DynamicsCon Live 2024: Microsoft roadmap for Dynamics 365 Customer Service gets serious about Copilot and unified scenarios

The pain caused by disjointed applications in customer service organization has led managers to call for more complete solutions, according to Microsoft’s research. And while most organizations still have some unique integration requirements that make a single unified approach to service unlikely in the short term, Microsoft is adapting its plans, both within its own Dynamics 365 solution and more broadly, to prioritize these concerns.

The latest Dynamics 365 Customer Service product roadmap focuses on modernization and improvements in delivering self-service and assisted service, the company told the DynamicsCon Live 2024 event this week. The D365 team is calling on a range of the Microsoft’s latest capabilities for omnichannel messaging and voice, unified routing, agent tools, knowledge management, and interoperability across CRMs, with a heavy dose of Copilot and other AI capabilities woven into the experiences. 

“Customer Service is one of the areas where generative AI will have the biggest impact,” in Microsoft’s product development, according to D365 Customer Service principal program manager Marcus Schmidt, who presented a roadmap session to attendees at the conference. 

Addressing today’s challenges

Disparate and disjointed applications continue to slow down customer service teams, Schmidt told the audience. Some of the biggest issues Microsoft has identified include: 

• Routing across all the touchpoints of a service interaction, 
• Agents switching between tools to get the full view of the customer, 
• The need for various integration points and middleware tools, 
• Shortcomings in knowledge management efforts, 
• The lack of visibility the points above create for business leaders looking for a full view of their customer service performance

And while employees fear the impact of AI tools deployment on their job safety, Microsoft’s research has indicated that 57 percent of business leaders continue to worry that they can’t fill key customer service roles, said Schmidt. 

Microsoft’s priorities to address these types of challenges will include improvements in unified routing, better self-service tools, and bringing more of the voice technology from Microsoft’s Nuance acquisition into the D365 Customer Service lineup.