90 percent of companies say their existing systems for tracking customer journeys need improvement.

In today’s customer-centric world, customer data is a critical part of a company’s ability to serve up personalized, relevant experiences. Post-sale, data plays an equally critical role in providing customer service teams with the tools they need to provide speedy service, answer customer inquiries, and resolve post-sale issues smoothly and quickly. The challenge facing a majority of companies today is the ability to collect, analyze, and act on that data across their organizations.

In partnership with Futurum, we surveyed 1,000 global business leaders, technologists, marketers, and data and customer experience professionals, and identified the challenges and opportunities that best-in-class data practices afford customer experience (CX) leaders today. The findings of the report revealed what we had surmised going inthat companies are evolving their customer relationship management (CRM) technologies to meet changing customer expectations.

Shift to digital customer journeys

Companies are changing their operational mindset regarding customer experience. Our research shows that a whopping 85 percent of companies report that their customers are significantly more digitally focused than they expected, and it’s clear that companies need to shift their strategies in order to adapt. In the last two years, we’ve seen a seismic shift in how customers live, work, play, and shop online. Customer behavior has irreversibly changed. In fact, 96 percent of organizations say they’ve accelerated their digital transformation and/or technology deployments to keep pace with changing customer requirements, and that includes serving up a better customer experience.

Complexity abounds for customer experience transformation

Complexity is the name of the game in business today. If you’re involved in delivering better customer experiences, you’re likely nodding as you read that lineand we feel your pain. Today’s proliferation of channels through which customers interact with brands provides both opportunities and challenges. We are seeing this interaction via email, text, social media, apps, websites, and in-store communicationsand it can be more than a little overwhelming. The massive influx of data from these many touchpoints has added a level of complexity that we haven’t seen before. Our research shows that working with and properly managing data is easily one of the most difficult challenges companies face, and solving this challenge is of paramount concern.

But why does data add so much complexity? In order to be used effectively, data must be collected, cleaned, analyzed, and maintained in real timesomething that many organizations aren’t yet capable of doing, both from a tech stack standpoint as well as an internal skill set standpoint. Adding to that, organizations are also facing new challenges with the looming elimination of third-party data that’s been relied on to track customers, along with changing privacy regulations. There’s a shift happening, and organizations aren’t ready. In fact, 90 percent of companies in our research study reported that their existing systems for tracking customer journeys need improvement. But the good news is that there are solutions for that.  

Harness data and use it more effectively, customer data platforms are the solution

Companies looking to transform their customer experience don’t just need customer data for better customer engagements, they also need real-time data to inform those engagements. That data is of great value to the organization, but in order for it to deliver value, data needs to be centralized, easily accessible, and processed in a single source of truth. That’s where a customer data platform (CDP) comes in and why it’s truly table stakes for organizations today (and not just for marketers).

Best-in-class CDP solutions work to connect the organization as a whole to the data that is amassed so that it can be accessed and utilized by sales teams, marketing teams, customer service teams, commerce teams, and beyond. CDPs are the lifeblood of the organization, housing data, providing visibility as needed, and allowing employees throughout the organization to make data-driven decisions that serve up the very best in customer experiences across every touchpoint.

That’s where the right technology solutions can be game-changers. Real-time, actionable insights into customer experience are most likely to materialize from a CDP that centralizes user data and makes it available to everyone who engages with the customer journey. As the amount of data available has increased exponentially, the challenge becomes how to collect data in a manner that both enables actionable analysis but also protects customer trust.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights

Microsoft provides an enterprise-leading customer data platform.

Learn more

Ensuring customer trust and privacy to improve customer experience

Let’s talk about the roles that trust and privacy play in the overall customer experience. The collection and analysis of customer data is central to improving customer experience, but mounting privacy concerns surrounding data can threaten customers’ trust in the companies they engage with. Our research shows that while the speed of digitization and the necessity to respond with new solutions has led more than three quarters of companies to implement new technologies or programs, those technologies and programs might not be completely secure. A solid 51 percent of respondents in our study acknowledge they’ve experienced at least one customer data breach in the prior year, so unified data systems that reduce this risk are highly prized.

Changing regulations surrounding privacy and data protection also provide a consistent challenge. Our research showed that 88 percent of respondents expect to change their customer engagement strategies in order to adapt to future market and regulatory requirements. A CDP can help ensure compliance required by General Data Protection Regulation, California Privacy Rights Act, California Consumer Privacy Act, and other regulations designed to give customers more control over the personal information businesses collect about them. We expect to also see CDPs evolving to address the cookieless future that’s ahead of us and track customer consent as part of the functionality of the CDP.

Top 5 features in successful CDP solutions

As we’ve mentioned previously, our research showed an overwhelming number of companies feel like they don’t have the right tools in place to help them improve their customer experience. They need something betterand they know what they want.

Our study identified the top five most important features in successful customer-facing solutions. These include:

1. Integrated AI-based analytics
2. AI-based data classification
3. The ability to import data from multiple sources
4. Connection to social networks
5. Real-time actionable insights

Unfortunately, these are the same five areas in which respondents reported their existing customer data tools are lacking. 83 percent of those surveyed report they already use a CDP to provide a centralized source of record, 35 percent say they are still relying on piecemeal solutions that don’t offer real-time access to customer data. In order to effectively use technology to improve the customer experience they’re serving up, CX leaders require substantial improvement in the existing CDP solutions that they’re relying on.

CX leaders need a unified CDP that provides real-time access to customer data, and one that is easily accessible to multiple stakeholders throughout the organization. They also need a tool that ensures regulatory compliance and data privacy, putting customers at ease. This can help facilitate enhanced collaboration, actionable analysis, and the ability to put the insights gained from customer data to immediate use.

By offering a single source of truth for an organization, a unified CDP can enable enhanced collaboration across the entire organization (including sales, service, finance, and research and development) to address every part of the customer experience journey.

Learn more

In the full report, we’ve identified nine key insights that are shaping customer experience needs today, creating a clear roadmap for the future of customer data collection, storage, and analysis. The application of this knowledge stands to benefit companies and customers alike. You can download the full report here.

Looking for a CDP? Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Microsoft’s enterprise-leading customer data platform. Microsoft provides an enterprise-leading customer data platform.

End notes

Source: Nine Key Insights on Customer Data: Marketing Perspective, 2021 Futurum Research in partnership with Microsoft.

The post Microsoft and Futurum research: Discover insights to create experiences that customers love appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

An email signature concludes an email with style, professionalism, and branding. Customer service agents need to use their signature when emailing customers. Each agent has a distinctive style, however, and enforcing a standard pattern can be a challenge. With two new features in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, you can create signatures for your agents that consistently represent your organization’s brand and messaging.

Include dynamic content in a common email signature

We have added the ability to include dynamic placeholders in email signatures. Now you can easily create a common signature for multiple agents.

Dynamic signatures eliminate the need to maintain multiple signatures while bringing consistency to how agents sign off their emails. You no longer have to manually check to make sure agents are using a consistent pattern or train new agents to use a specific signature. With the magic of dynamic placeholders, agent information is automatically inserted with their signature.

Link an email signature to a queue to ensure consistent messaging

Agents often send email from a queue or a shared mailbox. Having a common signature in this scenario is necessary for most contact centers. Now it is possible to link a signature to a queue.

If you don’t want to link a signature to your queues, Dynamics 365 will continue to use the signature template of the queue owner.

Learn more

Watch a quick video introduction:

To find out more about using email signatures, read the documentation:

• Use an email signature – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
• Configure a default signature template for a queue | Microsoft Learn

The post New email signature features in Customer Service improve agent productivity appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Templates are a fast and easy way to send consistent, professional, preformatted email messages. They’re a time-saving feature that agents loveexcept when they forget the name of a template or have so many that quickly finding the right one becomes a challenge. Fortunately, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service now makes it easier to search your templates.

Search for email templates with any detail that you remember

You can now search your templates not only by title but also by subject, description, and even a word in the message body. You only need to remember a detail or two to save yourself from spending extra time scrolling and reading.

Filter the list of email templates

What if you don’t remember a lot of details about the template you need? The template selection page now includes out-of-the-box filters that you can use to narrow down the list. Your administrator can also add custom filters.

Easier on the eye

The template selection experience now allows you to switch between grid, tile, and list views. Your administrator can help define a default view. You can also preview a template in both zoomed-in and full-screen views.

Learn more

Watch a quick video introduction:

To learn more about using email templates, read the documentation: Insert email template while composing an email in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn

The post Find email templates faster in Customer Service appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

From automating work orders to leveraging mixed reality, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service continues to evolve to meet the growing changes of field operations and support seamless collaboration. Quality service is crucial to organizations remaining resilient despite uncertainty. Employees are working from remote or distributed locations, reducing the amount of personalized interaction. Customers are demanding self-service options that empower them to resolve issues.

As assets grow in complexity, remote monitoring of Internet of Things (IoT) devices continues to transform service from a cost center to a revenue generator. Changes in technologies that personalize the service experience, increase worker productivity, and optimize service operations elevate the frontline worker effectiveness and increase customer experience. These differentiators propelled Dynamics 365 Field Service.

It is with great pride that Microsoft shares its position as a Leader within the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management* for the third consecutive year.

We believe this placement recognizes Microsoft’s continuous investment and authority across our service solution and cloud functionality.

Gartner defines field service management (FSM) as a discrete market within the broader customer service and support software market. FSM suites support field service providers (FSPs) whose technicians travel to customer locations to provide installation, repair, and maintenance services for equipment and systems (consumer, commercial, or industrial). FSPs may also manage, maintain, and monitor these assets under a predefined service or maintenance contract.

What is Connected Field Service?

By using the power of IoT and cloud services, Connected Field Service enables organizations to transform the way they provide service from a costly break/fix model to a proactive, predictive service model. Organizations can respond faster through a combination of IoT diagnostics, scheduling, asset maintenance, and inventory on the same platform.

Through remote monitoring, technicians can quickly identify the equipment and the issueoften before the customer is even aware. IoT devices communicate with the field service management system, sending alerts to technicians about anomalies with the device. Remote field service technicians can quickly isolate the issue and sometimes resolve the problem by sending device commands or resetting the device without ever stepping foot on the customer’s site.

Clean Energy reaps value from Connected Field Service

Take, for example, Clean Energy,one of the largest providers of renewable natural gas. The company offers renewable natural gas as a transportation fuel, significantly reducing pollution and greenhouse gas caused by diesel and gasoline. It owns, operates, and maintains 550 stations across the United States and Canada. Clean Energy also develops renewable natural gas production facilities.

Reducing pollution is important to Clean Energy. Not to mention, the extensiveness of Clean Energy’s operation along with siloed data and applications created the need for specialized systems. Overcoming silos and meeting their pollution-reduction goal hinges on internal efficiency, anchored by a collaborative, well-integrated infrastructure. The company began its journey with Microsoft Dynamics 365 and now manages its environment using Dynamics 365. It also takes in and analyzes sensor data from its automated fuel stations using Microsoft Azure IoT and equipped its technicians with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Remote Assist.

Technicians are now empowered with data and can pull up information about their teams and the stations they’re managing. The analysis performed by Microsoft Azure IoT Central results in a request to generate a work order to Dynamics 365 Field Service. That data is then sent to the company’s Azure Data Lake for use in management reportingand eventually, to create the base for predictive analytics. And because the IoT sensors transmit status data, those technicians no longer get up in the middle of the night to drive long distances to inspect stations that don’t need ita contribution to greater job satisfaction.

With Connected Field Service, Clean Energy is achieving its efficiency and cost savings goals. During the past couple of years, it pivoted seamlessly to remote work, reducing travel with virtual training and supporta win for the planet.

Clean Energy is just one of many organizations that has reaped value from Connected Field Service and is harnessing its capabilities to build stronger, more collaborative, and proactive service delivery.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

This is where innovation meets what’s possible.

Learn more

The bottom line

Many service organizations consist of dispatchers answering service calls, putting customers on hold, asking the same questions repeatedly, while searching for the next available technician to dispatch. This process is inefficient, costly, and unsatisfying to the customer.

The world of field service is changing. Today, service organizations are evolving into profit centers, redefining business models, and creating powerful and fulfilling customer experiencesall supported by global edge solutions like Dynamics 365 Field Service.

We’re excited to be positioned as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant and are committed to bringing you the best and most featured field service application available. Depend on the multidimensional capabilities of Dynamics 365 Field Service to help you better personalize customer engagements, improve employee effectiveness, and optimize service operations now and tomorrow.

Read the 2022 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management report.

Learn more about:

• Dynamics 365

• Dynamics 365 Field Service

• Dynamics 365 Remote Assist

Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Field Service Management, Jim Robinson, Leif-Olof Wallin, 24 October 2022

*Gartner and Magic Quadrant are registered trademarks and service marks 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 Microsoft.

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 2022 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Field Service Management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service now offers voicemail as part of its omnichannel engagement capabilities. Currently in preview, voicemail can be a valuable component of your call queue management, as an overflow option on a voice queue or when a direct call to an agent goes unanswered.

Group and individual call queue management

When customers choose to leave a voicemail instead of waiting in a queue, the message is routed to the default group voicemail queue. Voicemail from any queue lands in the same voicemail queue, making it a one-stop shop for agents who triage voicemails from customers.

When customers call an agent on a direct inward dialing number and the agent isn’t available, they can choose to leave a voicemail. In this case, the message is routed to the default individual voicemail queue and pushed to the agent associated with the direct inward dialing number.

Both the group and individual voicemail queues start out with no agents assigned to them. Agents who are responsible for managing customer voicemails must be added to the group queue. Agents with direct inward dialing numbers must be added to the individual queue.

The voicemail greeting is an automated message that can be customized at the workstream level. If your call queue management includes a Power Virtual Agents bot, the bot can’t prompt customers to leave voicemail. Instead, the call must be escalated to an agent.

Agent experience

Let’s look at voicemail from the perspective of an agent who’s assigned to the default group voicemail queue. Noticing that a customer has left a voice message, you pick it from the Agent dashboard. Now assigned to you, the voicemail appears in your Activities view. You can also configure voicemails to appear in your Inbox view.

Opening the voicemail form, you can see the customer’s name or number, play back the voicemail, and read a transcript. After you take an action on the voicemail, you can close it. It becomes read-only and moves to your Closed work items view.

Learn more

To learn more about using voicemail as part of your call queue management, read the documentation:

• Use voicemail to manage inbound calls | Microsoft Learn
• Configure the inbox | Microsoft Learn

Not yet using Dynamics 365 Customer Service? Take a tour and get a free trial.

The post Add voicemail to your call queue management appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

It’s a simple truth of business: economic growth is cyclical. As companies across industries navigate a period of uncertainty, investments in people and technology should be strategic and decisive to help people do more with lessless time, less cost, and less complexity.

While reducing cost and complexity is often a primary factor when investing in business technology, doing more with less should be a step forward, not two steps backan opportunity to build a more resilient, agile business. 

In this first of a series of blog posts, we will explore how your teams can push forward in the headwinds of uncertainty and constant change. We’ll answer how doing more with less can empowerrather than restrictbusiness agility and growth.

How Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform help shore up your business to do more with less

To get started, let’s explore a few ways that Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform can reduce costs and complexity while empowering everyone in the organization to focus on superior customer experiences and operational excellence.

Lower your total cost of ownership

In times of uncertainty, the path forward is continued and accelerated innovation, especially for companies that run operations on a patchwork of on-premises technology solutions and services that are often redundant, siloed, duplicative, and costly to maintain. The migration from legacy systems to the cloud is now imperative, especially in a business environment that depends on speed, innovation, and accelerated business outcomes. A 2020 study conducted by Forrester Consulting, commissioned by Microsoft, revealed that a composite organization comprising interviewed customers realized an ROI of 109 percent over three years, fueled by savings on infrastructure refreshes, redundant enterprise resource planning (ERP) solutions, and consolidating support costs.¹

Our customers can realize significant operations efficiency and customer relationship management (CRM) savings with our unified platform, allowing them to do more with lessless time, cost, and complexity; while enabling more agility and innovation. In fact, organizations that adopt Dynamics 365 for CRM processes can save up to 50 percent relative to Salesforce.²With Microsoft Power Platform, organizations can further accelerate innovation and save up to 80 percent compared to other low-code development platforms.³

Reduce cost while improving efficiency on a unified business cloud

Dynamics 365 unifies customers and business data, relationships, and workflows in a single cohesive business cloud. This reduces complexity and brings new levels of efficiency, cross-functional engagement, and breakthrough customer experiences. Microsoft Power Platform works in tandem with Dynamics 365, or on its own, enabling everyone to build low-code solutions that contribute to the development process, multiplying their technical capacity and helping build amazing technical abilities across organizations.

A great example of these efficiencies in action is MVP Health Care. The nationally-recognized, regional not-for-profit health insurer replaced a makeshift CRM environment with Dynamics 365 to build a centralized member engagement platform, as well as adopted Microsoft Power Platform to optimize business processes, streamline workflows, and complete tasks. It expects to save USD6 million a year while standardizing processes, driving more member value, and promoting healthier communities.

Empower employees to drive agility and innovation

In challenging times, doing more with less doesn’t mean working harder or longer. It’s about having technology that amplifies what employees do best, so the organization can achieve more.

We’re integrating the digital tools people need to drive impact right within business applications for every function, from marketing, sales, and service to supply chain, finance, and operations. By connecting people, data, and streamlined business processes across the organization in the cloud, the workforce can truly do more with less.  

Unify data and use AI for proactive insights and automation 

We’ve invested heavily in AI to empower employees to be catalysts for impact, across every function, from marketing, sales, and service to supply chain, finance, and operations. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform empower employees to perform with clarity and focus thanks to predictive insights and guided workflows that help them act decisivelyall fueled by centralized data, predictive analytics, and AI.

Microsoft Power BI delivers self-service analytics at enterprise scale, reducing the added cost complexity and security risks of multiple solutions.  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales empowers sellers with sales intelligence that helps them deeply understand their customers for faster deal closure, including conversation intelligence that provides real-time selling guidance during sales calls. A recent Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) study conducted by Forrester Consulting found that for a composite organization, using Dynamics 365 Sales boosted seller productivity by 15 percent, resulting in $13.3 million in savings over three years.⁴

Westpac New Zealandone of the country’s largest banks transitioned to Dynamics 365 to create an enhanced customer experience and unlock innovation. As a result, thousands of its Dynamics 365 users are saving as many as 3,850 hours per week in process automation. The migration also improved data quality across the organization, further increasing efficiency.

In addition, sales teams can reduce errors and time spent manually entering data into a CRM, which can lead to inaccuracies and reporting errors. Microsoft Viva Sales automates the capture of customer data into the CRM and then delivers insights from that data to help guide the next best actions.

Within the supply chain, AI can monitor complex systems around-the-clock to help identify and predict issues across the supply chain before they create disruptions. Specialty coffee roaster and retailer, Peet’s Coffee, is one market leader benefiting from greater visibility across the supply chain. During the COVID-19 pandemic, sales rapidly shifted from retail stores to Peet’s online store. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management empowered the team at Peet’s Coffee with reliable, real-time data and insights enabling it to maintain a 98 percent fill rate on its growing e-commerce business.

A Forrester study identified several impact areas enabled by Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, including increased production volume, reduced downtime, improved quality, reduced infrastructure cost, and increased developer productivity. For example, a composite organization based on interviewed customers consolidated its footprint saving $11 million over a three-year time horizon. The organization also increased production throughput, resulting in $24.3 million in savings and reduced downtime of business-critical production equipmenta value of more than $1.5 million over the same time period.⁵

Boost collaboration to amplify business outcomes

As many workplaces become more decentralized, it’s both critical and more challenging to foster a culture of collaboration. The most recent Microsoft Work Trend Index Annual Report revealed that, since February 2020, the average Microsoft Teams user saw a 252 percent increase in their weekly meeting time and the number of weekly meetings has increased 153 percent.

Collaboration is seamlessly integrated with business workflows across Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft 365including Teamsso people can collaborate more effectively with anyone, on any business or customer record, within the tools used to manage workflows.

A sales team can close deals faster by understanding signals from the marketing department around demand generation. Service agents on complex cases can view a list of AI-matched experts and “swarm” this issue togetherrapidly troubleshooting the issue and compiling steps to resolve it.

Gibson Brands, the most iconic guitar brand, brought together cross-functional teams with Dynamics 365 and Teams, helping the company to simplify internal processes and create more immersive customer experiences across retail, direct sales, and dealer networks.

Democratize cloud-scale innovation

Finally, Microsoft Power Platform enables anyone, from pro to citizen developers, to create digital solutions to solve problems, reducing the cost and burden on IT teams to develop solutions. A Forrester Consulting study revealed that a composite organization based on surveyed Microsoft customers can realize an additional ROI of 140 percent over three years with Microsoft Power Platform’s premium capabilities.⁶

During the pandemic, the City of Ottawa streamlined the delivery of news and information to citizens by deploying a chatbot solution using Microsoft Power Virtual Agents, hosted on the Ottawa Public Health (OPH) website. In just six months, the bot recorded more than 50,000 conversations, saving the call center an estimated 4,000 hours of phone time. The numbers translate to a savings of about CA$240,000, or the redeployment of 2.5 full-time city employees to more mission-critical tasks at OPH.

We’re committed to your success

Whether you’re planning to migrate, optimizing your current investments, or exploring ways to innovate with Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform, we’re here to help you.

In future installments of this blog series, we’ll dig deeper into opportunities to streamline across your four primary functional areas: customer experience (sales and marketing), service, finance, and supply chain.

Do more with less with Dynamics 365

Learn how you can reduce organizational costs and complexity.

Start today

End notes

¹Total Economic Impact™ of Migrating from Microsoft Dynamics AX to Microsoft Dynamics 365 in the Cloud (July 2020), a Microsoft-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. Results are over three years for a composite organization based on interviewed customers. Examples shown are based on various customer outcomes and will vary depending on your specific scenario.

² Savings estimated based on US pricing for Salesforce and Microsoft offerings as published on their websites. Microsoft internal research, September 2022.

³ Savings estimated based on publicly available Power BI and Power Apps US pricing for 250 representative user licenses compared with major competitor offerings.

⁴The Total Economic Impact™ Of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales (March 2022), a Microsoft-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. Results are over three years for a composite organization based on interviewed customers.

⁵The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management (August 2021), a Microsoft-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. Results are over three years for a composite organization based on interviewed customers.

⁶The Total Economic Impact™ of Microsoft Power Platform Premium Capabilities (August 2022), a Microsoft-commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting. Results are over three years for a composite organization based on interviewed customers.

The post Essential ways Dynamics 365 and Power Platform help you do more with less appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.