoft Power Virtual Agents, and the omnichannel capabilities within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, they were able to increase remote collaboration and provide service to more people in need.
As the shutdown eliminated in-person meetings with displaced workers, the Workforce Partnership website became the primary outreach tool. Now, a chatbot answers routine questions, generating a 75 percent resolution rate, and because the chatbot integrates with omnichannel, it successfully connects customers with live agents upon customer request. The chatbot and omnichannel capabilities within Customer Service have gone a long way toward creating a more positive and consistent experience for those in need of their services. With the chatbot handling increased volumes of inquiries, Workforce Partnership staff have more time to serve their community’s needs, handling each interaction with care and empathy.
One day the Workforce Partnership offices will reopen, and people will return for in-person assistance. But for now, thanks to its remarkable digital transformation and use of the Customer Service omnichannel capabilities and Power Virtual Agents, the community has one more friction-free touchpoint when seeking employment assistance during this time of uncertainty.
Omnichannel for Customer Service, an add-in to Dynamics 365 Customer Service, enables organizations to instantly connect and engage with customers on their preferred digital channels. The application offers contextual customer identification, real-time notifications, and agent productivity tools like knowledgebase integration, AI-powered agent suggestions, and real-time sentiment analysis. Supervisors get visibility and insights into emerging trends and agent efficiency across all channels through built-in, AI-driven dashboards.
The post How omnichannel enhances the customer experience appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Companies that work with manufacturing and distribution need to be able to run key business processes 24/7, without interruption, and at scale. Challenges arise with unreliable connections or network latency when business processes compete for the same system resources when peak scale is required, or during periodic or regular maintenance for different regions, across time zones, or to meet different scheduling requirements. The ability to execute daily mission-critical processes must be agnostic to these situations.
Cloud and edge scale units enable companies to execute mission-critical manufacturing and warehouse processes without interruptions. This functionality is provided by the following add-ins, now available in public preview:
Cloud and edge scale units allow you to build resilience into your supply chain by providing dedicated capacity for your manufacturing and warehouse execution processes. This also places scale units near the location where the work is done, such as on the shop floor or in the warehouse.
Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management provides scale units in the cloud that runs in the nearest Microsoft Azure data center. Alternatively, scale units can run on the edge, hosted in appliances right in your facility. All scale units are connected to your enterprise-wide Supply Chain Management hub in the cloud to have all information readily available to fulfill your business needs.
Cloud and edge scale units for Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management deliver on two key business objectives:
One important foundation for cloud and edge scale units is a hybrid multi-node topology for Supply Chain Management. We have evolved the Dynamics 365 architecture into a loosely coupled system that runs selective business processes in a distributed model. Scale units are the environments that run those business processes, where all computation capacity is reserved for the processes and data in the assigned workloads.
Workloads define the set of business processes, data, and policies including rules, validation, and ownership that can run on scale units. The preview capabilities include one workload for manufacturing execution and one for warehouse execution. These workloads bring the processes and data from the execution phase of the manufacturing and warehouse processes into the scale units.
Inbound, outbound, and other warehouse management processes for cloud and edge scale units have been split into decoupled phases for planning, execution, receiving, and shipping. Manufacturing processes are structured in a similar way for planning, execution, and finalization. Scale units take ownership of the execution phase.
After you configure the workload, the workers on the manufacturing or warehouse shop floor continue to go through the work and report results like they are used to, but now operate on the dedicated scale unit processing capacity.
The new Production Floor Execution (PFE) interface for manufacturing workers comes with a modern, touch-friendly user experience. It not only looks great but is also tuned for difficult illumination situations on the shop floor.
Plus, the PFE now supports Dynamics 365 Guides which can be used to guide users to complete tasks in the best possible way, especially in complex production scenarios.
The Scale Unit Manager helps you to configure scale units and define where workloads for selected manufacturing and warehouse facilities run.
In the future, the topology analysis page will show facilities, your Supply Chain Management hub, and your scale units. By looking at measures for bottlenecks, latency, and performance history you can identify the most beneficial applications for your scale units.
Dynamics 365 can help you build resilient supply chains in a multi-node topology using scale units in the cloud or on the edge. This is available now in public preview.
The post Boost supply chain resilience with cloud and edge scale units in Supply Chain Management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
Scammers use email or text messages to trick you into giving them your personal information. They may try to steal your passwords, account numbers, or Social Security numbers. If they get that information, they could gain access to your email, bank, or other accounts. Scammers launch thousands of phishing attacks like these every day — and they’re often successful. The FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center reported that people lost $57 million to phishing schemes in one year.
Scammers often update their tactics, but there are some signs that will help you recognize a phishing email or text message.
Phishing emails and text messages may look like they’re from a company you know or trust. They may look like they’re from a bank, a credit card company, a social networking site, an online payment website or app, or an online store.
Phishing emails and text messages often tell a story to trick you into clicking on a link or opening an attachment. They may
Here’s a real world example of a phishing email.
Imagine you saw this in your inbox. Do you see any signs that it’s a scam? Let’s take a look.
While, at a glance, this email might look real, it’s not. The scammers who send emails like this one do not have anything to do with the companies they pretend to be. Phishing emails can have real consequences for people who give scammers their information. And they can harm the reputation of the companies they’re spoofing.
Your email spam filters may keep many phishing emails out of your inbox. But scammers are always trying to outsmart spam filters, so it’s a good idea to add extra layers of protection. Here are four steps you can take today to protect yourself from phishing attacks.
Four Steps to Protect Yourself From Phishing
1. Protect your computer by using security software. Set the software to update automatically so it can deal with any new security threats.
2. Protect your mobile phone by setting software to update automatically. These updates could give you critical protection against security threats.
3. Protect your accounts by using multi-factor authentication. Some accounts offer extra security by requiring two or more credentials to log in to your account. This is called multi-factor authentication. The additional credentials you need to log in to your account fall into two categories:
- Something you have — like a passcode you get via text message or an authentication app.
- Something you are — like a scan of your fingerprint, your retina, or your face.
Multi-factor authentication makes it harder for scammers to log in to your accounts if they do get your username and password.
4. Protect your data by backing it up. Back up your data and make sure those backups aren’t connected to your home network. You can copy your computer files to an external hard drive or cloud storage. Back up the data on your phone, too.
If you get an email or a text message that asks you to click on a link or open an attachment, answer this question: Do I have an account with the company or know the person that contacted me?
If the answer is “No,” it could be a phishing scam. Go back and review the tips in How to recognize phishing and look for signs of a phishing scam. If you see them, report the message and then delete it.
If the answer is “Yes,” contact the company using a phone number or website you know is real. Not the information in the email. Attachments and links can install harmful malware.
If you think a scammer has your information, like your Social Security, credit card, or bank account number, go to IdentityTheft.gov. There you’ll see the specific steps to take based on the information that you lost.
If you think you clicked on a link or opened an attachment that downloaded harmful software, update your computer’s security software. Then run a scan.
If you got a phishing email or text message, report it. The information you give can help fight the scammers.
Step 1. If you got a phishing email, forward it to the Anti-Phishing Working Group at reportphishing@apwg.org. If you got a phishing text message, forward it to SPAM (7726).
Step 2. Report the phishing attack to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint.
The FTC’s new infographic (below) offers tips to help you recognize the bait, avoid the hook, and report phishing scams. Please share this information with your school or family, friends, and co-workers.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Original release date: November 24, 2020
With more commerce occurring online this year, and with the holiday season upon us, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) reminds shoppers to remain vigilant. Be especially cautious of fraudulent sites spoofing reputable businesses, unsolicited emails purporting to be from charities, and unencrypted financial transactions.
CISA encourages online holiday shoppers to review the following resources.
If you believe you are a victim of a scam, consider the following actions.
This product is provided subject to this Notification and this Privacy & Use policy.
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