Category Archives: CRM
What’s Great about Microsoft Dynamics 365’s Unified Interface
One of the beauties of is its versatility. That versatility is due in large part to Microsoft’s commitment to continue to expand, adding apps that allow modules to connect with one another and handle a variety of business processes. Dynamics 365 Unified Interface (UI) allows a seamless interaction across desktop, mobile, and Outlook.
Prepare for UI
Originally envisioned as the single client interface for all Dynamics 365 apps, UI is the default interface for the Outlook app, the Dynamics mobile app, and all the new Dynamics 365 modules.
Effective Oct. 2020, the Dynamics 365 legacy web client, along with its process dialogues and workflows, will be discontinued. Those organizations using the web client will transition to UI. Microsoft suggests you do that as soon as possible, as waiting until the last minute may prove troublesome. Be prepared and the transition will go smoothly.
today, and we’ll help make sure your organization is prepared for the transition.
Benefit from UI
Since its release in 2017, many businesses have transitioned their Dynamics 365 legacy web client to UI and are enjoying the benefits of the new interface. As soon as your business transitions, you can experience these benefits too:
- Improved Navigation: UI’s smaller, space-saving command bar can be customized with icons and colors. The site map, which was hidden in web client, is visible on the left-side navigation bar in UI. The site map is also customizable allowing users to control what they see at the app level for speedy transition between leads, opportunities, and accounts. The area switcher allows users to toggle from one area to another, for instance, from sales to app settings, by clicking the appropriate icon.
- Improved Forms: UI replaces sections with tabs, so users can quickly move to different areas within the form. The web client didn’t show how many sections the form contained, and scrolling was required to move throughout the form. With a single click in UI, users can move from overview to specific sections details without scrolling and while remaining in the same position on the screen.
- Improved Business Process Flow: UI has less data density than the web client. The process flow is more compact and smoother. UI provides color and formatting options such as bullet points and icons. Additionally, lead fly-outs allow users to easily enter new lead information, which is immediately qualified as soon as it’s entered. Sales opportunities are easier to access. UI’s interactive dashboards are condensed to allow simultaneous visibility of more information and direct interaction with data.
- Reactive Design: UI’s reactive design improves users’ ability to see where they are on a page. For instance, when you collapse the viewing pane from extra wide to wide to narrow, all your information automatically reflows to fit the smaller page. At its smallest size, UI stacks information on one page.
These are just a few of our favorite features of Microsoft Dynamics 365’s United Interface. If you are a Dynamics 365 user and want to prepare to transition from the web client to UI, now is the best time. and we’ll help you through the process.
By BroadPoint,
2019 ERP/CRM Software Blog Award Winners
Hard work deserves recognition.
We are very proud to recognize our top bloggers and top members on , CRM Software Blog, and . Congratulations to all of these companies for their hard work.
- Top Blogger Award – Top 5 members whose posts received the most traffic and members with the highest number of clicks from their posts back to their website. Their articles get the most readers and inspire those readers to take action and learn more.
- Top Member Award – Top 5 members that posted the highest number of blog articles this year and all members that posted consistently every month. Our version of the “perfect attendance” award.
ERP Software Blog – 2019 Top Blogger Awards
Visitors
Links
CRM Software Blog – 2019 Top Blogger Awards
Visitors
- Beringer Technology Group
- ACE Microtechnology
- Crowe
- AKA Enterprise Solutions
- Strava Technology Group
Links
- ACE Microtechnology
- Beringer Technology Group
- Crowe
- Strava Technology Group
- Turnkey Technologies, Inc.
ERP Cloud Blog – 2019 Top Blogger Awards
Visitors
Links
ERP Software Blog – 2019 Top Member Awards
Top 5 members with the highest number of articles in 2019:
Members that never missed a month:
CRM Software Blog – 2019 Top Member Awards
Top 5 members with the highest number of articles in 2019:
Members that never missed a month:
ERP Cloud Blog – 2019 Top Member Awards
Top 5 members with the highest number of articles in 2019:
Members that never missed a month:
All of our members on each blog site are appreciated. But these few deserve a little extra credit for their hard work. We look forward to honoring more members for 2020.
A special badge has been added to the profile page of each member on the blog site. Click the link of each winner to check it out, learn more about their company, and read their posts.
Interested in joining our group blogs?
- – Microsoft Dynamics ERP Partners (VAR and ISV)
- CRM Software Blog - Microsoft Dynamics CRM Partners (VAR and ISV)
- – Acumatica, Sage Intacct, NetSuite, SAP Business ByDesign, Accolent ERP, Microsoft Dynamics ERP (VAR and ISV)
By ERP/CRM Software Blog Owners
Service Update 0.12 for Microsoft Dynamics 365 9.0
INTRODUCTION
Service Update 9.0.12 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premises) 9.0 is now available. This article describes the hotfixes and updates that are included in Service Update 9.0.12.
MORE INFORMATION
| Update package | Version number |
|---|---|
| Service Update 0.12 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premises) 9.0 | 9.0.12.4 |
To determine whether your organization had this update applied, check your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online version number. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, and then click About.
Update information
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 0.12 is now available.
The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises) Update 0.12 package now.
Service Update 0.12 resolves the following issues:
Repaired Functionality
The following list details issues whose resolutions repair items in Dynamics that are not functioning.
Dynamics
- After an SDK request with Claim Based Authentication was successful, following requests failed.*
Knowledge Management
- Notes could not be expanded by users with “read only” access to notes.
Unified Interface
- When displayed using Internet Explorer with a window width wider than 1600 pixels, single-line textboxes placed in the right column of the first section were overlapped by the second section.
Error Messages, Exceptions, and Failures
The following list details issues whose resolutions correct actions that produce errors, unhandled exceptions, or system or component failures.
Platform Services
- Updating Voice of the Customer solutions from the Instance Picker page failed with an error (“The installation of the solution failed. Please try again. If the problem persists, contact customer support.”).*
- Performing a regarding record search resulted in a SQL error (“A column has been specified more than once in the order by list. Columns in the order by list must be unique.”).*
To see the entire list of available updates follow this link: Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral
Walter Carlin
Senior Premier Field Engineer | Dynamics 365 CE | Microsoft Corp.
It’s Crunch Time for California Consumer Privacy Act Compliance
The
California Consumer Privacy Act — widely considered to be the toughest law in the U.S. regulating the collection, storage and use of personal information — went into effect on Jan. 1. Rather than preparing for the CCPA, however, many businesses have taken a wait-and-see approach. This could be a serious mistake.
The new law is similar in many respects to the European Union’s
General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect last spring. Like the GDPR, the CCPA is expected to have a profound impact on the way businesses collect and protect personally identifiable information (PII) from consumers, with ramifications that likely will spread far beyond the borders of the Golden State.
Although GDPR provided businesses with a relatively long runway of more than 24 months from adoption to imposition of penalties, CCPA incorporates more aggressive time lines.
There are two primary reasons for the shorter time lines. First, as initially drafted and passed last year, the CCPA included several ambiguities in its wording. Further, California’s legislature added six amendments prior to finishing its session on Sept. 13.
Those uncertainties and late-hour changes meant businesses didn’t have a clear set of preparation guidelines for very long before the law went effect on Jan. 1.
The enforcement of penalties will begin on July 1, and businesses that delay the process of becoming compliant with CCPA could find themselves facing serious problems right out of the gate.
What Is the CCPA?
The act creates new rights for California residents regarding access to, deletion of, and sharing of their PII. Key aspects of the CCPA:
- Businesses must disclose their data collection and sharing practices to consumers.
- Consumers have the right to see all the PII a company has collected on them.
- Consumers have the right to request that companies delete their data.
- Consumers have the right to opt out of the sale of or sharing of their personal information.
- Businesses are prohibited from selling the PII of consumers under the age of 16 without explicit consent.
- Consumers have the right to sue a company if the CCPA privacy guidelines are violated, even if there is no data breach.
Why the concern? The CCPA casts a very wide net, which means it will impact a large number of businesses in both the U.S. and abroad. The CCPA establishes broad definitions of the following:
- What data is covered: The CCPA extends to any data item that can identify an individual, including name, address, phone number, email, social media profiles, and URLs.
- Who is covered: The CCPA protects not only consumers who reside in California, but also prospective customers, employees, employees who are also customers, and even vendors and suppliers.
- Which businesses must comply: The CCPA applies to any company that does business with any individual protected by the CCPA. In practice, this means the legislation will impact companies far beyond California and even the U.S.
The CCPA also specifies fines for noncompliance. Businesses have just 30 days to remedy an alleged violation. Any company that fails to do so faces US$ 2,500 per unintended violation and $ 7,500 per intended violation. While these fines are nowhere near as stiff as the GDPR penalties levied by the EU, they are nonetheless significant.
What may be worse is the potential social fallout from noncompliance. In this day and age of instant social communication, even perceived negligence around consumer data privacy quickly can create a nightmare scenario for PR and marketing teams.
Imagine the consequences if a customer should post a Facebook update saying, “I called XYZ Company, I asked them to give me my data, and they didn’t help me.” This customer’s social media followers and fans may not only share and comment on this post, but also may take action themselves. It only takes one lawsuit to create lasting damage to a brand’s reputation.
Best Practices for CCPA Compliance
The good news is that it’s not too late to start building a CCPA compliance strategy.
Following are some best practices to consider.
1. Have a Plan
The No. 1 way to get ahead of this new legislation is to create a plan. Leaders in adoption already have this in their wake and currently are executing against a road map encompassing people, process and technology changes required to become compliant.
While the enforcement date is only in July, companies do in fact need to have an answer ready if the phone should ring between now and then. They must know what to say when customers call with concerns about the privacy of their data.
They should be prepared to disclose all data collection, protection and sharing practices. Additionally, they should have a process for managing consent, and for honoring requests to delete data or opt out of data sharing.
2. Evaluate Risk Across All Channels
Companies must be prepared to manage CCPA requests that come in through any channel, online and offline.
The call center is an obvious focus, but requests also may come via social media, email, chat and mobile apps. Every channel of communication is impacted.
3. Test for Readiness
Remember that customer data often is connected to other data, both internally and externally. Deleting customer data in one area of the business may affect operations in other areas, such as finance and marketing.
Conduct end-to-end regression testing and validation to simulate all customer data requests — but particularly data deletion requests. This operational readiness testing will help uncover any internal and external implications that otherwise might have been overlooked.
4. Leverage a Third-Party Tool
Considering that companies typically have customer data stored across multiple systems, compliance with CCPA can be a complex ongoing process. Several tools do exist to help businesses manage the process of becoming CCPA-compliant.
These tools typically address two key components of compliance:
- Workflow and business process management: These tools help companies field incoming requests and manage the workflows associated with internal approvals, customer notifications, customer communications, and the packaging of the results of the CCPA requests.
- Data discovery and data management: These tools help companies scan their systems, identify where personal data is held, and implement controls to ensure the proper protection of the data (which may include access, encryption and monitoring).
CCPA Ripples
Across the board, it’s highly likely that the CCPA will become the benchmark that other states will use when developing their own data privacy laws. It may even become the template for a future U.S. federal privacy law.
The potential impact cannot be overstated. Even if a company has no customers in California, this legislation likely will affect how every business collects, stores and shares personal data eventually — which means the time to start thinking about compliance is now.
Spencer Lentz is a principal at
Capgemini, where he is responsible for growing the portfolio of Capgemini’s artificial intelligence, digital process automation, and digital customer experience solutions. Over the past 20 years, he has collaborated with clients representing leaders in the telecommunications, media, entertainment, automotive and manufacturing industries, driving solutions to complex challenges, and helping to shape their digital transformation journeys.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.14
INTRODUCTION
Service Update 2.14 for Microsoft Dynamics CRM (on-premises) 8.2 is now available. This article describes the hotfixes and updates that are included in Service Update 2.14.
MORE INFORMATION
| Update package | Version number |
|---|---|
| Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on premises) Update 2.14 | 8.2.14.10 |
To determine whether your organization had this update applied, check your Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online version number. Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, and then click About.
Update information
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on-premises) Update 2.14 is now available.
The following file is available for download from the Microsoft Download Center:
Download the Microsoft Dynamics 365 (online and on-premises) Update 2.14 package now.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 (on premises) Update 2.14 resolves the following issue:
Repaired Functionality
The following list details issues whose resolutions repair items in Dynamics that are not functioning.
Platform Services
- Importing a database with version 8.1.1.1005 to Dynamics 365 version 8.2.5.4 failed.
Sales
- When changing the name of a “Product” column and then selecting “Preview”, the Preview window appeared and then crashed.*
Unified Interface
- Users assigned the Salesperson role could not capture and log into Dynamics 365.*
To see the entire list of available updates follow this link: Microsoft Dynamics CRM / Dynamics 365 Updates: Release Dates, Build Numbers, and Collateral
Walter Carlin
Senior Premier Field Engineer | Dynamics 365 CE | Microsoft Corp.
What Is the CCPA (and are you prepared)?
The 2020 new year brought with it the most comprehensive consumer privacy legislation ever passed in the United States.
On January 1, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) went into effect, giving California residents significantly more control over how companies collect and use their personal data. Meanwhile, businesses are now required to be far more transparent about how they’re collecting, sharing, and using consumer data and information — and are prohibited from selling customer data without their consent. If they fail to do so, they could be subject to crippling penalties.
Whether you’re a California resident or a company that does business with California consumers, this new law likely applies to you. Despite this legislation being passed in 2018, a poll conducted in August of 2019 found that 56% of businesses felt they would not be fully prepared for these new rules and regulations. So, we wanted to write this blog to give you the information and resources you need to be compliant with the CCPA, avoid substantial fines, and execute more successful inbound and outbound marketing campaigns.
Just as the CCPA is following in the footsteps of Europe’s recent GDPR legislation, many other American states will likely follow California’s lead and implement new laws of their own. So, even if your business is not currently impacted by this new legislation, it’s important that your company adapts to the evolving landscape early on.
Please keep reading to learn more about the CCPA, how it affects both consumers and businesses operating in California and with California residents, and what you can do to ensure marketing compliance.
Does the CCPA Apply to Me?
If you do business in California, there’s a good chance the CCPA applies to you. The CCPA applies to any business with consumers in California, any business that collects personal information from California residents, and any business that does one or more of the following:
- Achieves an annual gross revenue in excess of $ 25 million
- Buys, sells, or shares the personal information of more than 50,000 California residents, households, or devices
- Generates 50% of more of its income from selling consumers’ personal information
Please note that, according to the CCPA, a business is any “sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, association, or other legal entity that is organized or operated for the profit or financial benefit of its shareholders or other owners.” Therefore, nonprofits and government agencies are currently exempt from CCPA provisions. But, regardless of your company’s size or structure, you’re required to comply with the CCPA if you meet the qualifications above.
If you have additional questions about whether the CCPA applies to you or your business, please follow this link to get in touch with Act-On’s Professional Services team.
What Are the Key Elements of the CCPA?
The CCPA aims to protect how our data is collected and prevent it from being shared with or sold to third-parties. To do so, companies will now be required to:
- Provide more stringent and prominent privacy policies on digital properties and emails
- Include a link on the homepage of their website for consumers to opt-out of having their personal data sold
However, the CCPA is far more detailed than the two bullets above. Let’s explore some of the specifics as they relate to individuals and businesses.
CCPA for Individuals
- Right to Request Deletion
Consumers have the “right to deletion,” and businesses are required to direct any service provider to delete the individual’s personal information upon request.
Act-On helps by providing an “Erase Contact” tool built into our platform for users to permanently delete contacts from all of their records.
- Right to Access
California residents have the right to access any personal data collected within the last 12 months. Businesses are required to respond to requests within 45 days.
Act-On helps by providing an easy way to download a contact’s timeline related to all actions and messages received.
- Right to Stop Processing
Companies must provide a link on their website homepage for individuals to opt-out of all communications.
Act-On helps by enabling standard opt-out procedures to stop all communications.
- Right to Stop Third-Party Transfer
Businesses must have a link on their home page titled “Do Not Sell My Personal Information” allowing individuals to opt-out from businesses selling their personal information.
Act-On helps by not providing information to third parties outside of what is stored in the privacy policy.
CCPA for Businesses
- Privacy Policy
Businesses are required to have a common-language privacy policy that explains all of the rights that customers have and the ways for California citizens to opt-out.
- Website Policy
Businesses are required to include language on their website and/or mobile application that explicitly states the following (either/or):
- “Do not sell my personal information”
- “Do not sell my info”
- Record-Keeping Training
Businesses are required to train all employees on logging all requests related to the CCPA for the past 24 months.
- Verifications
Businesses are required to verify that the individual requesting an action is who they say they are.
There are a few caveats to when and why a company is within their rights to maintain its consumers’ personal information. Businesses are allowed to keep their customers’ personal data if the information is necessary:
- To fix errors
- For the company to exercise their free speech or protect other consumers’ right to free speech
- For the public interest
- To comply with laws and policies
What Are the Penalties for CCPA Non-Compliance?
In order to properly enforce this new legislation, the penalties for non-compliance with the CCPA are severe. All violators are subject to significant fines, loss of reputation, and potentially fewer customers and revenue.
There are three separate ways in which these penalties will be enforced.
- Private Enforcement: If a business knowingly and willfully sells a consumer’s data without their consent, the consumer can file a lawsuit for damages between $ 1,000 and $ 3,000. Bear in mind, these suits are for privacy losses, so there’s no requirement to show loss of property or money to be compensated.
- Government Enforcement: If a business does not comply with CCPA guidelines within 30 days, the State’s Attorney General’s Office is expected to file suit. If another 30 days of non-compliance pass following this initial notification, the business is subject to a $ 7,500 fine for each infraction.
- Consumer Enforcement: Consumers who are the victims of a security breach are eligible to receive between $ 100 and $ 750 per incident — and potentially more if a court deems additional relief is appropriate. Depending on the scope of the potential breach, businesses could easily be fined millions of dollars.
Maintain CCPA Compliance With Act-On
At Act-On, we’re dedicated to helping all of our customers maintain compliance with all data privacy laws and legislation. While we are not in a position to legally advise you regarding your CCPA obligations, we are willing to provide insight into how to adapt your approach to the CCPA using our platform and services. Still, CCPA compliance is a shared responsibility, so you should understand the obligations your business faces.
Our customers leverage the Act-On platform to meet their CCPA requirements through:
- Capturing consent for web tracking
- Capturing consent through double opt-ins for outbound communications
- Managing withdrawals and opt-outs through CRM integration
Additionally, our contact report functionality allows all of our users to print a PDF that contains all activity information for every contact on their list.
If you’re interested in learning more about the CCPA, please contact one of our knowledgeable marketing automation experts to schedule a demo of how our platform helps marketers remain compliant and deliver successful marketing campaigns.
Dynamics 365 Monthly Update-January 2020
Featured News
Dynamics 365 and Power Platform timeline for the 2020 release wave 1
We deliver new capabilities to enable our customers and partners to drive toward strong business outcomes through two release waves per year.
Here are the key dates for the first release wave of updates planned for 2020, starting April 2020.
These dates will help you plan and on-board these updates with confidence.
- January 27, 2020: Release plans available
Learn about the new upcoming capabilities for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
- February 3, 2020: Early access available
Try the new features and capabilities that will be part of the April update of the 2020 release wave 1 before they’re enabled automatically. To learn more about the early access, check the early access FAQ
- April 1, 2020: General availability
This is when the production deployment for the 2020 release wave 1 begins. Regional deployments will commence on April 3rd, 2020.
- Production updates for 2020 release wave 1
Updates to production deployments will automatically start to roll out in April 2020. Regional production deployments commence on April 3rd, 2020. A detailed rollout schedule will be published by March 2020.
- Production deployment updates for the new capabilities started during the month of October 2019 and will continue through March 2020. There are hundreds of new capabilities included in this release wave and you can find more details in the release plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
- Product Updates page: New innovations in business applications starting April 2020
We encourage you to visit and bookmark the product updates page to learn more about new features delivered to market and watching the release overview videos and the release virtual launch event on-demand.
For more details, check the Dynamics 365 blog
Microsoft Business Applications Summit
Microsoft Business Applications Summit is the place for power users and experts to connect, collaborate & learn.
When? April 20–21, 2020, Anaheim, CA
What’s in it for you?
- Get Inspired
- Meet the engineers behind the tools and products you use every day.
- Build your skills
- Learn hands on and explore many of the new capabilities across Dynamics 365, Power BI, Power Apps, and Power Automate, Mixed Reality, and more under one roof with experiential learning, hackathons, and workshops.
- Turn data to action
- Discover how Microsoft business applications work together seamlessly so you can get great insights out of your data to make better decisions with real-time intelligence to drive the digital transformation of your business.
Go here for learning about the April 2020 Agenda and registration.
Moving forward with your transition to Unified Interface
If you are still on the classic web client, the time is now to prepare for the move to Unified Interface for Model-driven apps.
What action can be taken now?
There is a list of help and support materials including videos, articles, and documentation to help you plan and manage the transition below:
Performance benefits of Unified Interface: What you can do
Model driven Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps are presented using the unified interface which has replaced the previously used web client.
The unified interface’s new architecture allowed us to implement several optimizations, targeting performance in high-latency networks by reducing the number of network roundtrips required to load pages.
Actual performance will vary depending on the customizations, client hardware, and network conditions.
Here is a list of what you can do to take full advantage of the Unified Interface performance benefits:
- Getting the most out of modern browsers
What you can do: Use the latest versions of Edge or Chrome, as they are becoming faster with each update. If possible, do not disable browser caches, or wipe caches and the end of the session, as this will make the application much slower.
- Efficient custom UI
What you can do: Avoid using web resources to add iframe content. If possible, build custom UI with the PowerApps Component Framework instead. You will automatically benefit from ongoing performance improvements, similar to those you get by keeping your browser up to date.
- Optimizing for what the user sees
What you can do: When designing pages, put what is most important at the top to make it most easily accessible for your users. Move infrequently used components to other tabs on a form, use role-based forms instead of showing & hiding components, and make sure that different workflows have dedicated dashboards and views.
Feel free to use sections to organize your controls – this won’t make your forms slower.
- Flexible application metadata
What you can do: Keep in mind that publishing application updates will invalidate all metadata your users have already downloaded, temporarily increasing load times. Don’t publish updates more often than you need to and consider doing it at the end of workdays to minimize impact on your users.
- Modularized code
What you can do: Keep in mind that loading JavaScript code is slow, so customizations and PowerApps components should be kept as small as possible. If possible, consider writing your logic using Power Automate or Business Rules instead.
- Solution Checker
What you can do: Run the Solution Checker regularly, as we are continuing to increase the variety of issues it can recognize.
Learn more about what make the Unified Interface faster and what you can do to take full advantage of the Unified Interface performance benefits.
Introducing improvements to data storage in Common Data Services
The latest improvements to Common Data Services which add options for binary data storage includes:
- Introducing File and Image datatype
- Capability to add File or Image fields to Out-of-the-Box or custom entities. It can be implemented through the Maker Portal for Canvas apps now, and with Model Driven apps in the near future.
- As of today, fields of this type cannot be used in forms, dashboards and content is not available for search.
- APIs are available and described here.
- This capability does not replace existing functionality. The entities may take advantage of it and at the same time have Notes with attachments associated with them.
- File and image field capacity usage information available to tenant administrator through Common Data Service capacity storage report.
- Use of attachments
- We recommend that for files and images greater 5MB, new File and Image datatypes be considered as the APIs are optimized for binary usage.
- Attachment Management: Introducing update to App Source Attachment Management solution
Shortly, the App Source is going to be updated with new solution (1.9.0.01) for Attachment Management that will allow customers to opt in to the experience that would provide a copy of all attachments in CDS providing the native experience for the binary use in CDS. Once the consent is provided, it is an irreversible process. The process does not replace original solution which will continue to exist per solution owner discretion.
General Availability: Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service
We’re announcing the general availability of Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service.
This new offering combines the vast capabilities of Microsoft Power Virtual Agents with the AI-rich analytics of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights in one unique solution.
- Power Virtual Agents helps you to easily create and maintain intelligent chatbots without having to code. Microsoft Power Virtual Agents enables you to engage conversationally with your customers and employees.
Learn more about Power Virtual agents.
- Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights empowers customer service managers with actionable insights into critical performance metrics, operational data, and emerging trends to consistently deliver effortless customer service. Make better decisions and proactively improve customer satisfaction with AI-driven insights.
Learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Service Insights.
Learn more about Dynamics 365 Virtual Agent for Customer Service (combined offering capabilities) on the Dynamics page
Learn How virtual agents transform the customer experience on Dynamics 365 blog
AI Builder December update
AI Builder AI Builder is a new low-code Power Platform capability to easily automate processes, predict outcomes, and improve business performance bringing the power of Microsoft AI to a simple point-and-click experience.
The December update to AI Builder adds even more capabilities for makers, with a new control in Power Apps, trial extension, new supported regions, and a way to better discover models that are ready to use instantly within Power Automate.
These updates include:
- Text Recognizer in Power Apps
o Text Recognizer is a new AI Builder feature available in preview. Text Recognizer enables you to detect and extract printed or handwritten text that appears in images.
o It is now available in Power Apps as a new AI Builder control.
o It allows any Power Apps maker to build an app that can take a picture then extract text from it. This is very useful in a wide variety of scenarios, such as recognizing the identification number on machines, printed information on packages, and handwritten notes.
- Trial
- You can now extend your expired trials. This gives you 30 additional days to test and experiment with AI Builder premium features. Click the ‘Extend trial’ button on the AI Builder Build page to enjoy full access.
- Region expansion
- AI Builder is expanding support to two additional regions: Asia and Canada. Feature support will vary based on location.
- For a breakdown of the release status for AI Builder features in your region, see Feature availability by region.
- Build page
- Models that are ready to use and don’t require any training are now presented on the AI Builder homepage.
- These capabilities can be used in Power Automate or Power Apps.
Learn more about the AI December update here from PowerApps Community blog.
Update to the Power Apps and Power Automate Administration and Governance Whitepaper is now available
Learn about administration and governance of the Microsoft Power Platform by reading our updated Power Apps and Power Automate Governance and Deployment Whitepaper.
The whitepaper has been updated to include latest features as well as best practices for planning, securing, deploying, and supporting applications built on the Power Platform.
The whitepaper is covering the following sections:
- Platform Architecture
- Secure
- Monitor
- Alert & Act
- Deploy, ALM and Azure DevOps
- Educate and Support
Download the Whitepaper from here on PowerApps blog.
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Updates & Releases |
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Release
The Service Updates for Dynamics 365 online version 9.1 are now available in some regions and coming soon to others.
To determine which version your organization has applied, check your Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online version number.
Click the gear icon in the upper-right corner, then click About.
Service Update 120 (9.1.0.12002 or higher) resolved issues including:
- The “Set Regarding” icon was not visible for related records after selecting the “See more” link.
- No search results were returned when linking a contact to an account.*
- An error occurred when loading QuickView controls (“Error Loading Controls”).
- An error occurred when uploading an attachment to the Notes section.
Service Update 117 (9.1.0.11702 or higher) resolved issues including:
- Item attachments in incoming emails did not properly sync to Dynamics 365.*
- Header density was undefined when first loading a form.
- Lookups and Quick Search could not find records with names containing special characters.
Service Update 114 (9.1.0.11403 or higher) resolved issues including:
- A horizontal scrollbar appeared on some dialog windows.
- Date and time text were overlapping calendar and clock icons.*
- When navigating home, dashboards sometimes did not display until the Home button was selected or the app was reinstalled.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 On-premise Updates
The Service Updates for Dynamics 365 on-premise version 8.2 and 9.0 are now available in some regions and coming soon to others. These cumulative update rollups include all the hotfixes that were released for limited distribution.
Cumulative updates available for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 9.0
Service Update 0.11 (9.0.11.9- December 2019) resolved issues including:
- Options in a global option-set were out of order.*
- The “Save” button did not function on the Quick Create opportunity form.*
- When selecting “Reply All” and drafting an email response, the time was missing from the Email Description field.
Cumulative updates available for Microsoft Dynamics 365 8.2
Service Update 8.2.13 (8.2.13- December 2019) resolved issues including:
- When copying a stage in the business process flow (BPF) designer that contained a workflow step, the BPF could not be saved unless the workflow step was removed and then added to the copied stage.
- Importing a v8.1* organization database from a v8.1 environment into a v8.2* OnPrem environment resulted in an error (“An error was encountered while processing user … with account … ‘SystemUser’ entity doesn’t contain attribute with Name”).
Portal Capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Releases
Version Check and Upgrade Information
- To determine the version of a particular portal deployment, please reference to this KB #3166126.
- For instructions on how to upgrade the solutions within Dynamics 365 when a newer version is available, please reference to this KB #3192042.
Latest Portal Capabilities Update
- The Latest Portal capabilities Power Apps Portals Version 9.1.11.14 (December 2019) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 is in early upgrade phase.
- This release includes only an updated portal host and no solution package updates.
- The portal host will automatically be updated by Microsoft.
- For a full list of all portal updates released to date and their corresponding KB articles, please reference this KB article.
The latest Portal host Version 9.1.11.14 resolves the following issues and more:
- If the duration field on the form has a custom value, it shows as blank in portal entity form.
- Autocomplete attribute is missing on email fields on Portal forms.
- Clicking on validation error message for Date Time field does not redirect to that field.
Additional News |
Microsoft Forms Pro updates help improve customer feedback management
- Forms Pro is a customer feedback solution that seamlessly integrates with your data platform, making it easy to capture customer responses, sentiment, and suggestions and then analyze that feedback with Power BI.
- Forms Pro integrates with other Microsoft solutions, so you can integrate results and view survey responses directly from within Office 365, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform projects—a seamless way to gain a more comprehensive view of customers within your existing business processes—all with industry-leading security, privacy, and compliance. With Forms Pro, you can collect and analyze customer data, identify customer sentiment using AI-powered insights, and take immediate action on customer feedback to help close the customer experience loop.
- Some of the newest features include: Email-embedded surveys, Survey Incentives, and integration with a Power BI customer service template.
For more details, join the On-demand webinar : Build a Data-Driven Customer and Employee Culture with Forms Pro
Dynamics 365 Customer Service adds Facebook Messenger capabilities
Unlike real-time channels like chat, Facebook Messenger gives users an asynchronous conversation experience, meaning a customer can send your business a message and then can close the conversation and return to it at a later point that is convenient for them.
Benefits of Facebook Messenger in Dynamics 365 Customer Service:
- By including Facebook Messenger to our digital messaging offer further extending our omnichannel capabilities within Dynamics 365 Customer Service, customers can contact support organizations via their channel of choice, while simultaneously arming agents with a true 360-degree view of the customer journey and the tools needed to deliver a quick resolution that is consistent across all channels of engagement.
- Customers can reach out to your company to seek support in an asynchronous manner and on a platform they’re already familiar with.
- Agents can use the same unified, contextual, and productive interface used by chat to engage with customers and resolve issues.
- Support center supervisors and managers can access rich reports to identify opportunities to increase efficiencies and effectiveness.
For more details, see this page on Dynamics 365 blog.
25 Days of flows – The Power Automate Advent Calendar
The Power Automate team added a 25 day series with a ton of best practices, lessons learned, and fun content around building flows. This series include:
- Receive notifications when new videos are posted (automated)
- Push updates from Dynamics to a Microsoft Teams message (automated)
- Send Forms responses to Microsoft Teams and add built-in PBI analytics (automated)
- Send a welcome email for new Microsoft Teams members (automated)
- Query accounts from the press of a button (instant)
- Translate text to French (instant)
The full recorded playlist is available from here in numerical order.
The actual Power Apps application is downloadable from here.
For more information see this page on Power Automate blog.
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Training Corner |
Dynamics 365 App for Outlook Part 9 – App for Outlook Components
Read this post, on Dynamics 365 Community to take a closer look at the components that make up the Dynamics 365 App for Outlook. You will also learn about:
- Nuances of what is visible or not with App for Outlook Dashboard access through your security role.
- Components of the app in terms of tracking and regarding record information.
- Customizable areas in the App for Outlook
Check out the rest of the of rich contents about Dynamics 365 App for Outlook series below:
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Flow of The Week: Create and insert a document approval sheet using Flow approval data
- How use Power Automate to create a document approval sheet using Power Automate approval data before embedding it within a document.
- This is a common use case which is a regular topic within the community.
This Flow will demonstrate how to dynamically generate the approval sheet from Flow approval data and add it to an approved rendition of the document (PDF).
Adobe Offers Experience Manager as Cloud Service
Adobe on Monday announced the availability of Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service for B2B and B2C companies of all sizes.
The service provides “a globally scalable, agile and secure digital foundation that optimizes marketer and developer workflows across the entire content lifecycle, and connects to data insights to deliver personalized experiences across the customer journey,” said Haresh Kumar, director of product marketing for Adobe Experience Manager.
“It allows companies to be far more nimble and scale at any point, because Experience Manager is always on, always current, always at scale, and always learning,” he told CRM Buyer.
Built-In Intelligence
Adobe Experience Manager as a Cloud Service integrates scalable, secure and agile content management; digital asset management; digital signage management; and customer communication applications.
It eliminates the need to build in downtime to accommodate version upgrades.
The production environment is configured and constantly maintained to be consistent with Adobe’s standard security practices and controls.
Brands can combine insights from a customer’s previous purchases and interest in emails about particular products using Adobe Sensei, the company’s artificial intelligence and machine learning framework, to recommend items the customer is likely to purchase. Adobe Sensei also lets brands automatically tag images and videos.
Brands can create and deliver experiences across any channel, device or app, using built-in Adobe Sensei capabilities to automate the adaptation of content for different channels.
Teams can work simultaneously on multiple assets for multiple channels, saving time.
Pricing scales seamlessly and the solution can be scaled based on usage metrics.
Early results from mid-market companies to large enterprises using the application show ingestion time is 50 percent faster, administrative efficiency increased 40 percent and author productivity increased by more than 20 percent, Adobe said.
Good for Customers, Good for Adobe
“This is a good move for Adobe, and one that should have considerable benefits for its customers,” remarked Nicole France, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
By redesigning Adobe Experience Manager to operate through a microservices architecture, the company “is making it significantly easier for its customers both to integrate various sources of digital assets and content, and to present that content across digital channels,” she told CRM Buyer.
In general, offerings that manage multiple sources of content and information across multiple channels with a consistent, easy-to-use interface make it possible for companies to streamline and improve the way they interact with their customers, France observed.
They therefore let staff focus on the messages or sentiments they’re trying to communicate and how to do that most effectively rather than on the minutiae of which assets and channels to use, she noted.
“Focusing on the higher-order customer interaction, rather than the mechanics of how to make it happen, certainly improves a company’s ability to create positive customer experiences,” France said.
However, the term “experience manager” is a misnomer, in her view.
“This really isn’t a tool for managing customer experiences — not least because no one can ‘manage’ customer experiences — but one for dynamically managing the assets that form a large part of digital customer interactions,” France explained.
“Experiences are, by definition, subjective. It’s impossible to manage a customer’s experience, but it is possible to stack the deck to make it more likely that the experience is a good one. Having the right tools is an important step in that direction,” she said.
Continuous Innovation
“This really is a matter of speed and ease rather than a revolutionary shift in offering, allowing for an acceleration of delivery of omnichannel assets,” said Liz Miller, principal analyst at Constellation Research.
For both B2B and B2C companies, the modernization of the Experience Manager architecture “enables the power of the cloud to meet the power of creativity, allowing for a broad range of assets to be quickly accessed, updated, personalized or modified on the fly with strong uptime and availability,” she told CRM Buyer.
Access to Adobe’s continuous innovation means customers do not have to wait for the next update or round of releases, Miller said.”Innovation can be made available on the fly and without lag.”
For B2C companies in particular, the rapid scale up and down based on their needs means the assets they need and the experience they want to deliver through their content “is just as robust in points of uptime crunch as it is in low traffic moments,” she added, which “empowers performance at the scale of a customer, versus the scale and uptime availability of how the Adobe platform is implemented.”
Edge on the Competition
Oracle and Salesforce have been offering service clouds for years, and SAP is working with Accenture to develop vertical service clouds for industries.
Adobe’s heritage in content development gives it the edge, because “Experience Manager empowers the engagement process from creative ideation all the way through to optimized asset delivery,” Miller said. Adobe is “looking to eliminate the creative gap between asset creation and engagement.”
Richard Adhikari has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2008. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, mobile technologies, CRM, databases, software development, mainframe and mid-range computing, and application development. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including Information Week and Computerworld. He is the author of two books on client/server technology.
Email Richard.
Setting up a Simple Case Management System on Dynamics
The article assumes that you are a Dynamics consultant and does not try to technically guide you, but guides you so that you can quickly implement without missing key components
There are 3 main areas to focus on when setting up Case Management on Dynamics.
- Case Settings
-
- Case creation
- Parent- Child Cases
- Queues and Routing
- Contract/ Service terms
- Knowledge Management
Case Settings
Two notable components of this section are Queues and Teams:
- Teams (not linked to MS Teams) are groups with a common skill or belonging to specific departments, etc. responsible for certain tasks
- Queues are support workloads which can be segregated by criteria. E.g. Priority and normal queues, premium customer queues, ‘specific product’ queues, Basic support queue, etc.
Once a case is logged, queues help segregate them and assign it to certain teams. Agents can pick up cases from the queues to which they are assigned.
Case creation
Source: While Dynamics supports the below sources for automatic case creation Email, Social activity, Task, Phone call, Appointment, Service activity, Custom activity, apart from Manual case creation and creation from email, a prerequisite for other sources would be that they need to be Integrated.
Subject: this can be a multi-level tree view but- this is different – it can only be added from Service Settings.
Conditions for case creation: When an email is received, some configurations/ scenarios to handle.
- Create records for email from unknown senders.
- Create case if a valid entitlement exists for the customer
- Create cases for activities associated with a resolved case
- Send automatic email response to customer on record creation
Parent-Child Cases
They are used to track multiple issues for a customer or track the same issue that’s affecting multiple customer or where work needs to be done by various departments for closure. While each case has its own details, a child case cannot have another child. The closure on such cases needs to be configured.
Options:
- Close all child cases when parent case is closed
- Don’t allow parent case closure until all child cases are closed
- Allow parent and child to be independently closed
Queues and Routing
At the very base, there are 2 kinds of queues – Public and Private. Private queues are specific user queues and the Public queues are those which are accessible across Organization teams.
Queues are used to have a central storage of work and can be classified by:
- Different products or services
- Different subscription levels (regular, premium customers)
- Various activity categories
- Different geography
Routing: Cases and activities can be set up be automatically routed to Queues or be manually added to them. Rules for automatic routing can be set up and cases regrouped under queues. Routing rules can be used to even ensure that spam and unsolicited emails to a mailbox don’t create cases. Agents or Teams can be given access or set up that everyone in the Organization can access them.
Contract/ Service Terms
A few important concerns which most Organizations have:
- Are cases of priority customers or on Premium support being handled as such
- Are agents able to identify and pick up critical cases from the general cases
- Are Service KPIs being adhered to and cases being resolved timely
To ensure that the above concerns are assuaged, this section is critical and key to ensuring that customers get the right value for their investment and Organizations, actual customer delight.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
SLAs are used to measure KPIs of the Service agreement with the customer. SLAs are associated with entitlements and the latter to cases. While Standard SLAs track minutes to failure, Enhanced SLAs set up, lets you Pause SLA time when case is on “Hold” and Initiate Action (On Success, Reminder for upcoming breach and Service Level breaches). Enhanced SLAs can be set up based on Geographies from where case is raised, Org. working hours and adding multiple conditions for a KPI to apply.
Entitlements
Entitlements are in layman terms, “contracts” governing support engagements. They are translated from the signed Work Orders and used to track the kind of support, customers are eligible for. Key configurations on entitlements:
- Support terms – number of cases or hours
- (if) support per Product or Service type purchased
- Eligibility per channel of engagement -phone, email, etc.
- Service Level applicable
- Customer Contacts eligible
- Contract Duration
A customer can have multiple entitlements and each entitlement can reference multiple cases. Entitlements can be made mandatory on Cases, to prevent any cases being handled out of contract.
Knowledge Management
Knowledge Base
Dynamics Customer Service has a native Knowledge Base Creation, Management and Publishing mechanism.
A review mechanism to approve and publish articles is available where a certain role can create, and another approve. Knowledge articles can be classified under categories and can be defined as Internal or External.
If using the Dynamics or Powerapp Portal for customer service, KBs marked as Internal, will not be displayed there. Internal KBs can only be viewed within Dynamics.
Cases and KBs are closely linked, users can search through existing KBs while on case record and select a KB as the solution for case resolution.
The next steps after setting up Case management on Dynamics would be to:
-
- Expose the application to customers using the Portal
- Set up ‘chat bots’ on the portal for an omnichannel experience.
Work 365 is built on Dynamics 365 and has bi-synchronization with Partner Center, all subscription changes, billing, and payment status, and invoicing can be done directly from Work 365 with a click of a button, saving Partners and CSPS time and using multiple systems to keep their records in check.
to see how Work 365 can help Indirect and Direct CSPs automate and reconcile billing and invoicing.
By Ismail Nalwala ()
I am a Dynamics 365 enthusiast. I enjoy building systems and working with cross-functional teams to solve problems and build processes from lead generation to cash collection. Work 365 is a global developer of the and subscription application for Dynamics. Helping companies to streamline business processes and scale their recurring revenue.
Personalization is dead, long live personalization
Aarron Spinley, experience anthropologist and growth futurist.
I “met” Aarron (2 a’s, 2 r’s) Spinley online — and I’ve never met him in person. But we have become both good friends and intellectual colleagues. What prompted this post is one of our discussions that touched on personalization. I realized that this dude has a really well thought out outlook on personalization — where its come from, where it’s been, where it is, and where it’s headed — and a framework that provides you with a means to actually think about it. He is dead on when it comes to the ideas. But there is an added bonus: He’s a great conversational writer. Damn.
Aarron calls himself an experience anthropologist and growth futurist. That shows you where his heart is. Here is something that he wrote for me when I asked him about what he wanted to see here:
Aarron Spinley is a growth strategist and futurist who observes culture, society, and digital. With a passion for designed human experience and the social sciences, he writes, consults, and speaks in the fields of business growth and customer engagement through his work at Spinley.co.
He has consulted to major brands in many countries and held senior positions with Marsh, WTI, Tigerspike, and SAP. He draws on wide experience including the study of the performing arts and futurism, and has established and led businesses in fields as diverse as corporate risk advisory to a creative technology agency.
He couldn’t have described it any better himself. Oh wait, he did! But it fits like a glove. As does the additional title that I am going to bestow on him: Really Good Person.
I don’t want you to miss a word of this engaging piece so I’m shutting up. Take it away, Aarron.
This recent release from Gartner — as the analyst firm promoted their latest offering to the marketing profession, “Predicts 2020: Marketers, They’re Just Not That Into You” — certainly turned heads in December.
And that’s what it was supposed to do. It is classic “provocative appeals” theory, where the principal (in this case Gartner) seeks to draw attention through taking a position which could be anti-establishment, or even extreme.
Humor is always a useful ingredient as well, such as Burger King’s quite brilliant mobile billboard in the UK.
uk-bus.jpg
But I digress.
Gartner’s headline did the trick. Nowadays, we call it “clickbait.” And it got me. I read it. You probably did too. And whilst you can likely tell from my headline that I don’t entirely buy it, I am grateful as it has spurred on this overdue piece from me.
The central premise of all my work is the pursuit of “growth.” Whether that be through all the traditional means like sales revenue, share, loyalty/retention, or market cap etc; or growth of the organisation itself (often to the same ends but not exclusively) through purpose, culture, carrier principles, and leadership. As a result, I advocate the art and science of creating experiences, such that they evoke target behaviours. I study business, tech, society, and culture. In that sense, I am probably a quintessential evangelist of the experience economy. That being my professional background, here’s my proposition:
Gartner forgot about the terrain.
There is no point sending troops into the jungle in typhoon season issued with desert fatigues and equipped with bandannas to avoid breathing in dust, and special covers to stop sand from jamming their weapons. None of that will help. Their first enemies will be wet socks and flies and malaria. They’ll never make it to the fight.
Terrain — or context — is always key, and the terrain in this case is a little thing called societal consumption behaviour (SCB). Whilst SCB is heavily accented to local cultures, its overriding trends are both global and macro.
Consumer psychology is not something that we can wish away. It is changing all around us and has done so at a rapid pace since the late 2000’s, entering breakneck territory in the last half of this just concluded decade. All the predictions in the world can’t ignore that human idiosyncrasies are moving markets — fast — and that as we embark on the next decade, we can expect more of the same.
Pretending that it isn’t what it is, simply because a large portion of brands and leaders have not yet handled the terrain — for a range of reasons — is like not entering the jungle in the first place.
But the jungle is where the victory is. The truth is that engaged customers become engaged because of the collection of experiences that we provide them, and the way that we make them feel. Human beings feel connected when we provide the environment for connection. In other words, it’s personal. Ergo, personalisation isn’t exactly optional. So, let’s talk about where we are now, and I’ll start by talking about where we are not.
We are not at a mature apex in the journey of personalization technology or tactics.
The truth is that we have only just begun. Cloud computing became mainstream in 2012. Think about how far that has already come, about the businesses that couldn’t — and didn’t — exist beforehand.
We had 2 billion internet users then, and whilst that was up dramatically from 1 billion in 2007, it pales compared to the 4.5 billion we were approaching in 2019. It was only 5 years ago (2015) that we started consuming the internet on mobile as the dominant means (over PC), which truly infused it in our lives. It has become us. Mobile is now trending toward an involuntary extension of ourselves.
Wave away a fly. Hail a taxi. Scratch your nose. Swipe right.
Through all this our consumption behaviour, our attitudes, our expectations, evolved and evolved. The decline of trust accelerated. Brands found themselves in a digital quagmire, trying to shout to be heard.
Subsequently, we raced into new domains, ala “personalization.” The principle was right, remains right, but quite predictably new paradigms come with new problems.
A friend of mine, Scott Treller who runs a CX software business in Australia, sometimes tells a story that goes a little like this:
Standing at a BBQ, a young woman is approached by a smiling guest.
“Hey there Sophie”, he grins.
A little taken aback, Sophie furrows her brow. “Hi…um, have we met?”
“Oh not in person” came the reply – and so too the forever grin. “But you wandered by my work once”.
Sophie burst out laughing. Then stopped. He was serious.
“So anyway”, he continued. “I’d really like to get to know you a bit more, but I know you have to run in 20 minutes to pick up little Bobby from school before you visit your Dad for dinner. How is Steve by the way? Recovered from that bowel problem?”
Not sensing her growing unease for even a moment, he ploughed on.
“Because I really need you to spend time with me, but isn’t life so busy these days, so full of choices!”
He leans in, lowers his tone. “Don’t worry, I get it”.
Sophie can’t breathe.
“So hey, I’ve bought you a gin and tonic to save a little time. I know how much you love them, and this one has that Schweppes tonic that you like, and I made sure the bartender used lime after that nasty episode you had with the cucumber in Spain last year”.
And the grin just kept on coming.
Don’t laugh, or do, but that’s precisely the way that many brands have behaved.
The irony is that in our pursuit of customers through “personalization” we broke all kinds of social contracts, and we thought we could do that because it was digital. Given time, this had the opposite effect to its intent. As much as society has evolved to expect better and better personal experiences — many of them disposable — it doesn’t want to feel disposable itself. And it will, if there is not legitimacy in the connection.
So, if we’re not yet at maturity in personalization, then where are we? Let me frame it like this.
Phase 1
When we realized that people didn’t want to be treated as “just another number,” we established practices that we thought would be more effective selling to them, like putting their name in an email greeting, instead of “Dear Customer.” Personalization was an email strategy, and not much more. This is where a lot of brands are still occupied today.
Phase 2
Many did take the next step, creating login’s to websites in order to publish their customers’ name in the corner, and allow them to “manage” their own account. Sort of. We let them change their contact details and billing information and see purchase history. The new frontier of trust — at least in the limited (but valid) terms that marketers have hedged it — was almost exclusively about the security of that data, particularly with mandatory disclosure law related to personally identifiable information (PII) entering mainstream western economies, and only amplified with the more recent arrival of GDPR.
Phase 3
As companies embraced more sophisticated instruments, they started using the “gorilla” tactics that Scott’s little story draws out so beautifully. They began harnessing the information gathered about customers to provide more tailored messages, vary the splash page on websites based on user profiles, inserting cookies and tracking behaviours, geo-fencing store assets — or even competitor locations! — and creating “intervention” tactics. Logically, we started sharing information across our business ecosystems, partnerships, and other channels to create an ever-enriched pool of customer information and records, and then began writing algorithms within marketing engines to vary engagement activities in real time. We started following our customers on social media sites. There are many other examples that this learned readership will know of, so I’ll stop there, but I think you get the point.
And on the seventh day, we rested. Or should have.
Critics argue that at no point did marketers pause or engage in a respectful dialogue with customers about any of this. Our view of personalization stemmed from an almost surveillance-state mindset that the KGB would have been proud of during the cold war.
But hold on. These are good-hearted marketing folk: citizens, partners, fathers, mothers, coaches, and mentors. Everyday people. Professional people. The intent was never sinister. They were simply trying to grow their business.
The problem was they were operating in uncharted waters where there was no rule book. No one had written one. Should we have known better? That’s another debate. But to many consumers, some of our tactics had become kind of creepy.
Decline of trust
Much is written about the decline of trust in society. I am one of those commentators. I have researched it, speak on it often, and offer a model to help executives think critically about how trust is fostered, created, and maintained.
This is a wider issue, not just for the marketing and CRM profession. The highly respected Edelman Trust Barometer has monitored the decline of trust across business and government for a long time. It is not a new phenomenon, but it is increasingly material.
In September 2018, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres felt compelled to say this:
“Our world is suffering from a bad case of ‘trust deficit disorder’. Trust is at a breaking point. Trust in national institutions. Trust among states. Trust in the rules-based global order.”
This is a macro societal problem driven by a multitude of factors. Just think of the effect to consumer confidence in brands at large, following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
I am also drawn to the growing societal realisation — and pushback — on device addiction, and the need to manage our state of connection. Authors Brian Solis (“Lifescale”, Wiley 2019), and Nir Eyal (“Indistractable”, BenBella 2019) have both written popular and important works on this subject.
We also now know that there is a direct link between the level of individual social media consumption and our mental health. Society is having a re-think. We’re evolving again. We were always going to.
So, am I making the case for Gartner that indeed personalization could well be dropped by 80% of marketers by 2025? Well, if you are one of those marketers and you do, your competitors will — as I said in the headline — eat you alive!
First, Gartner kind of gave themselves away in a quote from one of their directors when they say:
“… (consumers) increasingly cluttered email inboxes and mobile phone notification centers may lead them to ignore even the most carefully personalized and contextualized message. Marketers must really adopt the basics when it comes to test and learn before investing in personalization technology and new tactics.”
In other words, they are referencing the many companies still caught up in phase 1 (see above). It’s an attention-grabbing headline, but they’re not really talking about personalization.
Secondly, in the same release they call out the increased need for Consent Management. They forecast that by 2024 more than half of the online advertisements will be influenced by AI-identified emotions, and that by 2022 a quarter of marketing departments, will have a dedicated behavioral scientist or ethnographer on staff.
Also: Cookie consent: Most websites break law by making it hard to ‘reject all’ tracking
Why would you do any of that, if personalization was dead? Come on now.
What we really need to talk about is not how to amputate personalisation, but about its evolution.
The proliferation of technologies from vendors (e.g. CRM), the market rationalisation through acquisition and re-imagination of some capabilities (e.g. marketing automation); the consumption or embedding of newer technologies like user journey orchestration or identity management into wider eco-systems; and the emergence of new capabilities (e.g. AI and experience management) — all present a thought-provoking landscape for brand owners. It challenges old assumptions and alliances.
Most of all, it challenges our strategy competence.
One of the fallouts from all of this, in my estimation, is an industry-wide confusion on (or perhaps just a need to re-learn), the roles of different customer systems in value creation.
I am privileged to be writing this article in Paul’s column which is fitting, because the most complete and insightful work on this subject can be found in his book, ‘The Commonwealth of Self-Interest’. Check out chapters 13 and 14, which deal with systems of record versus systems of engagement. The whole book is a masterpiece, seriously, and if you’re a reader of this column you’ll enjoy that familiar tone and dry humour of his.
By the way, that’s another form of personalisation… because personalization is a two-way street, it’s a conversation. (But that’s an article for another time.)
In my own work, I often call this group of technologies, “systems of customer control”, which is not to say that we control our customers, but it is to say that we — in partnership with customers — can jointly control our shared experiences and therefore outcomes.
- Partnership (for)
- Jointly
- Shared
- Outcomes
It provides a governance lens on the role of customer programs, but it’s more than that. Think about it: Isn’t that how we have always grown relationships?
So, in the spirit of never doing a prediction piece, here’s my 9-point “hypothesis” partly in response — but not really — to Gartner’s clever provocation, through to the close of 2025.
- Identity management will be critical (consent, compliance, access, UX).
- AI will become embedded (not a software adjunct); both pervasive and persuasive.
- Brands that adopt 2 but not 1 (above), will risk ending up in court and being rejected by their markets.
- Assisted sentiment analysis will pervade both tech and experience design (see 2).
- Social sciences disciplines within marketing teams will increase (way overdue).
- Investment into creative culture will accelerate.
- The CRM category will to continue to grow, but normalise to ~5% YoY (probably).
- The Customer engagement category will be the fastest growing in history (almost certainly).
All of this will happen because at the end of the day, we all just want (read: need) to be closer to our customers to advance our businesses and our mission. In all human relationships, “closeness” stems from a growing familiarity, a sense of safety, predictability, doing the right thing (context!), and of caring. Brands can’t escape this, not for a millisecond.
Now, the smart ones in the room will have noticed what they think is a typo. I said I had a 9-point hypothesis, but only gave you eight. Nope, I didn’t forget. I was setting you up. Another one is coming. Are you ready? Are you? Really??
What I am doing right now is building your anticipation.
I’m borrowing from a concept in experience design called “anticipatory design,” which triggers intrigue and causes a target (you!) to decide to continue with me, because we have now created a more personal user flow, which I could only do because I had some insight about you (namely that you read this far so you must be at least partially interested). I hope I am making my point.
Anyway, the crescendo of this piece, the 9th and final point in my, by-2025-hypothesis, is this:
9. Like a toddler who, after a long time crawling and falling (with the scars to prove it) is finally taking their first steps with confidence, we will have learnt from the early stages of our journey, and the industry will adopt a new era of “partnership-based personalisation”.
Perhaps that’s the optimist in me talking, but it’s also the powerful opportunity in front of us. Let’s all agree — Gartner, you and I — to put it another way:
Personalization is dead. Long live personalization.