Across every industry, we’re all navigating the new world of hybrid work. Together, we’re building a blended model that enables more flexibility in when, where, and how people work, and that model is here to stay. But organizations can’t let flexibility turn into separate, disjointed work effortsthey must enable the entire organization to operate as one business, everywhere.

With Dynamics 365 + Microsoft Teams, we’re helping organizations achieve this goal, making it easier for people in any role or department to connect, communicate, and collaborate onbusinessfunctionsno matter when, where, or how they’re working.

The essentials for cross-organizational collaboration

As business leaders shape their hybrid workplace strategy, we believe there are four “collaboration essentials“ they must consider so they can work as one business, everywhere.

1. The new flow of workmust connect everyone, across every business function

In a world of hybrid work, digital collaboration should help broaden networks, not constrict them. That’s why we’re making it easier for any Dynamics 365 user to seek out diverse perspectives, learnings, and insights from anywhere within the organizationbetween sales and engineering, marketing and finance, retail frontlines, and customer service.

Dynamics 365 users will soon be able to inviteanyMicrosoft Teams user from across the organization to view and collaborate on business records right within the flow of a Teams chat or channel. Thisenables everyone in the organization to directly contribute to business activities in the moment, without needing to switch context across multiple apps and data sources.

Organizations are taking full advantage of this opportunity. Insurance brokerage and advisory company Willis Towers Watson plans to put the powerful combination of Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales in the hands of the whole company so that anyone from sellers to service agents can share and collaborate from within Teams or Dynamics 365 Sales without switching apps. At Rockwell Automation, a worldwide company dedicated to industrial automation and digital transformation, sellers and sales leaders have access to Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams so that they can collaborate with other sellers and groups across the company.

2. Teams must be able to connect everywhere, anytime, on every channel

In the pre-COVID world, collaboration was largely synchronouswith team members working on a problem at the same time, either in person or in a virtual meeting. But today, collaboration must be asynchronous as well. In addition to the ability to meet live on video, employees also need the ability to share customer records, service cases, or workflows with any expert in the organization, in the flow of their work in Dynamics 365and enable that expert to add value from anywhere, at any time.

For example, organizations can enable asynchronous collaboration by embedding chatbots in the flow of work.With new chatbot capabilities in Dynamics 365 Human Resources,employees can view time-off balances and submit leave requests from within Teams, without having to visit a separate HR portal. Employees simply type in a few keywords, and a chatbot can easily help them find out their leave balance or request time off. Managers can just as easily review and approve time-off requests with just a few clicks. With this self-service experience, employees and managers can work together on simple HR tasks from anywhere, at any timeall from within the flow of work with Teams.

Every organization, large and small, needs to bring collaboration into the flow of work. With Dynamics 365 Business Central, small and medium businesses can also connect people, processes, insights, and cross-functional team collaboration to make better decisions faster. Now in preview, Business Central users can paste a link to any Dynamics 365 record into a Microsoft Teams chat, and it will expand that into a compact card to share with coworkers. They can view card details, edit data, and take action without ever leaving Teamsin the office, at home, or on the go. In addition, users can look up business contacts, vendors, and customers that can be shared into chat, or used to bring up rich, actionable details in a window in Teams.

3. Collaboration must go beyond the office

Our research shows that remote work increased interactions with immediate teams and close networks, but dramatically diminished interactions with more distant networks. This is a worrying trend for business leaders, potentially leading to problems like groupthink or employee isolation. Dynamics 365 and Teams help organizations bring every network closer together so that those closest to the problem can access the people and information they need to spur innovation, wherever they are located.

On the retail frontlines, for example, it’s critical to have the most accurate product and inventory information on hand, as well as coordinate important tasks to keep stores running efficiently. New task management functionality now available in Dynamics 365 Commerce allows managers and workers to create task lists, manage assignment criteria, and track task statuses integrated between Dynamics 365 Commerce back office, store commerce, and Teams applications.

Mattress Firm, one of the country’s largest specialty mattress retailers,provides retail associates with Microsoft Surface Go devices that integrate Dynamics 365 Commerce and Office 365 apps. The mobile point of sale system can enable them to engage better with guests while accessing experts and sales information in Teams, all in real–time.

Collaboration happens in the moment, between anyonefrom the home office to the factory floor to oil platforms.For example, in the coming months, we’re introducing new ways for field technicians to stay connected to work orders, information, and experts in real-time, even from some of the most remote job sitesall with seamless integration between Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Remote Assist, and Teams.

Saint-Gobain, a global leader in the manufacturing of sustainable, high-performance building materials, uses Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist with HoloLens and Teams to help its process experts virtually troubleshoot equipment in its factories around the world, as well as train technicians faster. And frontline workers based at offshore Chevron platforms use a HoloLens mixed reality headset equipped with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist and Microsoft Teams to connect with colleagues onshore and perform virtual safety measures.

4. The new world of work must be personalized

In addition to improving the way people work together across the organization, collaboration should improve how individuals and departments engage with end customersenabling everyone to deliver more personalized experiences. In a world of hybrid work, it’s clear that virtual events will remain a key method for engaging with customers, and customer expectations for a personalized experience have risen.

This year, marketers will be able to 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.

One business, everywhere: Collaborate in the flow of work

As the definition of workplace continues to evolve, every organization needs to bring people, insights, and business processes together in collaborative spaces. These four essential capabilitiesbuilt into Dynamics 365 and Teamswill help everyone across your business work together from anywhere in a more seamless and natural way.

Learn more

• Website: Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams
• Microsoft Teams tech blog (Ignite 2021): What’s New in Microsoft Teams
• Dynamics 365 blog (Ignite 2021): Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Teams: extend collaboration across teams
• Dynamics 365 blog (Inspire 2021): Bring Dynamics 365 into the flow of work with Teamsat no additional cost
• Microsoft 365 blog (Inspire 2021): From collaborative apps in Microsoft Teams to Windows 365here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365 at Inspire

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Since the onset of the digital age, customer behaviors have radically evolved. As new technology emerges, customers’ expectations for brands continually align with digital evolution. However, the pandemic has brought along a significant, unexpected shift in both customer behavior and expectations. With lives upended and livelihoods being affected around the world, consumers have been forced to adopt completely new behaviors. This evolution was brought on through a trial by fire, throwing a decade’s worth of digital adoption in just a few months, which not only affected consumer behavior in digital spaces, but across brick-and-mortar as well.

Watch the customer journey orchestration webinar to learn more.

Emerging digital trends

So, what does this mean for brands looking to align with consumer trends? Today’s consumers perceive technology optimistically, as an intimate lifeline. They like to try new things and shop on a trial basis, while also looking for novelty. This demonstrates their desire for a sense of personal control and empowerment. While many of the former mentions aren’t surprising, one of the most interesting trends emerge from the pandemic is that consumers no longer distinguish between material life and immersive digital experiences, clearly a knock-on effect of the majority of the global population operating from home. Abandoning ingrained shopping habits, consumers are forcing businesses to innovate into the digital-first marketplace in real time.

The modern digital consumer demonstrates:

• Willingness to experiment
• Self-efficiency
• Information savviness
• Digital and physical integration
• High device usage

The effect of the pandemic

However, the wow factor of new technology alone isn’t enough to engage consumers like it used to be. People are now more discerning and skeptical, and this has never been more pronounced than with the changes in consumer behavior brought on by the pandemic. Today’s customers expect brands to understand them and their needs, and the pandemic has caused a major shift in what those perceived needs are. A consumer’s last best experience becomes their expectation. Brands looking to stay ahead of competitors absolutely must shift their own approach to customers based on these emerging trends.

Brands need to shift and expand their tactics as they expect consumers to:

• Worry more, spend (less) in new ways, and save more.
• Be more ambivalent, contradictory, demanding, and mistrustful.
• Accelerate their digital behaviors and demand more from digital interactions.

The customer-obsessed model

The confluence of the modern digital behaviors with the anxiety-led behaviors brought on by the pandemic presents a significant challenge for brands looking to continue growing and meeting customer needs. That’s why brands must first become customer-obsessed and work toward building a new operating model. A customer-obsessed enterprise operates differently, focusing its strategy, operations, and budget on the customer. It must be customer-led, insights-driven, fast, ultra-nimble, and connected to meaningful data.

The first place to start is to assemble a holistic ecosystem:

• Recognition: Identity resolution at a personalized, individual level
• Context: History merged with real-time contextual insight
• Experience: Analytics to determine action, offer, content, or message
• Orchestration: Delivery and dialog management at the appropriate touchpoint
• Optimization: Insights for ongoing interactions and strategic planning

Looking toward the horizon

As new digital trends emerge and consumer behavior and expectations evolve, it’s critical for brands to evolve with them. For organizations to stay competitive, they must orchestrate a holistic end-to-end journey for each customer that adds value at every interaction and drives intent through seamlessly connected experiences in both the physical and digital worlds. To do so, many companies and industries are leveraging rich AI-powered segments and insights from Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights along with journey-orchestration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing.

Watch the customer journey orchestration webinar to learn more.

The post Make every interaction count with customer journey orchestration appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

With the back-to-school season just around the corner, school and university administrators, educators, parents, and students are preparing for another challenging year. The August release of Dynamics 365 education accelerator includes updated data model and sample apps that can help partner ISVs continue to build and deliver solutions for schools and universities.

In addition, the K-12 portal, an information hub built on Microsoft Power Apps, has been redesigned to make it easier for parents and students to track school activities and assignments. Plus, the release includes a data model aligned with Microsoft School Data Sync (SDS), an application offered with Microsoft 365 Education.

What’s new in the August release

• Higher education event marketing allows education institutions to leverage Dynamics 365 Marketing capabilities to reach students and families in meaningful ways.
• K-12 portal update includes an improved interface of the student portal for K-12 schools and a better experience for all users.
• School Data Sync (SDS) data model alignment makes it easier for partners to build connectors and for educational institutions to leverage the ability to flow data from SDS to Microsoft Dataverse.

Take advantage of event management capabilities in Dynamics 365 Marketing

With the August release of Dynamics 365 education accelerator, partners can leverage Dynamics 365 Marketing to bring the power of personalized communication and campaigns to education customers around the world. Partners will help customers enable targeted communication, direct customer journey, and ensure ongoing engagement with their institution.

This capability can be used to build campaigns for a variety of school events, including back-to-school orientation, family night, or school tours. Schools and universities can create events where participants can register and communicate with the institution, and schools can view attendance. Best of all, this capability is completely flexible for partners to customize.

Improved usability of the K-12 student portal

The K-12 student portal has received a design uplift to improve user experience.

School Data Sync (SDS) data model alignment transforms data gathering

School Data Sync (SDS), an offer from Microsoft 365 Education, reads rosters from most Student Information Systems (SIS) and creates classes and groups in Microsoft Teams, Intune for Education, and third-party applications.

By aligning the data model between the education accelerator and SDS, we will enable the possibility for customers already using SDS to leverage the powers ofDataverse, the Common Data Model for Education, and Power Platform.This is transformational from how data was gathered before and allows partners to build specific connectors for their customers.

Eduphoric is one such partner, and we are excited to see how customers will benefit from this work. According to Pamela Knott, Eduphoric’s director of education technology, harnessing the advantages of the Power platform help ” educators to support more students, more effectively in less time.” Knott says Eduphoric’s Learning Team solution ” aggregates attendance, behavior, course performance, wellness, and tech readiness data into one holistic student profile so that teachers, counselors, administrators and support specialists can identify struggling students and work together to get them back om track.”

What other partners are saying about Dynamics 365 education accelerator release

Microsoft’s partners who have seen a sneak peek are excited about the power and flexibility the August release provides:

• Thomas Manders, managing director for Coffee + Dunn: “With many of our clients in the education space, we understand schools’ needs to increase communications efficiency, improve the student relationships and innovate for the future of education. Serving as a robust foundation, the accelerator helps schools eliminate data silos, enable powerful insights and act on these insights to deliver exceptional student and alumni experiences. As a partner, we can help our clients achieve these goals much faster than starting organically.”
• Shekar Kadaba, chief experience officer for Frequency Foundry: “Over the last couple of releases, the Industry Accelerator team had responded to the market need for supporting and engaging students in different learning modes by adding additional functionality to support the student lifecycle. We see that envelope being been further pushed with the latest release.”

• Dr. Jennifer Beyer, vice president of product management for Anthology: “Our college and university partners have been able to leverage D365 Marketing as part of our solution to increase their intentional connections with their students whether it is driving them to complete their admissions application or keeping current students on track.”

Next steps

We encourage you to register andtest drive the education accelerator. You can accessGitHubto try out the solution, data samples, Power BI examples, and more.

If you have any questions,don’t hesitate to reach out to our team.If you’re a partner working in the higher education space and want to use the accelerator and help shape the next version of it, pleasereach out to us.

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Today we are excited to announce the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management, a cloud-based solution that helps accelerate omnichannel transformation from order intake through orchestration to fulfillment.

Increasingly, consumers expect seamless omnichannel buying and after-purchase experiences with multiple fast delivery options. Companies are responding to this challenge by adopting solutions to centrally manage the entire order lifecycle from the time their customers place the order to the time it is delivered. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management enables organizations to adapt quickly and meet future order and fulfillment complexities while supporting contemporary methods like buying online or from an app for in-store or curbside pickup.

With Intelligent Order Management, business professionals gain real-time cross-channel inventory visibility and advanced analytical capabilities for better decision-making processes. Using AI-powered order insights, they can re-model and orchestrate the order fulfillment journey with easy-to-use drag and drop tools, and proactively overcome bottlenecks all while driving efficiencies across the supply chain to ensure that their customers’ needs are met on time and cost-effectively.

Order fulfillment becomes a competitive advantage

According to Statista, “In 2019, the same-day-delivery market in the United States amounted to 5.87 billion U.S. dollars. By 2024, this market is forecasted to reach 15.6 billion U.S. dollars. Same-day delivery in e-commerce in the U.S. is one of the most requested services.”

At Microsoft, we view this rise in demand for same-day delivery as an opportunity for businesses to turn order management into a competitive advantage. With Intelligent Order Management, we are providing businesses with the ability to meet these growing digital commerce needs by automating and optimizing fulfillment using real-time omnichannel inventory data supported by AI and machine learning.

Learn more in this webinar: Turn order fulfillment into a competitive advantage.

Configurable, not coded

According to Gartner, “by 2023, 50 percent of medium to large enterprise will have adopted a low code application program (LCAP) as one of their strategic application platforms.” In responding to the trend toward low-code/no-code (LC/NC) applications, our solution is designed to be configured, not coded, making it a more modern open platform. Moreover, it allows users to proactively overcome disruptions by reconfiguring order flows using a powerful but simple drag and drop interface. With these tools, users can rapidly deploy and scale with the latest fulfillment methods by leveraging pre-built connectors to various ERP, order intake, fulfillment, and delivery partner from our growing ecosystem.

Learn more in this short video introduction:

Solution architecture

One of our objectives with Intelligent Order Management is to enable order intake from a variety of sources and pass them through the order orchestration, and process layers within the application. Intelligent Order Management’s event-driven order orchestration services then coordinate the events triggered by various APIs to different system connectors to make optimal fulfillment decisions. These decisions are continuously communicated and tracked for the entire order life cycle across all fulfillment partners and legal entities.

We also wanted to ensure that Intelligent Order Management could be used with other legacy systems within your business and since this is built on the Microsoft Power Platform, it enables us to deliver the low code, no code environment that users need to adapt quickly and respond intelligently to constraints and disruptions in the supply chain.

What’s next?

Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management allows companies to intelligently orchestrate fulfillment and automate order flows through a rules-based system with effective exception handling. Our groundbreaking solution also empowers business users with real rime visibility across inventory and order flows, and more importantly, provides the capability to quickly adjust and change any order path. Intelligent Order Management uses machine learning to learn how business users react to each exception and provide better recommendations each timehelping them achieve optimal stock levels and improve cash flow.

Ready to take the next steps with Intelligent Order Management? Get started today with a free trial. Or, to learn more, check out the top five reasons to transform your order management system with our e-book The Savvy CSCO’s Guide to Transforming Order Management.

1- “Same-day delivery market size in U.S. 2019-2024”, E. Mazareanu, May 12, 2021

2- Gartner Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, 30 September 2020, Paul Vincent, Yefim Natis, Kimihiki Lijima, Jason Wong, Saikat Ray, Akash Jain, Adrian Leow

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of the Gartner Inc., in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

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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 engaging customers today, we need to be heard above the noise, and we need to deliver creativity and uniqueness to each customer in the moments that matter. Customers are looking for value and for companies to address their needs on their terms. Companies now can start with a deep understanding of their customers and then act on this information to engage them and make them feel like they have a one-to-one relationship with the company. This approach is going from competitive advantage to expectation. The old segment-based approach to marketing automation is no longer adequate. In today’s marketing world, we need event-triggered communications to engage customers with personalized experiences. This extends well beyond traditional marketing practices and permeates deeper into your company beyond marketing teams.

After months of anticipation, we are thrilled to announce that thenew real-time customer journey orchestration capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing are now generally available to all businesses, beginning in select regions and rolling out worldwide in the months ahead.

Dynamics 365 Marketing is transforming the way both marketers and business users alike can elevate customer experiences, win customers, and earn their loyalty faster through personalized, real-time, customer-led interactions, all on a unified adaptable platform by making every interaction count.

“Creating an enterprise-wide common conversation that meets customers in their exact moment of need is core to a successful growth strategy. This is exactly what makes Customer Journey Orchestration in Dynamics 365 Marketing a compelling and important addition to the Dynamics suite. It is an intuitive solution to one of CX’s greatest challenges: learning from signals and responding beyond expectations,” Liz Miller, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Constellation Research.

And Dynamics 365 Marketing experiences get even better as you also use Microsoft’s customer data platform, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights makes it easy to unify customer data, augment profiles, and identify high-value customer segments. You can use profile and segment data in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to fine-tune your targeting and further refine your journeys to drive meaningful interactions.

We’ve partnered with Forrester Vice President and Principal Analyst, Rusty Warner, to create a webinar titled Customer Journey Orchestration: Make Every Interaction Count to frame this modern marketing landscape. It’s a must-see overview that lays the foundation to understanding changing customer expectations and how marketing technology must evolve to meet these needs.

We have several customers that are already using these capabilities to elevate experiences for their customers and transform their businesses. Here are some of their stories.

Starting with a deep understanding leveraging the power of data and AI

The European Forum Alpbach (EFA) is a platform that drives ideas for an empowered and democratic Europe. It brings together young people, leading scholars, thinkers, scientists, policymakers, business people, and civil society actors from Europe and from all over the world to engage and contribute to its mission of shaping a stronger Europe. EFA is an incubator of ideas and an initiator of action for the European continent.

Like many organizations, disconnected tools and processes inhibited EFA from interacting with members along the customer journeys they had envisioned. By using Dynamics 365 Marketing customer journey orchestration EFA was able to bridge the gap between their onsite and online customer experiences by pulling together those unconnected systems (i.e. CRM, payments, registrations, etc.) to create a complete end-to-end experience for their members.

“It’s fairly simple with this tool where we can trigger the communication to the user based on the actions they are taking such as processing a payment. We get data from different sources and based on this data, we can trigger actions in real-time. This is something that we couldn’t do before.” Mario Nurderscher, CRM Architect & Development Partner, European Forum Alpbach.

Using real-time event triggers and AI-powered channel optimization, EFA was able to orchestrate and automate ticket purchasing for their members. When a member purchases a ticket, a journey is triggered that orchestrates that member’s experience, including confirmation emails, real-time updates, and offers during the conference, etc. It was easy to create one journey with individual outcomes based on the actions of each member.

Triggering journeys based on events to respond in moments that matter

Leatherman, the originator and category leader in high-quality multi-tools, pocket tools, and knives, sought a solution to meet their growing D2C (Direct to Consumer) communication needs. With the objective to curate a more personalized customer journey and to create user experience continuity with their online store, Leatherman leveraged Dynamics 365 Marketing customer journey orchestration to deliver an end-to-end welcome journey for their new customers.

“[the Journey designer] is straightforward and easy to use, with an intuitive workflow layout. We have flexibility to trigger our journeys in multiple ways from our website and our other Dynamics products, and products from other vendors. The journey can also react to customer activities in real-time.”Liz Lee, IT Director, Leatherman Tool Group.

Using customer journey orchestration and Power Automate, the team at Leatherman was able to create a multi-touchpoint journey which allowed them to engage their customers across their commerce and marketing solutions using real-time custom events. This journey was executed every time a customer signed up or started to check out on their website. This allowed Leatherman to seamlessly activate new customers and to create opportunities for continued engagement along the way.

Hyper personalizing communications at scale to drive better outcomes

“When I first heard about CJO, I immediately thought about the potential efficiencies the product would offer. To say that I was exhilarated, would be an understatement. CJO in Dynamics 365 has allowed me to build significantly fewer segments and has automated deployments that used to take my team and I hours to do. Instead now, I get to spend that time focusing on what matters; mentoring volunteer leaders and getting our volunteers into the field.”Dustin Lynch, Team Rubicon Sr. Associate, Operations Support Mobilization.

Team Rubiconis a veteran-led disaster response organization that serves communities before, during, and after disasters and humanitarian crises by mobilizing their network ofnearly150,000volunteers who largely consist offirst responders andveterans.In addition to responding to natural disasterslike hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes,Team Rubicon has beenleading vaccination efforts to help combat the COVID-19 crises.

The impact that nonprofit Team Rubicon has made in hundreds of disaster relief operations is life-changing for the people and communities they serve. The Microsoft stack and Dynamics 365 are at the core of their operations, and over the past three years, they have continued to innovate tech to support, scale, and drive their missions. Their latest tech innovation comes from the work they’re doing with Dynamics 365 Marketing customer journey orchestration.

“The ability to communicate with our volunteers based on detected changes in our data and based on their actions in real time provides a huge boost to our volunteer experience. Having these notifications orchestrated reduces staffing requirements and allows our mobilization and communications teams to focus on more important tasks.” Ed Glover, Team Rubicon Technology Analyst.

By using real-time customer journey orchestration, Team Rubicon can not only re-confirm deployments, they can keep volunteers up to date with changing details such as meeting location, date or time updates.With CJO, they were able to reduce the overall number of segmentsmaintainedby35 percent and reduce the human effort to build,sendand monitorthese notifications byas much as8 hours per week. Team Rubicon is excited to expand the use of CJOto coveradditionalelementsof their overall communications strategy.

Orchestrating journeys that go beyond marketing to deliver a congruous experience to customers

One of the existing Dynamics 365 customers that have been evaluating and using real-time customer journey orchestration since its preview release is HP. The team at HP clearly knows that customer care goes beyond support. It’s about connecting the various customer interactions into a single, holistic experience that delights customers.

To achieve this, HP wants to provide both enterprise customers and home consumers with exceptional customer service. The company is working to enhance its support experience with Dynamics 365 Marketing customer journey orchestration. By providing a more personalized experience, HP keeps the customer experience positive and builds lifetime loyalty, while also reducing support call times and lowering operational costs.

“With customer-led journey orchestration in Dynamics 365 Marketing, our agents can gain a real-time, 360-degree view of each customer and their support experience.” Jibu Mathew, Project Manager, HP Inc.

With end-to-end journey orchestration, HP’s goal is to keep each customer informed throughout the customer support lifecycle. This is achieved by delivering a highly personalized and context-aware experience using multiple channels including SMS and email. As the customer’s support case proceeds towards resolution, the customer plus the case data are orchestrated in a unified, end-to-end journey. By bringing the customer and case data together, HP is able to deliver a consistent and highly integrated experience to their customers.

These are just a few examples of how businesses are evaluating and implementing solutions based on our new customer journey orchestration capabilities and how we are empowering customer experience-focused organizations to unleash the power of data and AI to deeply personalize customer communications so that every interaction counts in the moments that matter. When you build on our trusted and adaptable platform, the creativity and experience design possibilities are limitless and you can start using them today.

Learn more and get started

Join me over the next few weeks for a three-part blog series that will give us a deeper look into how businesses are already using customer journey orchestration and driving business value.

Until then, to learn more about how your organization can elevate your customer experiences, visit the Dynamics 365 Marketing webpage and sign up for a free trial to explore real-time customer journey orchestration and the other rich capabilities offered in Dynamics 365 Marketing.

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