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Today at Microsoft Build 2025, we announced Microsoft 365 Copilot Tuning—a new, low-code capability in Microsoft Copilot Studio for every organization to tune AI models using their own company data, workflows, and processes—all without needing a team of data scientists or weeks of work.
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In an asynchronous chat setup, it’s common for service representatives to place conversations in a waiting state — For example, they are waiting for the customer to respond with additional details. Now, supervisors using Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Dynamics 365 Customer Service can easily monitor these waiting conversations
With this enhancement, supervisors can now monitor these waiting state conversations directly from the Omnichannel real-time analytics dashboard in the Copilot Service workspace. This capability gives supervisors full visibility into waiting conversations. They can review conversation transcripts and take appropriate action, such as transferring the chat to another available service representative, without needing to interrupt the flow of the conversation.
Improving insights for supervisors
Take the example of Contoso Health, a leading insurance provider. Lorenzo is a contact center supervisor at Contoso Health, responsible for ensuring smooth operations across their customer service team. Sara, a customer service representative, is chatting with a customer about an insurance claim. She asks the customer to upload documents and places the conversation in waiting as the customer requires some time to gather the required files. Post that, Sara waited for an hour for the customer to respond and ended her shift for the day.
Previously, Lorenzo would have no visibility into this conversation unless Sara reopened it or he transferred it to himself. But with this new capability, Lorenzo can simply head to the Omnichannel real-time analytics dashboard in the Copilot Service workspace, click Monitor for that conversation, and view full details. He can see the chat transcript, current status, and time elapsed.
This helps Lorenzo quickly assess if the conversation is progressing well, or if the customer might need additional help. If Sara is on vacation or unavailable for an extended period, Lorenzo can transfer the conversation directly to another available service representative — ensuring the customer doesn’t have to wait until Sara returns.
Monitoring waiting state conversations helps businesses ensure higher service quality, better monitoring of service representative responses, faster customer response times, and more efficient supervisor workflows in async channels.
Learn more about monitoring waiting state conversations
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Automated assignment in unified routing enables organizations to efficiently direct customer queries to the most suitable service representatives. To ensure swift response to customers, organizations can use the presence-based assignment functionality to select and deploy the best available service representative for the work. This blog talks about a few scenarios wherein we can make use of presence-based assignments.
Service representative presence
The availability indicator, or presence, represents different stages of service representative availability:
Available: Not engaged in any customer conversations.
Busy: Managing a few customer conversations but still has capacity for more.
Do Not Disturb: Fully occupied with customer conversations and cannot take any more.
Offline: Service representative is disconnected or logged out from the customer service platform.
Away: Indicates the service representative is on a break but still connected to the customer service.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service updates the service representative’s presence in real time based on their capacity utilization and connection status. Additionally, service representatives can also set their presence manually to accurately reflect their availability.
Presence based service representative assignment
Organizations can use these presence statuses to choose the appropriate service representative for a customer query. Depending on their business use cases, they can configure the routing system to select service representatives who are either fully available, those with some capacity, or simply those who are online (excluding service representatives with away or offline statuses).
Option 1: By utilizing the Allowed presences setting in the workstream, they can configure which presence statuses qualify service representatives for work assignment.
Option 2: Organizations can also write custom assignment rules and set assignment conditions based on the service representative’s presence. Conditions can be static, such as “Service representative presence should be available or busy.” They can also be dynamic, like “Service representative presence should match one of the allowed presences defined in the workstream.”
Note: The default assignment methods such as Highest Capacity, Advanced Round Robin, and Least Active Routing (for voice queues) automatically select service representatives whose presence aligns with the allowed presences list.
Example of presence-based assignment
Sara is a director of customer service at Contoso Health, managing a large support organization that serves more than 20 product lines and includes over 5000 service representatives globally.
Scenario: Sara wants to assign ‘Emergency’ chats to service representatives who are completely available to ensure quicker resolution.
Configuration: ‘Allowed presences’ setting in the Copilot Service admin center to specify that only service representatives with the ‘Available’ presence status can be assigned the chats from the ‘Emergency’ workstream.
Scenario: For the email queues, Sara prefers to select service representatives who are online. If none are available, the system should then consider other service representatives in the queue.
Configuration: Sarah sets up a custom assignment ruleset for the email queue. In the first rule, she specifies that only service representatives with a presence status of ‘Available’ or ‘Busy’ should be considered. In the second rule, she broadens the criteria to allow assignment to any service representative in the queue, regardless of their presence.
Additional use cases: Sara can easily detect unavailable representatives whose presence status automatically switches to Do Not Disturb (DND) when their capacity is fully utilized. Additionally, she can also configure the system to update representative’s availability based on their response to assignment notifications and prevent work from being assigned to the ones who miss or reject these notifications. Refer to Missed or Reject notification features for more details.
In a world of high-volume customer service requests, organizations can use presence-based assignment to match incoming work with the most suitable service representatives, while steering clear of unavailable or offline ones. Leveraging this capability also enhances the service representative productivity by offering them greater control over their availability and workload management.
Learn more
For more information about unified routing, automated assignment, and service representative presence in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, read the documentation:
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Maintaining adherence to schedules and ensuring that service representatives are consistently available during their shifts is crucial for delivering exceptional customer service. The Adherence Tracker in Dynamics 365 Contact Center helps organizations monitor and manage service rep activities effectively, leading to improved performance and customer satisfaction.
This powerful Contact Center feature allows supervisors to track the adherence of service representatives to their scheduled shifts. It provides real-time visibility into whether representatives are adhering to their assigned schedules, including breaks, training, and other activities.
Key features of the Adherence Tracker
Real-time monitoring: Real-time adherence monitoring involves continuously tracking service representatives’ activities against their scheduled bookings for the current day. This enables supervisors to quickly identify and address deviations, ensuring optimal productivity and compliance with schedules.
Metrics: Track adherence percentage, total scheduled time, time in current state, and time out of adherence.
Adherence Tracker: Use a visual Gantt chart to show reps’ activities on a timeline with near real-time data for immediate oversight.
Integration with Schedule Calendar: The Adherence Tracker seamlessly integrates with the service rep Schedule Calendar. It provides a comprehensive view of adherence alongside scheduled activities.
Benefits of using the Adherence Tracker
Improved performance: By monitoring adherence in real time, organizations can ensure that service representatives are consistently available during their shifts. Consequently, contact centers see improved performance and customer satisfaction.
Enhanced accountability: The tool promotes accountability among service representatives by providing visibility into their adherence to schedules.
Data-driven insights: Detailed reporting and analytics help organizations identify patterns and areas for improvement, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Operational efficiency: Actively tracking adherence and taking timely corrective actions help prevent adherence issues from impacting service operations. As a result, contact centers experience smooth and efficient workflows.
The Adherence Tracker in Dynamics 365 Contact Center is an essential tool for organizations looking to boost their team’s performance and maintain high standards of customer service. By providing real-time monitoring, this feature empowers supervisors to manage service reps effectively and drive continuous improvement.
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Efficient workforce management involves flexibility in shift assignments, enabling service representatives to maintain work-life balance and ensuring consistent operational coverage. Dynamics 365 Contact Center provides robust solution for shift swapping and shift bidding, empowering service representatives with greater control over their schedules while helping managers easily manage staffing.
Shift swapping
Shift swapping enables service representatives to exchange shifts with their colleagues, providing additional flexibility in managing their schedules. This feature helps representatives accommodate unexpected changes in their availability while ensuring that service operations remain uninterrupted.
Shift swapping can be private, where a representative trades directly with another colleague, or public, where a representative posts the shift to the entire team and anyone interested can offer the trade.
How shift swapping works
Shift exchange request: A service representative initiates a shift swap request with a colleague (private) or posts the shift to the team (public).
Approval workflow: The colleague reviews the request and approves or declines the swap (private) or team members offer the trade (public).
Supervisor approval: Supervisors review the swap request to ensure it aligns with operational requirements and approve or decline the swap.
Schedule update: Approved swaps are automatically updated in the service representative’s schedule calendar.
Shift bidding
Shift bidding allows service representatives to bid for preferred shifts based on their availability and preferences. This feature promotes flexibility and employee satisfaction by letting them choose shifts that best align with their personal needs. The bidding process is transparent and fair, ensuring that all representatives have an equal chance to secure their desired shifts.
How shift bidding works
Shift availability: Supervisors create and publish available shift plans for bidding.
Bidding process: Service representatives submit their bids for preferred shifts within the specified timeframe.
Approval: Supervisors review the bids and approve shifts based on the business conditions.
Schedule update: Approved shifts are automatically updated in the service representative’s schedule calendar.
Benefits of shift bidding and swapping
Enhanced flexibility: Shift bidding and swapping provide service representatives with greater control over their schedules. This results in better work-life balance and job satisfaction.
Improved productivity: By allowing representatives to choose and exchange shifts based on their availability, organizations can ensure that their workforce is motivated and productive.
Operational efficiency: The transparent and streamlined processes for shift bidding and swapping help supervisors manage schedules effectively. Consequently, they can ensure adequate coverage for the shifts.
With shift bidding and swapping in Dynamics 365 Contact Center, organizations can effectively balance operational efficiency with employee needs. These capabilities not only promote workforce agility and satisfaction but also support consistent service excellence, creating a dynamic and responsive work environment.
Learn more
To learn more about agent shift bidding and swapping in Dynamics 365 Contact Center, read the documentation:
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