Can Microsoft Parature users really go to Dynamics 365? A company alum says yes.

Microsoft has announced that it will be dropping support for its Parature customer-service offering by May 2018 and has started migrating Parature customers to Dynamics 365 for Customer Service. Microsoft ended news sales of Parature in November.

To learn more about how this news would affect Parature customers, MSDynamicsWorld spoke with John Seeds, a former marketing director for Parature and Microsoft, and now senior marketing director at customer experience consultancy and Microsoft partner Avtex.

MSDynamicsWorld: What should Parature customers consider in moving to a new solution?

John Seeds: There are two things to consider from a Parature customer perspective. One is status quo: ‘I don't want to go to something that is going to leave my agents or my organization in a hole when it comes to being able to serve my customers.' So keeping the same level of service that your customers are used to as you transition platforms is number one.

Then number two is: ‘What are the possibilities to further not only our support organization but how our support organization rolls up and plays into the overall brand customer experience strategies?' That means having conversations internally at a broader level than just [asking]: ‘What SFA [sales force automation] tools are we using or what customer support tools are we using?' It's flipping the paradigm on its head and looking at how customers are engaging with us and how they want to be engaged by ...