This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
AI presents both a once-in-a-generation opportunity and a challenge to help every employee conquer the infinite workday.
The post How Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents help tackle the infinite workday appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.
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This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Callbacks are a powerful way to reduce wait times and improve satisfaction. They allow customers to choose when they want to be contacted, eliminate the frustration of long hold times, and help contact centers manage customer service representative (CSR) workloads more efficiently. When implemented thoughtfully, callbacks can increase first-contact resolution, reduce abandonment rates, and improve overall customer trust and loyalty.
With Dynamics 365 Contact Center’s CCaaS APIs, you can build intelligent callback workflows that respect customer preferences.
You can use this API to schedule the callback within the customer’s preferred time window.
Key Parameters:
Sample Request:
{
"ApiVersion": "1.0",
"ProactiveEngagementConfigId": "cbbac510-3e66-ef11-a671-6045bd03d9d8",
"DestinationPhoneNumber": "+123456798",
"ContactId": "761e062f-c734-ef11-8e4f-00224808a166",
"Windows": [
{ "Start": "2024-09-10T13:00:00Z", "End": "2024-09-10T15:59:59Z" },
{ "Start": "2024-09-11T13:00:00Z", "End": "2024-09-11T15:59:59Z" }
],
"InputAttributes": {
"type": "callback",
"customerNotes": "my printer is mixing colors"
}
}
When a customer visits your support or contact page, a callback widget can offer immediate or scheduled callback options based on business hours and queue configurations.
In industries like banking, insurance, or healthcare—customers often request help from their mobile app. Instead of routing them to a potentially long queue, the app can offer a “Call me now” (if it determines that the CSRs are available) or “Schedule a callback” option.
When a chatbot reaches the limits of its capabilities, it can offer a callback instead of transferring to a live CSR. The bot can schedule the callback using the proactive voice delivery API.
With CCaaS APIs, your IVR can detect when queues are full and offer a callback option to customers if the wait times are high.
By combining availability checks with scheduled callbacks, you can deliver callbacks that are timely, efficient, and customer friendly while optimizing CSR utilization.
To learn more, read the documentation: Use CCaaS_CreateProactiveVoiceDelivery API.
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This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
The way sellers sell will change dramatically due to AI. In the ever-evolving landscape of sales, technology has consistently played a pivotal role in shaping strategies and outcomes. Each technological disruption has brought challenges and opportunities, from the shift to cloud computing to the advent of mobile work and the rise of social media platforms like LinkedIn. Reflecting on past disruptions is critical to navigating the future more effectively as we face another transformative wave with Microsoft Copilot and agents.
See the latest offerings from Microsoft to help scale sales teams with Copilot and agents.
The transition from on-premises solutions to cloud computing was a monumental shift that redefined the sales landscape. Companies that embraced the cloud early on reaped significant benefits, including scalability, cost-efficiency, and enhanced collaboration. However, this transition was challenging.
To help ensure successful adoption across your organization, explore the Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales Success Kit to accelerate sales transformation with AI.
The introduction of mobile phones and the ability to work through apps revolutionized sales. It allowed sellers to access information, communicate with clients, and close deals from anywhere, any time. This mobility brought unprecedented flexibility and efficiency, but also introduced new challenges.
Explore tools, practices, and policies Microsoft has created to uphold responsible AI principles.
The rise of LinkedIn transformed sales by providing a platform for networking, lead generation, and brand building. Sellers that used social media platforms gained access to new leads and opportunities. However, the platform also presented new challenges.
Being an early adopter of Copilot and agents presents a unique opportunity to gain a competitive edge. Companies that embrace this technology can expect several benefits:
The lessons learned from previous tech disruptors provide a valuable roadmap for adopting Copilot and agents into your sales processes. By applying these learnings, companies can avoid common pitfalls and unlock the full potential of AI to drive growth and innovation. The future of sales is bright with the power of AI, and those who learn from the past will be best positioned to lead the way and succeed.
The post AI in sales: Applying historical lessons to modern challenges 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.
2025’s Gartner® CFO & Finance Executive Conference featured sessions and hands-on product demonstrations from finance and operations providers covering growth strategies, cost management tools, and of course, AI in finance. I’ve had the pleasure of attending for a few years now, and what struck me this year was the excitement and enthusiasm for not just learning about but applying agents and generative AI to financial processes. Based on the conversations I had with customers at the event, here are the three things finance leaders should know about getting started with agents and AI.
The journey to AI-powered finance doesn’t require a complete overhaul—it can start with targeted, high-impact steps that build momentum and deliver measurable value. Start with areas that are ripe for automation and deliver immediate impact to your team and bottom line. Financial close, account reconciliation, and supplier communications are ideal entry points using prebuilt agents available from Microsoft, like the Supplier Communications Agent in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, which can automatically respond to vendor emails, assess supply chain disruptions, and update purchase orders—helping to ensure continuity without manual intervention.
The breadth of agent possibility doesn’t stop with what’s available today as a prebuilt solution. Microsoft empowers finance professionals to build custom agents for ERP processes, applying automation and intelligence to critical processes, like the process at the heart of finance: record to report. Imagine the impact agents can have helping your team update tax strategies in a complex macroeconomic environment or surfacing real-time financial audits. Microsoft Copilot Studio agent builder provides a simple interface to quickly and easily build agents like the Financial Insights Agent, a tool designed internally for Microsoft to help finance professionals quickly surface and analyze key financial metrics. By using Azure OpenAI and semantic search, this agent allows users to ask natural language questions like “What’s my total operational expenditure (OPEX) as a percentage of expenses?” and receive instant, contextual answers. It can significantly reduce time spent on manual data retrieval and analysis while enhancing decision making with real-time insights. This agent exemplifies how AI can transform planning and analysis workflows, helping make finance teams more agile and strategic. Build your own agent here.
Create a dedicated team or initiative to explore, test, and scale AI use cases across finance. This “Center of Innovation” can serve as a hub for experimentation, governance, and best practices—helping ensure that AI adoption is intentional, secure, and aligned with business goals. Creating space for experimentation and testing means giving finance teams the freedom to test new tools, workflows, and ideas without the pressure of immediate perfection. It involves setting up low-risk environments, like sandboxes or pilot programs, where teams can trial AI agents, automate processes, and iterate quickly. This approach fosters a culture of curiosity and continuous improvement, allowing teams to scale what works and learn from what doesn’t.
Establishing a Center of Innovation was central to the growth and success of Microsoft’s own AI adoption. Microsoft Director of Modern Finance, Cory Hrncirik, joined the Microsoft session to share tangible examples of both AI adoption and the structures put in place to get us there.
As team members begin to shift from transactional to strategic roles, it’s imperative to equip your team with the skills required to work alongside AI. This could include training on prompt engineering for your function, data literacy, and how to manage and monitor AI agents.
Microsoft Copilot Studio offers a low-code environment where finance professionals can build and customize agents without needing deep technical expertise.
As agents take on more operational tasks, CFOs must define how humans and AI will collaborate. This includes setting clear roles, responsibilities, and oversight mechanisms. Think of your team as a hybrid workforce—where agents handle the repetitive and analytical, and humans focus on judgment, strategy, and innovation. Due to the sensitive nature of financial material, early collaboration on security and permissions with IT will be crucial to implementation and driving outcomes.
If you’re ready to start reimagining ERP processes with agents, learn more about the pre-built agents announced in April 2025, explore how the new Model Context Protocol servers for Dynamics 365 will accelerate the ability for customers to build agents, and visit “AI-Powered ERP Solutions” for more product information.
Want to dig deeper? Learn how your organization can benefit from using Dynamics 365 Finance and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in a three-year projection window1:
These benefits are grounded in real-world outcomes and are explored deeper in a Forrester Total Economic Impact study, commissioned by Microsoft. The study’s composite organization is modeled after interviews with Dynamics 365 customers, and the report explores how teams reported significant improvements in operations.
Source:
1The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP, Cost Savings And Business Benefits Enabled By Dynamics 365 ERP, a Forrester Total Economic Impact™ Study commissioned By Microsoft, April 2024
GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.
The post Get started with agents for finance: Learnings from 2025 Gartner® CFO & Finance Executive Conference 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.
Let’s face it—customers don’t just want fast service anymore. They want businesses to know what they need before they even ask. Whether it’s a reminder about a missed payment, a heads-up about a delivery delay, or a quick check-in after a dropped call, customers appreciate when companies practice proactive engagement.
At the same time, businesses are under pressure to do more with less. Reducing call volumes, improving customer service representative (CSR) productivity, and delivering consistent experiences across channels are no longer nice-to-haves—they’re essential.
That’s where proactive engagement comes in. It’s about flipping the script: instead of waiting for customers to reach out, you reach out to them—with the right message, at the right time, on the right channel. At the end of the day, it’s about relationships. Proactive engagement helps businesses show up for their customers in ways that are meaningful and memorable. It’s about being there before you’re needed. About solving problems before they become complaints. About turning every interaction into an opportunity to build trust. And in a world where customer loyalty is earned one moment at a time, that makes all the difference.
So how does it all work? At the heart of proactive engagement is a powerful platform built on Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ), and Copilot Studio. Together, they’re changing how organizations connect with customers.
With this platform, you can design intelligent, automated outreach that feels personal. For example, AI-powered voice bots can handle routine calls—like reminding someone about a payment or updating them on a service issue—while seamlessly handing off to a customer service rep when the situation calls for a more personal touch. And the best part? You don’t need to be a developer to make it all happen. The platform is designed with low-code tools. Business users can build and manage customer journeys across voice, SMS, and email—all from one place.
It’s flexible, scalable, and built for the real world, where customer needs change fast and every interaction matters.
There are two main ways to kick off outbound interaction. One is through Customer Insights – Journeys (CIJ). This is where you can build event-driven journeys that automatically trigger calls based on real-time signals—like a missed payment or a service disruption, or segment-based journeys that target customers that meet a specific criteria. The other is through the CCaaS API, which is perfect if you already have campaign tools or CRMs in place and want to plug into the platform for things like scheduled callbacks.
Once the trigger is set, Contact Center takes over. It handles the orchestration. That is, it figures out the best time to call, checking if the customer is within their preferred contact window. It also manages the pacing of calls so CSRs aren’t overwhelmed. It’s a seamless handoff and it ensures that every call feels intentional, timely, and relevant.
One of the most powerful aspects of proactive engagement is its flexibility, especially when it comes to placing calls. Additionally, it offers dial modes optimized for different types of customer interaction.
This is the most automated option. The system places the call, and a conversational AI bot—your Copilot—takes the lead. It’s perfect for transactional scenarios like payment reminders, service outages, or shipping updates. Copilot can handle the entire interaction. However, if it senses the need for a more nuanced conversation, it can seamlessly bring it to a CSR. It’s a major upgrade from traditional IVR systems, offering a more natural, helpful experience.
Here, the CSR is in the driver’s seat from the start. Before the call is even placed, the CSR gets a full view of the customer context—past interactions, preferences, and the reason for the outreach. Once they’re ready, the system dials the customer. This mode is ideal for high-touch engagements where personalization is key, like follow-ups on complex service issues or high-value sales conversations.
This mode strikes a balance between automation and human touch. The system waits until a CSR is available, then places a call to a customer. If the customer picks up, the CSR joins the conversation. It’s efficient, but still ensures that someone is ready to help the moment the customer answers. You can even use Copilot to verify the customer before the CSR joins, adding an extra layer of smart filtering.
The beauty of proactive engagement is its versatility. It’s a platform that spans the entire customer journey, not just for one department or one type of interaction. Think about a utility company sending outage alerts before customers even notice a problem. Or a bank reminding customers about upcoming payments. Or a retailer following up on an abandoned cart with a personalized offer.
Whether it’s transactional, commercial, or customer-initiated, proactive engagement makes it easy to deliver the kind of service that feels thoughtful, timely, and human.
Microsoft is continuing to invest in expanding the capabilities of proactive engagement to support even more sophisticated, scalable, and compliant outreach. One of the most exciting additions on the horizon is predictive dialing, designed for high-volume outreach—like marketing campaigns or large-scale service updates—ensuring CSRs stay productive while customers get timely responses. This mode uses AI to forecast CSR availability and customer pickup rates, allowing the system to place multiple calls per CSR to maximize efficiency.
Also on the roadmap:
To learn more, read the documentation: Configure proactive engagement (preview) | Microsoft Learn
Try the preview and ensure your organization stays ahead of customer expectations. Send your feedback to pefeedback@microsoft.com.
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Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
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