As part of the latest updates, Microsoft is expanding on previous changes in Customer Service, which focus on delivering the best customer experience while also reducing the workload of customer service employees.
More possibilities in Customer Service reports
According to Microsoft’s latest announcement, administrators will gain the ability to expand the predefined data model in Power BI to create metrics that are perfectly tailored to the business needs of customer service departments.
This provides the ability to not only better sort data but also create even more clear and accurate reports that can now be enriched by introducing custom tables from Dataverse or any other data source.
Meanwhile, two minor improvements for customer service office workers have been available since October.
The first allows for the creation of footers in emails that are assigned not to the email author or person handling the email, but to the queue itself. This allows for the creation of multiple different signatures when the same person manages several different queues.
The second feature relieves agents handling chatbots. It is now possible to add slugs, or dynamic texts, to quick responses. All available dynamic text fragments are visible in one place, and adding them to the chat requires only a few clicks.
Strength in AI
The function of intelligent linking of substantive articles during a technical assistance conversation or chat based on the context of the case has also been changed. So far, an administrator could define two fields based on which AI searched for texts and materials with similar reports. Now the settings allow for defining up to 5 fields, which significantly increases the accuracy of the model and, as a result, proposes more suitable articles from the Knowledge Base. In addition, it is possible to introduce custom filtering rules, which allows for advanced personalization.
In the near future, artificial intelligence will also summarize conversations with customers. This will be possible both when the conversation is handed over to an agent by a bot and by another agent. The AI content will include details of the problem as well as all solutions tried so far.
A few smaller UI improvements await agents in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, which will certainly increase the convenience of work:
- Sessions and tabs are now displayed horizontally
- The tab bar appears only when using multiple tabs in the current session
- The site map has been improved to allow for grouping of areas
- Notifications in the application are now adapted to working in multi-session mode
- The handling of cards and sessions has also been improved under heavy load
Emails have also undergone improvements, where signatures have been changed to resemble more corporate business cards. What’s more, they no longer require manual data entry. The dynamic text will fill in automatically after the user logs into the system. All information used in the signature template for the entire organization will be retrieved from the consultant’s profile and inserted into the appropriate places without any interference from the email sender. In addition, the view of the mailbox itself is now also configurable, which can be personalized to the needs of a given department or even an individual consultant.
Faster, easier, better
The timeline allows not only for verification of the completion of successive stages, but also for providing customers with the fastest possible service at the highest level. Therefore, for some records or cases, it may be necessary to skip certain points or break down others into more detailed tasks. In such situations, the improved Dynamics 365 timeline wizard comes in handy, allowing the configuration of which stages should be displayed for each type of record. There is also an option to configure and display more than one timeline in the same form, which will definitely streamline the handling of non-standard or more complex inquiries.
Omnichannel has gained new significance this year due to several changes that will certainly be appreciated by anyone who needs to use customer service. The first is Microsoft’s ability to configure another communication channel, Apple Messages for Business. The second is the option to assign phone numbers directly to contact center agents. In this way, the customer always reaches the consultant who is handling their case and does not have to repeat the same information multiple times. This also shortens the time the consultant spends solving the problem, as all the latest information flows directly to them.
The real revolution that awaits us in 2023 is the end of waiting for a connection when many people are calling. The system will notify the caller of their position in the queue, and then propose a call back when it is their turn. Those who do not use the call back option, and the issue does not require an explanation from the consultant at that time, will be able to leave a voicemail.
Data at your fingertips
Standard reports on historical indicators can be filtered, but until now, filters had to be set every time the navigation panel was opened. Currently, the applied filters can be saved as a tab, so with one click we get exactly the data we need.
And soon, reports won’t have to be waited for, as many operations will be analyzed and reported in real-time. These will include, among others: the number of interactions with clients and available capacity, a list of current conversations from the last 24 hours, details of all cases and activities of a given agent from the last day, as well as the ability to refresh, pause, and resume the reporting period at any time.
Managers will also be able to better manage the queue of cases by assigning specific skills to agent profiles or entire groups. Based on the analysis of reports generated almost in real-time, it will be possible to introduce such changes that will allow for more efficient service and even distribution of cases. However, even such measures may not help in relieving the queue, so the improved management of scenarios in the event of overload of service agents will come in handy.
Field Service
As part of Wave 2 2022, Dynamics 365 Field Service users can expect several useful features. One of them is the ability to set maximum budgets for orders with a tolerance margin. If the cost of a service exceeds the established amount, both the service technician and the customer will receive a warning to take action and increase the budget. It is also possible to check the remaining amount and manage it at any time.
In addition, users will be able to create a service catalog dedicated to a particular customer. This ensures that work is always assigned according to the contract, and the customer will not be surprised by having to expand the scope of the contracted services or assign them to another company.
On April 1st, 2023, the previous scheduling table will be disabled. Until then, it is possible to switch between versions, and there will be a video tutorial in the application for those who are not yet familiar with it.