Event Recap: Implementing Agent-Assist Copilots in Contact Centers with Dynamics 365

The working day of a contact center agent can often feel like an un-ending series of challenges, especially when disparate data sources and information systems slow down their core responsibilities of helping customers and prospects. 

Praveen Ravela, CTO of AMC Technology, a Richmond, Virginia-based Microsoft partner, began his career in 2003 working in a contact center, where he gained first-hand experience of the trials and tribulations that agents often face. “That understanding of what contact center agents go through on multiple shifts [is very helpful] for how to help businesses improve customer service and employee experience,” he told Satish Reddy, Founder and CEO of Microsoft partner Aha Apps on MSDW’s latest CRM Community Call event, sponsored by Aha Apps.

Reddy compared notes with Ravela about the ways that Microsoft’s evolving Copilot AI offerings can serve contact center agents. According to Ravela, the introduction of Copilot has helped to build out Dynamics 365 Customer Service. 

“It’s a good value-add, particularly with Copilot[-based] agent assistant,” he said. “There’s sentiment-based routing to connect customers with the right agent. Digital channel transcription comes across in real time, which is a game changer. [Copilot also] brings in real-time insights and the ability to resolve issues faster.”

Contact centers often experience high rates of churn due to poor morale and difficulties getting contact center agents trained efficiently. Because of this significant overhead, Ravela said, Copilot agent-assist capabilities have the potential to improve agent satisfaction. He explained that the current state of contact centers today includes a lot of inefficiencies. He recalled a recent conversation with a client in which he learned more about the experience of their agents on each transaction. 

One thing that really surprised us is that they have so many [enterprise] products and they don’t have a great way to do a search based on [the product] a customer called in with concerns on… They are not able to get to the right information at the right time and have to use Google to search for products on their website. It’s really hard to train an agent in that way. Agents just decided that’s the best way that’s working out for them. 

And he explained why he sees the capabilities of Microsoft Copilot bringing quick wins to the contact center agent.