Successful customer service offers your company many benefits: more satisfied customers, better internal collaboration, and lower costs. Based on the most common challenges our customers face, we explain how your company can increase value creation by focusing on effective processes and the right system.

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What is Dynamics 365 Customer Service? Use cases and functionality

Frode Stenstrøm: Webinar here from our studio in Asker. Today, we are going to talk about a new—we have launched a new webinar series today focusing on customer service. We have just concluded a webinar series on marketing with Jørgen, and we have more broadcasts coming up in that series.

Frode Stenstrøm: But today we have invited Emil from Prosesspilottene to join us in the studio.

Hi Emil, welcome.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Hi, thank you for having me. First

Frode Stenstrøm: time live on air with you too. Yes,

Emil Orholm Shorts: It’s very exciting, but I think it’ll go well. Who are you, Emil? Well, my name is Emil. I’m very interested in sports and really into technology. So yes, I work here as a CRM consultant and team leader, and I’ve implemented Dynamics a few times over the years and worked extensively with customer service, among other things. So, yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: Emil has been with us at ProsessPilotene for quite a few years and has had the opportunity to help deliver these projects, so we are very fortunate to have him with us, and we hope he can share some of his insights with us today. My name is Frode Stenstrøm, and my role is to serve as the interviewer and host of this broadcast.

Today's Agenda and Housekeeping

Frode Stenstrøm: Just a bit of housekeeping and a little about today’s broadcast. As usual, we’re streaming live on the YouTube channel, and we have a chat running. So it would be great if you could say hello in the chat and tell us who you are, and we’ll do our best to say hello to you. Feel free to ask questions along the way as well. A recording of this broadcast will be available on YouTube immediately after the broadcast, and within 24 hours we’ll also be able to add subtitles and divide it into chapters so you can easily look things up.

Just a reminder that you can also follow Prosesspodden, our own podcast. Emil will be hosting more broadcasts in the future, including one just a week from now, where we’ll continue exploring the topic of customer service centers. If you’d like to be notified about it, simply visit Prosesspilotene’s YouTube channel, subscribe, click the bell, and turn on notifications. You’ll then receive a notification when it starts.

Sunday. And with that, let's get straight to the point, Emil. Briefly, what are we going to talk about today?

What is Dynamics 365 Customer Service?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, we'll start with a brief introduction to Dynamics 365 Customer Service. Then we'll move on to look at some different use cases and where the solution or product can be used. After that, we'll take a look at the functionality available in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

And then a brief demonstration of what the product actually looks like in a demo environment, before we conclude with a summary and any questions. Right.

Frode Stenstrøm: And as I said, feel free to ask questions along the way. We will be able to display any questions that come in on the screen for you, so please feel free to ask.

And Emil, if we get straight to the point, what exactly is Dynamics 365 Customer Service?

Emil Orholm Shorts: In short, it is essentially the customer service app for Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. It offers extensive functionality for receiving and resolving inquiries from various channels, among other things, answering questions, and setting up the necessary case management processes. As I mentioned, these channels can include telephony, chat, and essentially anything else you can think of—or whatever channels businesses need.

And as mentioned, it is part of Dynamics 365, so it is already fully integrated. For example, if you have a sales or marketing solution, you will be able to see the same data and act on it. It is also part of the Microsoft stack, so there is close integration with Teams if you need more collaboration and communication, or if many people also use Outlook to send emails, they can continue doing so, as there are already very close synergies.

But the core of it is really that you have a product that lets you take care of the customers who contact you, see the big picture, and get a complete overview. Hopefully, this will make case management more efficient. You will be able to see figures showing the inquiries you receive and where they come from. And hopefully, this will result in more satisfied customers, as they may feel better looked after when the caseworkers know their history, who they are, and so on.

Frode Stenstrøm: And to put this in the context of our previous webinars, we have talked about customer dialogue and real-time marketing. Since it is the same platform, all customer communication and real-time marketing activities can also be initiated and triggered by what happens in a customer service context.

And a great many of our customers also use this platform not only for customer service, Emil, but even for case planning—that is, case planning solutions. So that is also interesting in that sense. There is also a link between this product and the resource management table in relation to, for example, field service and project management.

Which allows you to track how many hours and resources are being used, as well as resource requirements, so that you can also manage shift scheduling for a customer service center. It

Emil Orholm Shorts: is ready.

The target audience for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Frode Stenstrøm: But if we move on a little, Emil, who exactly is the target audience for the products? Could you tell us a little more about that?

It

Emil Orholm Shorts: we can do that. So first and foremost—or not first and foremost—but the manager will mainly be interested in getting an overview: what cases are coming in, what the cases are about, what they relate to, right? And preferably also getting an overview of, for example, caseworkers, topics, or history—the complete picture, in other words—or having the overview needed to do what you touched on, namely shift planning. If, for example, a customer service solution is under a lot of pressure in connection with some kind of intake, you can plan accordingly.

Frode Stenstrøm: Exactly. And most customer service centers will also have an operations unit that runs the center, so there is also a separate option for escalating matters to the customer service center's operations managers.

Absolutely, absolutely, yes. And then we have the next group, who are probably the ones who will be handling the dialogue,

Emil Orholm Shorts: isn't that right, Emil? Yes, exactly. And for them, it's very important to have an overview—first and foremost, of their own day-to-day work—so they know what they should be working on, which cases will come across their desk, and that the cases or inquiries they receive are also within what we might call their domain, so that they are able to help.

And this gives you the opportunity to provide process support, so that the caseworker or agent has the support they need throughout the process to provide case assistance and good answers to customers. And finally, but no less importantly, there is the question of who the customer is, who I am speaking with, and whether there is any history I should be aware of, so that the customer feels looked after, there is a consistent thread throughout, and you can assist, for example, with any questions about products or any history you should be aware of, as mentioned.

Frode Stenstrøm: Let's see, yes, just checking whether there were any questions about that. But as I said, feel free to ask questions along the way. Then we have the final part, which is perhaps the most important one. Absolutely,

Emil Orholm Shorts: the customer—we mustn't forget them. That's often where a lot of it comes from. So, from the customer's perspective, customers are, as we all know, very concerned that when they submit a question, they get a quick response first and foremost, and that the customer service center resolves it very quickly.

They are very impatient, right, and so on. So that is perhaps the customer's primary focus when they first report an incident. And by managing to address it, in a way, customers will be more satisfied when they receive an answer and can move on.

Frode Stenstrøm: This is an overview of which personas or people are affected and where this product applies.

Then I thought we could say a little about the areas of application and link them to value creation.

Applications and Value Creation

Emil Orholm Shorts: There are several different use cases where a customer service solution would be a good fit. First and foremost, there is the typical, traditional handling of customer inquiries. A process or an effective way to keep track of incoming inquiries is needed.

And they may need to be routed to different queues based on who the inquiries come from or where they need to go—to the right people or the right departments for the various inquiries. For example, invoices might go to the finance department or wherever they are supposed to go. There is also a need for automation.

There are many manual routines—or whatever you want to call them—in day-to-day customer service, and there is an opportunity to automate processes and repetitive tasks. It can be as simple as escalating cases based on various criteria. Customers may have SLA requirements that require a quick response, so the customer service team does not have to keep track of all that behind the scenes and can instead get the process support they need.

And that may actually be what we need. For example, it could involve sending out customer satisfaction surveys after a service-related issue has been resolved, so that we can gather some data as well, of course.

Frode Stenstrøm: And based on our customer base, we can see that this is one of the areas where there is significant potential for value creation.

Using good knowledge articles reduces the pressure on the customer service center and saves money in 1–1.5 seconds. Creating good self-service solutions through chat and similar tools has the same effect. And not least, as you just mentioned, Emil, you can fully or partially automate the response to incoming inquiries.

And what is important for them to be aware of is that you do not necessarily have to rely solely on data in Dynamics. You can also retrieve data from specialist systems, product catalogs, and other sources to provide good and efficient responses through customer service solutions. So, let’s move on.

Self-Service and Omnichannel

Frode Stenstrøm: Self-service?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, there is often a great need for self-service. Many people now want to be able to find answers to their questions very easily. And that may mean you need a... My Page solution, for example, where users or customers can log in and register new cases or problems they have with products.

In addition, you may have a knowledge article knowledge base that

Frode Stenstrøm: can

Emil Orholm Shorts: be available on a website where customers can find answers to many of the most frequently asked questions. Another scenario could involve, for example, a chatbot available through a My Page solution, where the same data is essentially used, but with a little more interaction from the customer.

Correct.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I would also like to point out that one example of self-service is the classic My Page portals, where you can ask questions, provide consent, indicate interests, follow up on cases, and have two-way communication with your customers. We also have several very good off-the-shelf solutions that are easy to set up for customers who need a self-service solution without incurring excessive costs for either its operation or the project.

So feel free to contact us. But now we come to a very exciting topic, Emil. You’ve called it omnichannel. What is that?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Omnichannel is a very broad concept, but which channels do you need to be able to receive inquiries through? After all, inquiries no longer necessarily come in solely via email, as I touched on earlier.

They can come from chat, they can come from a self-service portal, they can come from phone calls, they can come from... social media—where can’t they come from? And it is becoming increasingly common for customers to get in touch through the platforms where you are available. An omnichannel solution allows you to gather all the inquiries in one place and continue to access the same information.

Microsoft is also investing heavily in omnichannel, or contact center solutions, which we will return to in a future webinar, where we can demonstrate more of the available functionality.

Frode Stenstrøm: And as for the term omnichannel, it emerged—I don't know who coined it first—but it was primarily about being able to communicate with customers through the channels they use. Meanwhile, those who are used to working with telephony solutions from good providers such as Puzzle and others have often used the term contact center.

Microsoft has now essentially adopted the same term, and they have launched a fully integrated contact center solution, which we fully intend to demonstrate to you as well. As for all these areas I’m showing you now, today we’ll first give you a complete demonstration of the solution as a whole, and then we plan to go into the details, as we do with marketing, covering them in separate webinars. We’ll do the same this time.

And our housefly, which has been with us for a few weeks now, is still joining us on the broadcast, so we can't seem to get rid of it. But Emil, let's move on to the next topic.

Analysis and Reporting

Frode Stenstrøm: That would be analysis and reporting. And what do you mean by that?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Well, as I touched on when discussing managers, they aren't necessarily as interested in the details of each individual case.

They want to look more at overall statistics, such as how many cases we receive, where they typically come from, and what the most common types of cases are. This can be used for planning, for example, or to improve the knowledge articles so that customers feel better supported and get answers directly without necessarily having to contact the customer service center.

It is beneficial to address the more basic questions before they come in, so that the customer service center can focus more on complex questions or those that require a little more follow-up, so to speak. The figures or data obtained here can also be used in, for example, Power BI reports or Fabric to provide even better reporting tools.

And here we can see that Microsoft is also starting to integrate Power BI much more extensively into customer service solutions to display the data, with much more complex data visualizations and a bit more ... And

Frode Stenstrøm: You're going to show that too—you'll have to show it later. Absolutely, absolutely. And there's one thing we've strongly advocated here in the process chart: measuring inputs more than results, because results are history. Inputs are something they can do something about: how many people are working in the customer service center, how long is the wait, and how can you improve the queue?

All the parameters that are important for creating a good customer service experience for our meat customers. And in our YouTube video entitled “What is Microsoft Fabric?”, you can learn more about the reporting capabilities offered by Fabric, which is the reporting platform. It retrieves data directly from Microsoft’s customer service application, and we’ll add a link to that video up here now.

So, Emil, it makes sense to map that functionality to the individual roles, so you know which functionality is relevant to each group. And if we start by looking at the customer, I think we should take a closer look at them, as well as the agent and, of course, the manager.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, exactly. Because those are the three roles we used in Stasos, and we're carrying them forward.

The important thing to note is that, as we mentioned, this is all in Dynamics 365, so everything is built in what is known as the Dynamics 365 database, or Dataverse. It is more than just a database; it also includes security layers, role-based views, and so on, and you can connect it to external specialist systems if needed.

So, in a way, it serves as the data foundation, allowing everything to be brought together.

Frode Stenstrøm: In one place.

Emil Orholm Shorts: In one place, yes. But for the customer, yes. From the customer's perspective, they might, for example, be in a self-service portal or a My Page solution, where they can see statistics, register a new order, or have a chat, for example. So they would typically be able to start there, or use it as the customer's interface when they contact a customer service center.

Frode Stenstrøm: And the self-service portal, in its classic and simplest form, is where you have my profile, my employer, my roles and permissions, and so on, as well as my cases for case management. You might also have a document center for sharing documents and exchanging messages. But many of our customers also use this for case processing, where you have complex and simple cases you want to resolve. For example, there may be a secretariat working internally and using Dynamics. They may have an external panel of people involved in both processing and deciding the cases.

So I would say it’s possible to create quite a few self-service solutions, both large and small. Absolutely,

Emil Orholm Shorts: it does

Frode Stenstrøm: that.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Then you have that omnichannel concept again, or the contact center concept, and it is really a central portal regardless of which channel, as I mentioned earlier, the customer uses to submit an inquiry or question. For the contact center, the agent, or the manager, it is not really that important, because the data will come into the same place, but will already be categorized, of course.

If it is a phone call, you will naturally speak to the customer; if it is a chat, you will communicate with them live in writing. But the experience for the customer—or for the agent—will largely be the same. Customers want to experience the company as a single entity. They do not want chat agents to be working in a completely separate system with no interaction with those handling email.

Frode Stenstrøm: That's exactly it. You can start a conversation on the phone, continue it via chat, and move on from there. And what we're going to see now is artificial intelligence also coming into play, in the form of speech-to-text recognition. So you can call the customer service center and say what you need help with instead of pressing 3, 1, 2, 3, if you'll pardon the expression.

Those are somewhat harsh words for it, but at least you can say what you need help with. AI will then convert what you say into text and process it, after which the case can be routed to the appropriate caseworker based on what you want resolved. And this is also where artificial intelligence can actually help get the job done.

If you create something called a skill, meaning that you can actually place an order, that small piece of knowledge can be used by a chatbot in the traditional sense, where you place an order, but it can also be used over the phone. So if you haven't received the newspaper today and say that you haven't received it, a skill could be to send you the newspaper as a PDF or something along those lines.

So I find it incredibly fascinating that so much of that communication can be digitized. And

Emil Orholm Shorts: It goes back somewhat to what was implied about automation as well, right? It means the caseworker no longer has to keep finding the right person. Instead, that step is handled by the system, which, based on your skills or expertise, assigns incoming inquiries directly to the right person, resulting in a much better experience for the customer as well.

And you’ve probably been stuck in a phone queue where you’re passed from person to person to person. That’s exactly it. Instead of just going straight through. Straight through. Straight through, yes.

Frode Stenstrøm: For the agent?

Emil Orholm Shorts: For the agent, in short, they will essentially be working in the same application. So, as I said, whether the cases, inquiries, questions, or whatever they may be come in through a self-service portal, are handled in a customer service solution, or involve a phone call, they work and manage everything in the same app, and they see the same screen and the same information.

So that’s essentially the 360-degree view. They’ll also be able to see anything from the other modules that is relevant to the experience.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that is exactly what we are going to demonstrate for you in just a few minutes. We will show you an application, while the self-service portal and the Omnichannel solution will also be presented in future webinars.

And that is simply because the customer service application we are discussing now, Omnichannel, has been around for a few years, but the contact center solution is brand new; it was launched a week or two ago.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, it was on June 1, when Microsoft launched something new there. And

Frode Stenstrøm: We will now also be able to demonstrate the process pilots' self-service portal to you in a webinar.

The summer holidays are fast approaching, so it will probably be in August, but it will also be the topic of a later webinar. And then, Emil, email—we can't get away from email, can we?

Emil Orholm Shorts: We really can't avoid it, because of course you also need to be able to receive email. It's important to point out that even if you're using a customer service solution to send email, it's still powered by the same email engine you're already familiar with from Exchange.

You can choose whether to send personal messages from each individual user or agent, or you can choose to send them on behalf of a more central mailbox, for example kundesenter at kunde.no, so that you always—but you can, yes. And then there is Teams as well, which is now very closely integrated with the customer service solution, allowing you to talk to other agents or in-house experts if you need assistance. You can bring them into the case to reach a solution more quickly. You do not need to send emails; you can simply use it, so those who do not work in

Frode Stenstrøm: users can ask their colleagues questions and get help that way—that's really what it's all about.

Emil Orholm Shorts: the same functionality available in Teams is now being implemented with a chat feature that lets you call others directly from the solution without having to leave the system, in short.

Frode Stenstrøm: And for the sake of engagement, we had planned to devote this entire webinar to artificial intelligence and Copilot, so we just have to move straight on to the customer service topic, but you’ll soon see that. And finally, for the manager, I suppose it’s administration?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, they can use the same app to manage much of the same functionality, but they also have the option of getting a separate application where they can set up all the rules that will apply to the customer service center or the various queues, escalation procedures, SLA requirements, and so on, or which channels they should be available on, what should be displayed, what should

Frode Stenstrøm: CoPilot

Emil Orholm Shorts: using data to respond via chat or phone offers many possibilities for managers, enabling them to gain an overview of what the contact center has under control and which tools they can use.

Here you will be able to see the typical reporting metrics, such as the number and types of cases, etc. These can either be displayed directly in the app or set up using external POBI reports.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes,

Emil Orholm Shorts: and

Frode Stenstrøm: we talked about that a little earlier, and so these are the workspaces we can show, translated into a concrete example.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, so in this example, we have a metal supplier in the B2B market, and what we showed earlier were the possibilities—and there are a great many possibilities here. You can simplify things and do what best suits your processes and workflows. So in B2B, there may still be a lot of email or phone communication, which may be more common and may not necessarily make it into the system.

Continue with My Page and all that as well. But, for example, if you have an email address that the customer sends an email to, such as support.metal.no, it then enters queues set up in the customer service solution,

Frode Stenstrøm: and

Emil Orholm Shorts: it is then routed to the right agent, or they will see it on their dashboard when they log in, to see which cases have come in, what priorities they have, whether it concerns that customer, whether we have an SLA requirement, and how we need to address it. Dynamics will then be able to escalate the procedures, while the manager will simply be able to see the overall picture and manage it.

What comes in, and ensuring that it is actually assigned to the right people, and if they need to delegate or anything like that, they can of course do so.

Frode Stenstrøm: But perhaps the most important thing you're saying, Emil, is that yes, the platform offers many possibilities, but you can also scale it back and remove all the elements that aren't relevant, and if you want to provide customer service by email, there's nothing stopping you from doing so.

We have another example that I find exciting, and that is this e-commerce example.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Absolutely, and in that case you're operating in the B2C market, where you have many different customer groups, or customers in different segments, and so on. This means there are varying needs in terms of what you need to make available.

Online, you will typically already have a My Account solution where you buy things and add them to your shopping cart. You will want to see an overview of your orders, and you may need to submit a complaint about a product or service you have purchased, or simply request service because something is not working. There are many channels here. In addition, you will often want to be able to call rather than rely solely on a contact form, so that option is available if you want it. In part, what matters most is how to get in touch with the customer service team or agent.

Frode Stenstrøm: We have also delivered this product to e-commerce companies, both in B2C markets and in B2B markets. Some of the classic use cases involve product complaints and product information systems. It is about being able to integrate and plug this directly into an existing online store without having to redo everything.

And that’s where I think the products have now become very mature. For customers, as we have demonstrated with DNMX 365 Custom Insights data, we can create user and customer journeys based on abandoned shopping carts and similar experiences. But we can also integrate a customer loyalty program, a My Page solution, and customer service into the same online store, thereby creating a very comprehensive solution.

And the great thing about this is that the customer communication elements—order confirmations, pricing and quotation letters, abandoned cart messages, and so on—look very polished in Dynamics. And customer satisfaction measurement, which you will cover in connection with customer service, will capture the same data and provide a clear indication of whether or not the customer is satisfied.

Well then, Emil, we've been talking for quite a while. I thought we'd simply show some products and spend the next 15–20 minutes going through them, and then we'll wrap things up with a question or two. So, take it away.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Emil?

Demonstration of the Customer Service Hub

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, so from the agent's perspective, when you log in or open the application—in this case, the Customer Service Hub—you get an overview of active cases that you're working on or can pick up.

Now, this solution is largely based on typical incoming email interactions. When we return for a later seminar, we’ll show you what the workspace looks like when you’re working in a contact center. Because it’s a little different there; it’s more like...

Frode Stenstrøm: Phone-driven. Yes, phone-driven. Or chat-driven.

Emil Orholm Shorts: They just sort of come in; you don't have any—well, they don't necessarily form a queue, and you want to deal with them as quickly as possible. Yes, you want to

Frode Stenstrøm: call, it hasn't been much fun to answer that call and just put it in a queue. Some airlines do that, and banks in particular. Maybe it would have been more relevant to answer the phone when the call came in, so then it's more immediate, it happens right then and there.

Emil Orholm Shorts: That's absolutely right. So what you see here are the active cases or the events currently available, giving you an overview of what needs to be addressed and responded to. In addition, you can see any activities or follow-up tasks that may need to be carried out in connection with investigating a case. For example, if there is a complaint about a coffee product, you may need to speak to the coffee supplier to find out what went wrong before getting back to the customer with an answer.

Frode Stenstrøm: So these are simply my activities? Simply

Emil Orholm Shorts: simple as that. And then on the left-hand side, you have an overview of contacts, meaning customers. Who are

Frode Stenstrøm: customer memories?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, who are the customers? The business relationships would be the companies or businesses you are in contact with. And which contacts are employed by a company, or they could also be private individuals if you operate more in the B2C market.

So here you can find an overview of all the companies you have, view key data, and see which cases and

Frode Stenstrøm: typical

Emil Orholm Shorts: information.

Frode Stenstrøm: This may be familiar to everyone, but business relationships and contacts are in the same register, which also applies to the marketing and sales sections.

Project management and field service and, yes, the whole package, really. Completely

Emil Orholm Shorts: right, so they’re used across the entire

Frode Stenstrøm: the solution

Emil Orholm Shorts: Right. And then a little further down, you have the cases or queues, which essentially show the same overview that I saw on the dashboard: which active cases you have, or where the cases are. I thought I’d go into that in a little more detail later.

But for managers, who may be a little more interested in where I click or what is coming in, this provides insights that allow them to view some data about customer service and the cases and inquiries that come in, where they come in, where they come from, and whether there are any customer scores, right?

What knowledge analytics are available, or what is the knowledge base commonly used to find out?

Frode Stenstrøm: especially

Emil Orholm Shorts: the problems the agents encounter, right? Because that may be something you can address proactively and learn from. So, to give you an idea of what you can see, a typical report like the one shown here lets you view things such as incoming cases over the past month, identify typical trends, and see whether you have gotten better or worse at closing cases—in other words, how smoothly the case management processes are flowing.

And this is typically based on the kinds of issues they encounter. The example I’m showing now covers typical topics, and the most common issue in this example is that the coffee machine isn’t working. So that’s a major problem for this particular customer, accounting for almost 25 percent, or a quarter, of all inquiries.

Frode Stenstrøm: I’ve actually run a customer service center myself, and I don’t think we really had that kind of reporting in the old systems back in the day—and I’m not specifically referring to Microsoft’s systems here. But the fact that I can get it now without having to spend a lot of time obtaining it is really cool. Because if I want to start automating or improving certain types of cases, I suddenly know what to automate.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Right? And

Frode Stenstrøm: Many customers I’ve spoken to are very aware of what’s going on in a customer service center, but they don’t necessarily have an... accurate understanding of which two case types have the highest volumes and what percentage they account for. You might think they account for 40 percent when it’s actually 50, and that brings us back to how you can automate and create value. So I think this is a very good report for identifying trends, because things are often seasonal. It’s not as though you have the same types of cases all the time everywhere.

Emil Orholm Shorts: No, right?

So you can set up the criteria for when you want to target something, and you can apply filters to get a better overview of periods or something along those lines, which I touched on briefly. Exactly, short and

Frode Stenstrøm: long periods. Yes. But I also see the value of using the summary you're showing, Emil, where you can see the trend, but also the reason behind it.

I think this has turned out really well.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Right? So the point here is to get a very simple overview of the current status, and whether there is anything we can learn from this or address in order to improve. For example, here we can see that there is now a reduction in the number of events coming from Twitter, or X as it is now called.

At the same time, you can see that items in the customer support queue take much longer to close. So, as a manager, you might assign more people to that queue, for example, or look into why items there take longer to close than in the other queues. They may simply be more complex.

So again, when using the omnichannel or contact center solution, you can see where there is a high volume of inquiries. Here, there is a lot coming in by phone or online and so on. In this example, there is very little specifically in the Epos contact center section. This allows you to see which channels are important to the customer service center.

So here you can see an example of the data that can be produced over time, but we have a very good—it's useful to show the image. It

Frode Stenstrøm: The key is that we have the advantage of using one solution for everything. You can see phone activity, traffic, web traffic, and the various other elements all together, rather than in separate systems.

If you scroll up a little, Emil, I saw there were images in the form. It has to do with customers and real-time measurement. We have just released two podcast episodes about how to measure customer satisfaction, recorded with an external agency. And being able to get quick feedback and take the pulse, so to speak, is in itself a very positive thing for those who have compared results over time.

And follow our advice on how to actually conduct a customer satisfaction survey. So be sure to check out the podcast and the episode as well; it’s available on the YouTube channel, Spotify, and Apple Music. That was today’s little promotional plug. Let’s move on. Great.

Emil Orholm Shorts: So there is, of course, much more to say about it. It gives the manager a very good overview, and just to wrap up, with insights, a contact center solution will also allow you to see things in much greater detail.

Ongoing conversations, what the status of the customer service operation is at any given time. This is largely based on historical data, but you can view live data to a greater extent when moving over to contact center solutions. So, to delve a little deeper into the matter and see what it typically looks like for an agent when receiving an email inquiry, you can have various filters that provide an overview.

So then I go to my cases and just select the one at the top, since that may be the one I'm working on at the moment and trying to resolve. What you see when you open it is essentially a screen that clearly shows who you're talking to, where they work, what the case is about, and whether it's linked to, for example, a...

The product—in this case, there is a problem with a coffee machine. In the middle here, you can see the history, and this is where Co-pilot really comes into play, as it can summarize things. Here, it has summarized what the inquiry is about, because, as you can see further down, it is not an email.

Someone else at the customer service center may have handled the case before me, perhaps in a specialist area, and had a lengthy conversation. You can, of course, read through the entire email thread, but you can also use AI to summarize what has been discussed previously.

Frode Stenstrøm: And that is precisely what we are seeing when we look at what is ready in terms of AI, and where we can start using it to create value. I think artificial intelligence is becoming very, very good at summarizing meeting minutes and cases along with their history. And being able to get a brief summary right there is really very useful.

And further down, you can also see the highlights—the key points of the case.

Emil Orholm Shorts: Right? It will give you a very clear picture of where things stand. You could call it the status, or what is it that you can get an overview of?

Frode Stenstrøm: And then there’s translation, so if you only speak another language, you can actually get an idea of what has been translated into Danish, German, French, and most other languages.

Emil Orholm Shorts: This is going to be really good. This is also where we see Microsoft putting a great deal of effort into new development and how CoPilot is used. We’ll come back to how CoPilot can make this even better in the next webinar. And a little sneak peek: on the right-hand side, there will be a CoPilot panel that you can open. It is largely based on the interactions you have with the AI again, so you configure it to use the data sources that the customer service center needs.

For example, it will be completely empty now, and when you open a case, Copilot will be able to suggest a solution if it has one for that problem, based on how the case is categorized, which product it concerns, and so on. This functionality can therefore be used to process cases more quickly and efficiently.

And it can be used to ask questions, in which case it will retrieve data, as mentioned, from the sources, or it can be used to draft emails based on input.

Frode Stenstrøm: And I just want to add, Emil, that we presented a webinar on K-pilen for Service and Shared Services before Christmas. There was embarrassingly little to show, because it was very short.

Now it’s June, six months later. As you can see, a concrete summary has been added, which is, in a way—not just in a way, but genuinely—useful. And the ability to use the chat to ask questions and draft emails has now been integrated directly into email.

The Dynamics application, but also in Outlook. Yes,

Emil Orholm Shorts: that's true.

Frode Stenstrøm: So I see that we’ve gone from nothing. And what was fun before Christmas was that we predicted at the time that Norwegian-language support would come to Norway in the summer, which I dared to bet on then. Microsoft said February. We’ve now actually seen it arrive, and Norwegian-language support in Office is in place, but now a comprehensive solution with Norwegian-language support is coming.

That's what you can show now, Emil.

Emil Orholm Shorts: It’s starting to work for Norwegian users too. They can ask questions directly in Norwegian and get the right answer. And it’s improving almost from week to week, I would say. So we’ll come back to that and show how a copilot can be used very effectively, particularly in conjunction with the knowledge articles and the knowledge base, so that the caseworker doesn’t constantly have to look things up in lots of external systems or keep a document open alongside it, but can simply connect the copilot to it.

Exactly. Here we have

Frode Stenstrøm: In the process pilots, we conducted a small experiment for a customer because we saw that the questions the customer received were often complex, so there wasn't just one knowledge article that provided the answer. The caseworker might have to consult three different articles to provide a good answer. What we found was now possible was that the chatbot we set up could answer the question it received by consulting three different relevant articles, combining them into a single answer, and sending that answer back to the caseworker.

And one of the big acid tests was the nonsense. If it didn't have an answer, how did it behave? We got it to say that if there was something it couldn't answer, it would tell you that you actually needed to speak to a caseworker. Products have come a very, very long way in this area now, and I have no doubt that this is one of the things that truly creates value for our customers.

Option A is online self-service with a chatbot that doesn't lie, providing faster and more accurate answers than a customer service representative. But then there is the hidden alternative, which is to use the same artificial intelligence technology to suggest new articles. The challenge for many customer service centers is finding the time and capacity to write FAQ articles or knowledge base articles.

But now you can use your website and your supplier’s product catalogs, combine them, and use artificial intelligence to generate a suggestion—along with what you just showed, indicating that you should address the following five topics, for example that topic structure—and draft an article.

This also means that these knowledge articles can be produced continuously over time without it becoming such a huge project. And that is probably where I see the greatest value being created by this layer of technology today. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Emil Orholm Shorts: So that's it, Emil. What else have you shown us? Well, besides the Copilot here, as I've mentioned, there is support for the various workflows.

What we're looking at now is a typical case management process where the agent can have various, what should we call them, tasks to perform or complete along the way to ensure that the case is resolved, that sufficient information is provided, or that it is passed on to the right person if, for example, it requires expertise in a particular domain.

And here you can really have as many processes as you want based on the case type. So if it is something very simple like, “Hi, I was wondering what time you are open today,” then it is a very straightforward process, as opposed to, “Hi, my coffee machine no longer works. I want to make a warranty claim.” In that case, you may also want to proceed to research, as it is called here, ask others, and perhaps involve suppliers as well. And then you just need to make sure that you continuously indicate where you are in the process, so that it is easy for others or the manager to see, or when the customer asks. And particularly if you use this in a My Page solution, you can display the same statuses directly on

Frode Stenstrøm: a portal, and we do that very often, Emil, because here it is a three-step process. You can have a one-step process, you can have a ten-step process, you can make it as complicated as you like, but where you are in the process is a very useful status to display in the My Page solution.

Emil Orholm Shorts: This way, the customer always knows the status of their case and can follow up and add information to the case itself.

In addition, the forms themselves allow you to add even more details. You can have service agreements if you purchase them or work with them for your customers. You can then register and make sure that the cases that come in are correct and covered.

Frode Stenstrøm: What else would you like to give an overview of in this round with Emil?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, we've covered a lot of the basic information now. To wrap things up, we can also mention a little about knowledge. As you touched on, it will be available in the solution on the left, where the customer service representative or agent can go in and see what we have.

At present, you can see that there are 26 available articles, and you can perform a standard knowledge search if you want to find some information. Each knowledge article may contain matches related to the topic. This is the kind of article you might want to use, typically when, for example, you are sending an email. CoPilot can then pick it up and include it as a suggestion in the email, so that it contains the same steps.

Frode Stenstrøm: And what I want to emphasize about what you’re saying now, Emil, is precisely that, yes, a great many people simply write knowledge articles directly on the website as online articles. And that works. But what isn’t so widely known is that there is a very good tool for writing an article and maintaining version control so that articles that are no longer applicable are still available.

Linking to a product, translation into different languages, and being able to use this article both for case management with Copilot and to make it readily available on the website. Microsoft has made it so that if you write the articles in Dynamics, you can publish them on a public website or as part of a My Page solution, in whichever languages are desired and available. This gives you an authoring tool for knowledge articles. Absolutely. Great.

Let's see. Yes, we've now gone through the main points in the questions, haven't we? In the demonstration, yes. In the demonstration?

Emil Orholm Shorts: Yes, that's right. And of course, there is a lot going on behind the scenes that determines how the case behaves, as we touched on earlier, with different SLA requirements, routing, which queues the cases end up in, and so on.

So that’s something that, well... For the agent, it will simply end up in the right place.

Frode Stenstrøm: Yes, exactly. As I said, what we want to do now, having covered what we discussed in the first webinar, is to provide an overview of the system as a whole, just as we did with marketing. There will also be a call center demonstration, a demonstration on my end, and demonstrations of the respective elements.

And of course, feel free to ask Emil questions along the way, and you'll get clear and specific answers.

Summary and Conclusion

Frode Stenstrøm: I think it's about time for us to wrap up, Emil. We're roughly at the time we were aiming for. We'd like to thank you for joining us for today's broadcast. Let's see, if I do a little bit of this, and this, and this.

So if there's anything you're wondering about, feel free to leave a comment, and we'll take it from there.

Feel free to leave a comment, and we'll respond to your comments. If you like it, please like and share. If there is anything we can do better, please let us know. Feel free to subscribe to the channel, and all that remains is to thank you for today. This broadcast is copyright-protected and produced by Prosesspilotene. I’m your host, Frode Stenstrøm.

The project manager is Odd-Bjørn Berge. You can find more information about the topic at nettsidemøtesprosesspilotene.no, and we strive for better work processes for everyone.

By providing fast, efficient, and personalized service, the company can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. With shared tools and processes, teams can collaborate more effectively to resolve customer issues, while automated and AI-driven processes can reduce response times and resolve customer issues faster. In this first webinar on Dynamics Customer Service, we review the key features: case management, building a knowledge base, and efficiently handling incoming cases from various channels.