New Dynamics 365 Contact Center to transform the customer service experience, says Microsoft

Microsoft’s new Copilot-first contact centre solution, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, will “transform service experiences” when it becomes generally available on 1 July 2024, according to Jeff Comstock, corporate vice president of Dynamics 365 Customer Service. 

Dynamics 365 Contact Center provides generative artificial intelligence-powered capabilities to increase the efficiency of the customer support workflow. They span all channels of communication, self-service, intelligent routing, agent-assisted service and operations, helping agents to solve problems faster, while reducing costs. The contact-centre-as-a-service solution, which is built natively on the Microsoft cloud, can connect to preferred customer relationship management systems or custom applications, enabling organisations to maximise their existing technology investments.  

The solution uses interactive voice response technology from Nuance and Microsoft Copilot Studio’s no-code/low-code designer to provide customers with individualised experiences powered by generative AI. Incoming customer requests are directed to the agent best suited to help and they receive a 360-degree view of the customer to enable more contextualised and personalised interactions.  

The agent also has access to generative AI-powered tools to improve the conversations in real time, such as automated case summaries, sentiment analysis, draft emails and suggested replies. Copilot can also answer agent questions using trusted knowledge sources. 

Microsoft’s own customer service and support (CSS) team has already achieved a 31 per cent increase in first call resolution after using Dynamics 365 Contact Center. Previously, the CSS team used 16 different systems and over 500 individual tools, which slowed down service and made workflows inefficient. Now CSS has migrated to the new Dynamics 365 Contact Center, it has also achieved a 12 per cent decrease in average handle time for chat engagements, as well as a 13 per cent reduction in agents requiring peer assistance to resolve an incident. 

“It’s not only frustrating for customers to deal with long wait times, being transferred to the wrong agent or having to repeat themselves multiple times, it’s detrimental to business,” said Comstock in a blog post. “Generative AI is transforming customer service and revolutionising the way contact centres operate, from delivering rich experiences across digital and voice channels that enable customers to resolve their own needs, to equipping agents with relevant context within the flow of work, and ultimately unifying operations to drive efficiency and reduce costs.”