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Transitioning to Hybrid Commerce

April 11, 2021 CRM News and Info

I saw a report the other day about the future of commerce that made me smile.

It was unambiguously positive of the future of digital commerce and did its best to nail the brick-and-mortar coffin. The change had already occurred, it’s time to mop up, the report implied.

I had just been to the local mall for a repair at the Apple store and what struck me there was the sight of shuttered big-name stores that had gone out of business.

Certainly, the pandemic has caused some upheavals in American business and — it’s true that the record of progress in economics is littered with creative destruction. But the absolutist prognostications about the future of digital commerce taking over the world made me think “here we go again.” Trees don’t grow to the moon, retrenchment is common.

There is no doubt that digital commerce has played an essential role in getting us through the crisis. Taking deliveries at home has become much more preferable to risking contact in a crowded mall. Still, to think or say that the pendulum has swung completely in the opposite direction is, at least slightly, delusional.

I don’t know if there is another cost-effective way to get my Mac fixed other than to take it in once tech support has done its best and come up with nothing. Hence the visit to the mall. How many other processes run along these lines?

Also, the problems with malls predate the pandemoclypse. For starters, in my humble opinion, they are at least overcrowded, hard to get into and out of, and carry an increasingly useless and overpriced array of marginally attractive or high calorie things. But that’s just me.

E-Commerce Only, Really?

Malls also serve as the latter-day town square: a place to meet, to socialize, and in some ways bond or keep up with pop culture. They are the descendants of medieval fairs and middle eastern bazaars. But cars are the direct descendants of the horse and buggy so, I wouldn’t say that a change from physical to all-digital commerce isn’t possible. My objection is to the certainty of the rapidity of the shift.

Typically, even in big shifts we would see a regrouping and reassertion of the old paradigm before it succumbs, and recovery is a distinct possibility. I think we have to wait and see what the post-Covid world looks like.

Already we’re seeing big companies like Google mandating a return to the office — with some modifications — and I expect we’ll see more hybrid arrangements in retail. The mall might not go away, but its importance might shrink the same way radio and TV shrank in the face of newer technologies.

The radio niche is still with us though we rarely hear radio shows anymore. That task was taken over by TV and since the debut of streaming, we might watch the same box but what gets delivered to it and how, is vastly different.

So, I am looking for a hybrid commerce experience to evolve and it’s one that CRM most certainly will have a prominent role in. But what does this mean for the typical company selling in the B2C or increasingly the B2B space?

It’s reasonable to expect they’ll have a need for new or revamped commerce solutions, but how should they prepare? I think there are three options, two are not very good.

Do nothing and you face market risk or the chance that the market will change on you over night, more than it has. With this option you risk future profits and maybe your company, but you don’t spend money and there’s always the chance you can catch up.
There is also risk in doing too much. Spend a lot on new systems for an opportunity that never materializes, and you’ve wasted money, a big sin in business. You might have also wasted opportunity time in another direction. So, before you leap do some analysis.
Do something but not everything. I’m not a big fan of doing the Solomonic thing and cutting the baby in half because it rarely results in a usable outcome. This is different. Digital commerce depends on having a flexible software platform for building and changing CRM applications as needed. If you haven’t selected a platform provider or two yet, this is something you could do that will benefit your business regardless of which way the market ultimately bounces.

Time for Feedback

It’s good that you see the many changes that have happened in business and society the last year. Now you need some confirmation that change is here to stay. The idea of doing your own analysis is never a bad one.

Start with your customers.

Are they in love with buying online or do they see it as a necessary but less than ideal thing? What does a good buying experience look like to them?

Chances are they’ll tell you that online is fine for a variety of things but that sometimes they need to inspect the goods in person. Or, they might say they don’t need a traditional salesperson so much as they need a trusted advisor.

Whatever the feedback, getting to the best answer might require more of a skill we’ve all developed over the last year — waiting.

Denis%20Pombriant Transitioning to Hybrid Commerce
Denis Pombriant is a well-known CRM industry analyst, strategist, writer and speaker. His new book, You Can’t Buy Customer Loyalty, But You Can Earn It, is now available on Amazon. His 2015 book, Solve for the Customer, is also available there.
Email Denis.

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CRM Buyer

Understanding CRM Features-Better Customer Engagement

April 10, 2021 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Selecting the best CRM tool for your business can be a challenging process. More companies today are utilizing modern technology business solutions to help reach business objectives. CRM or Customer Relationship Management is essentially a business software system, or “Cloud Software” that helps individuals and teams maximize their productivity by improving customer communications and well as marketing, sales, and customer service effectiveness overall. Primarily, CRM is a system for recording and storing all customer-interaction information in one place; however, proper and effective management of your customers is one of CRM Features.

CRM solutions offer a standardized method for both gathering and sharing customer data as well as improving the way your company markets, sells, and supports customers. CRM solutions help in improving customer service by assuring that every customer inquiry is handled. It holds users accountable for proper follow-up and KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators) such as time to initial response. It also helps users provide better support by displaying all the vital information on dashboards, such as customer preferences, purchase history, past interactions, and more.

A Modern CRM System, such as Power-CRM, can help you provide a positive experience to your valuable customers every time they interact with your company/employees. This is possible since CRM provides detailed information on each customer, thereby allowing the employees to engage with them effectively. Furthermore, an integrated connection to Microsoft Outlook, lets you populate your Power-CRM with relevant information. By having both CRM and Email on whatever device you use: desktop, tablet, or mobile device, Power-CRM can help boost customer service levels by having all relevant communication in one place.

In addition to having customer information that is easy to find, Power-CRM can help you stay connected to your customers by having a “Support” area to better serve your customers. The Case Management/Ticket Management CRM Features in this system allow you to stay in communication with both your customer and internal team to provide a documented resolution for each support case matched up against your Account record. As Customer Support Case gets sent in they can be delegated to certain people in your company with all supporting notes in Power-CRM as the support ticket progresses.

Power-CRM, offered by iCepts Technology Group, is a full-featured, yet affordable Cloud CRM solution that can help your business both the effective tracking of new leads and opportunities while offering a system for better customer engagement. Pricing for Power-CRM starts at just $ 25/user/month + services.

Next Steps.

Learn more about Power-CRM,

Get an Estimate on Power-CRM for your company.

Posted by iCepts Technology Group, Inc a Microsoft and Power-CRM Reseller in Pennsylvania

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

The Easier Way For Banks To Handle Data Security While Working Remotely

April 10, 2021 CRM News and Info

When you think of an industry that could “never” allow working from home, banking would be at the top of the list. There are too many security issues involved.

Banking systems have social security numbers, account balances, mortgage details. Everything you wouldn’t want to fall into the wrong hands.

Last year very few banks had planned for a complete shutdown, yet all of a sudden, to continue serving customers, they had to quickly find a way for employees to work remotely.

Most banks did it the hard way, which is also the expensive way. Some banks found a better way.

The hard way:

Most banks use legacy technology that runs on internal servers. To access it remotely, they must use a Citrix encrypted access link. Each of these connections requires a license and costs money.

In the past, perhaps just a few salespeople or top executives were given one of the RSA access token key fobs to go through an encrypted Citrix connection and securely log into the bank systems.

In 2020, to remain fully operational, suddenly, banks were faced with the expense of possibly hundreds of extra remote licenses. More likely, only a few selected people received a license, and the others were rotated into the office on a schedule. Except when a branch had someone exposed to COVID, and then the entire team had to quarantine.

Of course, this impacts productivity and puts a strain on the workers in the office. Another casualty is that essential systems, such as the CRM system, may not be kept up to date.

It is hard enough to get bank employees to keep a CRM system up to date. If they do not have access from home, they have to wait until they are rotated back into the office, which in some cases is two weeks. Then if the employee is only back in the branch for a short time, likely their first priority is not to update the CRM system. Admins who have remote access have to think of workarounds such as manually exporting lists, asking people for updates, and then entering the updates for them.

This “system”, both from a technical and operational perspective, is expensive and inefficient.

The easy way:

Microsoft’s mission is to empower banks to achieve more by delivering solutions with security, privacy, compliance, and transparency in mind. Microsoft Dynamics 365 was built for the cloud and designed specifically for remote access. Everyone licensed in the system can use it, no matter where they are, and stay secure. Microsoft Dynamics 365 with Crowe CRM for Banking is a system built for the banking industry. There is no extra cost for remote connections. There is no extra cost for the world-class governance you are afforded in the Microsoft cloud. Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps bank employees remain productive without increasing cybersecurity risk.

Employees can stay in touch with coworkers using chat applications like Microsoft Teams and shared documents using SharePoint or OneDrive. They can replace in-person meetings with conference calls. All this is done on the Microsoft platform.

Microsoft’s security approach begins with Zero Trust, which is based on the principle: never trust, always verify. Every access request is strongly authenticated and inspected before access is granted. This approach helps Microsoft protect employees, devices, applications, data – no matter where users are located.

Next steps:

While we hope that business will soon be getting back to normal after the pandemic, will your bank be ready if something similar happens again? Even if we do not have another full lockdown, would your team be more productive if it was easy for them to access systems, securely, from any location where they might be working?

Crowe works with more than 2,000 financial services organizations across the country, including about two-thirds of the top 100 U.S. banks. The Crowe’s Banking Consulting team is dedicated to helping banks improve efficiency and achieve greater success.

Crowe professionals focus on helping banks manage technologies, enhance systems, address complex data and analysis challenges, and organize processes for optimal efficiency. We provide practical advice and proven methods designed to help organizations create lasting change.

Visit CroweCRM.com for more information about Crowe CRM solutions and services for Microsoft Dynamics 365 software.

By Ryan Plourde, Crowe, a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Gold Partner www.CroweCRM.com

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Missing Form Editor through command bar in Microsoft Dynamics 365

April 9, 2021 CRM News and Info

As a Dynamics 365 CE customizer, I frequently need to work with forms. Now, to create or edit forms, we use a Form editor. This form editor can be accessed from the default solution or an unmanaged solution or command bar.

Access form editor through default solution:

To access it from the Default Solution, you need to go to Settings/Advanced Settings ???? Customizations and then customize the System to open the Default Solution. Under components expand the entity which the form belongs to and click Forms. You will see a list of forms, out of those select the form which you want to edit.

1 12 625x386 Missing Form Editor through command bar in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Access form editor through an unmanaged solution:

To access through the unmanaged solution, you need to go to settings/Advanced Settings ???? Customizations and then select Solutions and open the solution that you want to work. Find the entity in the solution or add the entity in which the form belongs to the solution. Expand the entity and click on forms that will show you a list of forms added to that particular solution. In case if you don’t find the form add it using the button add subcomponents and select the forms tab and select the form you want to edit.

Access form editor through Command bar/ Ribbon (not for UI):

To access form editor through the command bar or ribbon, Open record and from the command bar select form top open form editor. Make sure you are on the right form because this option will edit the form which you currently opened.

Missing Form Button in UI

4 10 625x219 Missing Form Editor through command bar in Microsoft Dynamics 365

Out of these three options, the easiest way to edit the main forms is by accessing the form editor from the Command bar.

In my experience, the form editor using the command bar is very handy and I use it very often until I started using Unified interface apps. Even though there are so many pros to a Unified Interface, I guess the main disadvantage is that it takes away the option for accessing the Form from the command bar. I wish Microsoft will add this feature soon.

Let me know what you think about this feature. For transitioning from archaic systems to advanced technology like Microsoft Dynamics 365, do connect with us.

We have understood how CRM can be more than just a tool to help sales reps. How it can go beyond optimizing the pipeline and work for a holistic growth of a company. Our ebook 15 CRM challenges discusses this and a lot more.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse – Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

April 9, 2021 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Summary

Continuous monitoring allows enterprises the opportunity to ensure reliable performant services are immediately available to its users. Platforms need to be able to keep up with demand in such a way that its seamless to a user. Systems that become unreliable or unusable are quickly disregarded or abandoned. One sure fire way to ensure uses won’t use a service is if the service is unavailable. To account for this, enterprises looks to service level agreements and business continuity strategies. Part of this strategy includes testing for availability.

Azure Application Insights provides features to allow organizations to quickly report and take action on current and trending availability metrics. This article will review the various tests that can be configured within the service. From there we will go into how the data is and can be collected for analysis. We will look into a use case involving monitoring the Dataverse API. Finally, we wrap with implementing a monitoring strategy to assist with notifications and automation.

Azure Application Insights Availability Tests

Azure Application Insights availability tests come in three distinct groupings. The first, reaches out to a URL from different points around the world. The second, allows for the replay of a recorded user interaction with a site or web based service. Both of these originate from within the Azure Application Insights feature itself, created in the Azure Portal or through the Azure APIs.

The final type of test is a completely custom test. This custom test allows flexibility into how, what and where we test. Due to these attributes, this type of test is ideal and will serve as the test strategy implemented below.

Important Note on web tests:

The web test mechanism has been marked as deprecated. As expected this announcement comes with various feedback. With this in mind, I recommend avoiding implementing web tests. If web tests are currently being used, look to migrate to custom tests.

Building Ping Tests

URL Ping Tests with Azure Application Insights are tests that allow the service to make a request to a user specified URL. As documented, this test doesn’t actually use ICMP but sends an HTTP request allowing for capturing response headers, duration timings, etc.

For the Power Platform, this can be useful for testing availability of Power Apps Portals or services utilizing Power Virtual Agents or custom connectors. When configuring the test, conditions can be set for the actual request to the URL. These include the ability to include dependent requests (such as images needed for the webpage) or the ability to retry on an initial failure.

The test frequency can be set to run every five, ten or fifteen minutes from various Azure Data Centers across the globe. Its recommended to test from no fewer than five locations, this will help diagnose network and latency issues.

Finally, the referenced documentation recommends that the optimal configuration for working with alerts is to set the number of test locations equal to the threshold of the alert plus two.

Building Custom Tests

Continuing down the path of availability tests, the need to expand beyond URL ping tests will eventually come up. Situations such as validating not only uptime but authentication, latency, service health, etc. all could benefit from custom availability tests.

Before building custom tests, let’s look take a closer look at the Availability table within Azure Application Insights.

The Availability Table

The availability table is where our test telemetry will reside, either from URL ping tests or custom testing. The table is designed to allow for capturing if a test was successful, the duration (typically captured in milliseconds with a stopwatch approach), location of the test and other properties. I’ll review this in depth further in the article but for now keep in mind at a minimum we want to capture successfulness, timing and location for each test.

Creating and Deploying an Azure Function(s)

Azure Functions offer an ideal service for hosting out availability tests. Deployable worldwide and resilient, we can quickly modify and publish changes to our tests with minimal effort. Azure Functions also offer a real advantage, the ability to use a timer based trigger similar to a CRON job (actually uses NCRONTAB expressions) or an HTTP trigger allowing for ad-hoc test runs.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Click on each image to enlarge for more detail

3060.pastedimage1617882411222v1 Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

Triggers

The image above shows two public entry points, one based on the HttpTrigger and one based on the TimerTrigger. The HttpTrigger is relatively straight forward allowing for GET and POST messages. The advantage for the use of this type of trigger is flexibility, function requests can be sent from practically any pillar in the Power Platform, such as Power Apps, Power Automate Flows or Power Virtual Agents.

The TimerTrigger on the other hand is, as expected, set to run on a predefined interval using the CRON (NCRONTAB) expression schema. What I like about this approach is we use a well known interface for scheduling tasks utilizing the power of Azure Functions. In the image above the schedule is hard coded but this can be configurable using settings contained within the Azure Function or elsewhere.

The approach laid out here provides another major advantage. This approach is decoupled from the Power Platform and will not be impacted or hindered by the very platform we are testing for availability!

Dataverse Requests

The decision how best to connect and report on Dataverse availability is completely up to the business requirements that need to be met. What I would recommend is to authenticate and perform a command confirming not only availability but authorization. Below is an example of requesting an OAuth token and performing two requests, the WhoAmI and RetrieveCurrentOrganization actions.

7652.pastedimage1617882411223v2 Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

This helps confirm that the service principal used is valid and can return responses from the Dataverse. In my example, I had two main requirements for working with the Dataverse: connect using a service principal and avoid any SDK dependency. The test must reduce any potential blockers such as license modifications or assembly version lock-in. Again, how you implement this is completely up to you.

Location, Location, Location…

Once its been determined what needs to be tested and how to go about testing, the decision on where to test and metric collection still needs an answer. Again, Azure Function comes to the rescue, allowing developers (DevOps engineers cover your ears) to quickly deploy from Visual Studio to locations around the world. That said, ideally proper CI/CD processes are followed.

Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

Measuring latency across regions and continents is natively collected by Microsoft by use of ThousandEyes. The Region to Region Latency tool, documented here, is a good reference of the average latency between Azure Data Centers when performing actions across the Azure network backbone. Alternatively, you can collect latency and bandwidth information using Mark Russinovich’s popular tool, PsPing.

Building the Availability Telemetry

Once the application we want to test for availability has been identified and the endpoint connected to, we now need to create the availability telemetry message. As discussed above, the AvailabilityResults table within Azure Application Insights contains columns that can be used to track successfulness of API actions and the locations from which they originated.

For the Dataverse, or in fact any HTTP invoked request, we can also capture headers from the response. This can prove beneficial to gaining insights as well into current API usage as it pertains to limits (e.g. Entitlement Limits) or correlation identifiers. These headers work well in the Custom Dimensions column, a JSON serialized column providing the flexibility needed to add additional data points.

That said at a minimum what I have found most useful for the Azure Application Insights tooling is first coming up with a name for your tests. Once named, setting the Run Location property will be key to grouping the tests regionally. Within Azure Functions is an environment variable called “REGION_NAME” that provides the data center location. Finally, setting the Success property along with the Message is needed to ensure we track uptime.

Optionally, duration can be set and depending on what your requirement is for this will dictate what call timings are captured. In my example I am executing a simple action call and wrapping that in a timer. Taking this duration and comparing it to the latest region to region latency should provide ample timing metrics.

Reviewing Tests

The messages from our availability tests will reside within the AvailabilityResults table with Azure Application Insights. The messages are summarized and can be drilled into visually using the Availability feature as shown below.

2248.pastedimage1617882411223v4 Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

As the image shows, the tests are grouped by name, in this case “Dynamics 365 Availability Test“. Expanding the test we can see the various regions. Once a region is selected we can drill into the scatter plot to see how uptime may have been impacted. Consider the gif below, showing how to add filters to expand the time window searched as well as organization version.

Dynamics365AvailabilityTests Monitoring the Power Platform: Dataverse Continuous Monitoring with Availability Tests

Using the technique described above, we can now see not only when a organization version changed but the beginnings of availability and duration timings.

Custom Availability Tests with the Dataverse API Demo

Below is a link to my YouTube video including detailed analysis and a demo of working with availability tests within Azure Application Insights. The demo includes setting up the test, deploying to Azure, reviewing logs and creating Azure Monitor alert rules.

[embedded content]

Sample Code

Sample code can be found here.

Next Steps

In this article we have reviewed how to use availability tests within Azure Application Insights. We explored creating URL ping tests as well as building custom tests. From there, we designed and published an Azure Function globally to test Dataverse availability.

As shown, not only can the availability tests let us know the uptime of an API or service but is flexible enough to capture data points such as build versions, flow runs, etc. Consider how to use extend the use of this type of testing to further utilize Azure Monitor capabilities such as alerting.

If you are interested in learning more about specialized guidance and training for monitoring or other areas of the Power Platform, which includes a monitoring workshop, please contact your Technical Account Manager or Microsoft representative for further details.

Your feedback is extremely valuable so please leave a comment below and I’ll be happy to help where I can! Also, if you find any inconsistencies, omissions or have suggestions, please go here to submit a new issue.

Index

Monitoring the Power Platform: Introduction and Index

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Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement in the Field

Electronic Reporting Explained

April 8, 2021 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

In this post we’ll be looking at a classical data export scenario and showing how it can be implemented using the Electronic Reporting (ER) feature in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Supply Chain Management (D365F&SCM). Introduction Minimal Configuration of ER Parameters Defining the Data Model Mapping from Database to Data Model Mapping from Data Model to XML Format Starting the Export Conclusion…

Source

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PowerObjects- Bringing Focus to Dynamics CRM

How to Ride the ‘Consumer Wave’ to Better Customer Experiences

April 8, 2021 CRM News and Info

By Jack M. Germain

Apr 5, 2021 11:42 AM PT

If your business does not provide customers with self-service options, you might be encouraging potential customers to go elsewhere.

According to the 2020 NICE inContact Customer Experience (CX) Transformation Benchmark, Consumer Wave, eight in 10 consumers are more willing to do business with companies that offer self-service options. Yet only 61 percent agree that companies are offering easy, convenient self-service.

NICE inContact last month announced a new education series and resources to help companies apply self-service best practices using smarter artificial intelligence technology to meet consumer demand for faster, convenient experiences.

This compilation of best-practice guides and a series of virtual events brings together the latest research and expertise from NICE inContact and industry leaders to uncover ways to improve customer satisfaction and lower the cost to serve with the right blend of smarter self-service and agent-assist options across the customer journey.

When rating self-service channels, however, only one-third of consumers are highly satisfied. So your best business practice needs to ensure a self-service process that your customers find above-average or better.

This annual study surveyed more than 2,500 consumers across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia, and identified opportunities for companies to improve the self-service experience.

It revealed that in addition to self-service opportunities, deployment of artificial intelligence and chatbots continues to experience significant growth, with 67 percent of consumers using AI for customer service — up from 46 percent in 2019.

“The sheer amount of transformation experienced by contact centers in the last year is unprecedented,” NICE inContact CEO Paul Jarman told CRM Buyer.

“From the varied deployment of chatbots and AI to the shift towards self-service channels — successful customer experience is truly a journey, not a destination. The modern digital experience is fueled by technological advancements in areas like AI.”

Key Findings

The report found three major challenges for businesses to fix in order to better serve their customers. One essential theme is the notion that sometimes your customers want to help themselves. So let them.

Consumers have high expectations for seamless omnichannel service. Nearly all (96 percent) consumers expect companies to make it easy without the need to repeat information. Another 95 percent expect companies to direct them to the channel for the quickest resolution. There is little room for errors.

Even more, 94 percent want seamless access to a customer service agent even if they use self-service. Plus, 83 percent say that if they use a chatbot, they expect to switch to chat, text, or phone in the same interaction.

Businesses continue to fall short of this expectation. The majority (68 percent) of consumers say companies are doing a poor job allowing customers to switch seamlessly between methods of communication as demonstrated by the 64 percent of consumers had to repeat information when beginning in self-service and switching to a live agent.

Also, 59 percent had to repeat information even though they were communicating with the same agent when switching channels.

A critical gap still exists in understanding on the business side:

Agent-assisted channels carry an 11-point customer satisfaction gap between business estimates (44 percent) and consumer experience (33 percent);
self-service channels carry a 13-point gap between business estimates (44 percent) and consumer experience (31 percent); and
digital channels carry a 12-point gap between business estimates (45 percent) and consumer experience (33 percent).

Discussing Strategies

Even the most customer-centric businesses can overestimate their performance or miss the broad trends in customer behavior. That is why NICE inContact conducts annual surveys that track the customer experience around the globe. It looks at the perspective of both businesses and consumers.

In recent years, these surveys have documented a dramatic shift in the way businesses interact with consumers, as customers become more comfortable using AI and self-service channels.

The 2020 Customer Experience (CX) Benchmark, Consumer Wave report comes on the heels of a global pandemic, which abruptly ended in-person experiences and changed buying habits perhaps forever.

The results of the latest survey show that the public health crisis has only pushed CX to become more digital, accelerating the need for robust omnichannel capabilities inside contact centers, observed Jarman.

CRM Buyer discussed some related issues in more detail with Paul Jarman.

CRM Buyer: What changed significantly in this year’s customer attitudes?

Paul Jarman: As streaming services and same-day deliveries become the norm, customers have grown to expect something similar — seamless and instant — from other services and interactions as well.

In general, the deployment of AI and chatbots continues to grow. While chatbot usage has increased significantly, the strongest emotion that consumers feel related to AI chatbots is frustration (22 percent) and anger (11 percent).

Nevertheless, consumers are reporting greater ease of use with self-service channels, as 47 percent gave “extremely easy” scores in 2020 — up 11 points from 2019. For the first time, the first-contact resolution for self-service (62 percent) channels exceeded the first-contact resolution for agent-assisted (55 percent) in 2020.

What should businesses do in response to the poor ratings for customer satisfaction?

Jarman: There have been some recent improvements in this area, with consumers giving businesses a five-percent better rating than the previous year with allowing customers to switch seamlessly between methods of communication, such as from AI chatbot to voice when trying to resolve a support issue.

Can contact centers help businesses in this regard?

Jarman: Contact centers must innovate faster than ever to keep pace with customer expectations and harness rapid advances in AI. More organizations are moving from legacy on-premises technology and adopting contact center as a service (CCaaS), which provides future-proof access to the latest conversational self-service and behavioral-based real-time agent coaching innovations.

How does AI differ from using other methods in dealing with improvements to customer experience?

Jarman: Depending on its application, the industry in which it is used, and the people who are using it, AI is extremely versatile. Today, contact centers can deploy an AI virtual assistant in their IVR, chat, social, or text interfaces to resolve a large chunk of inbound inquiries.

87083 Paul Jarmin How to Ride the Consumer Wave to Better Customer Experiences

NICE inContact CEO Paul Jarmin

The best conversational AI can improve customer satisfaction, call containment, and first call resolution. Advancements in AI that advise agents at point-of-service on critical behaviors can elevate agent performance on hard-to-train soft skills like active listening.

Unlike traditional “after-the-fact” coaching, this AI innovation instantly scores agent behaviors that influence customer sentiment and guide agents on the most impactful soft-skill actions. These modern tools are not yet widely adopted, so customers are getting disparate experiences from company to company.

What is contributing to the significant growth reported in AI adoption?

Jarman: Businesses are learning that in order to drive customer loyalty, they have to remove any friction for consumers to contact them. More and more, companies are enabling customers to use new digital channels such as text and even Facebook Messenger to reach out about any issue.

Greater accessibility means more interactions, which can lead to longer queues. In most instances, contact centers do not have the bandwidth to handle this customer demand without the help of AI-powered virtual assistants that can shoulder some of the burdens. AI has proven to be a cost-effective solution to surging contact center traffic.

Beyond virtual assistance, AI demand has increased due to the sheer volume of data that contact centers confront every day. When it comes to voice interactions, in-depth analysis can be difficult to do at scale with human managers and quality control specialists.

Contact center AI can measure and compare each voice interaction against benchmarks to provide actionable insights.

What is needed to increase AI deployment?

Jarman: With such a broad range of uses, AI deployment in contact centers can feel a little overwhelming. Like many technological innovations, the value of AI does not immediately resonate with those who control spending and investments.

Customer experience leaders have to demonstrate to the C-suite that AI will drive significant benefits that will not only improve the customer experience but also benefit the operational efficiency of the organization.

What is the most significant task that AI can do better than humans?

Jarman: One thing that AI can do — which humans struggle with — is analyzing large data sets. What might seem a huge undertaking for a human can be extremely light work for a computer.

AI removes the mundane work for contact center agents and managers so that they have more time and energy to focus on more complex customer service issues.

What makes AI so well-rounded in meeting customers’ self-service and CX needs?

Jarman: AI can be trained to have emotional intelligence. These models are pre-trained with billions of real-life customer interactions to understand the intricacies of customer engagement that drive satisfaction or upsell opportunities — either in real-time or during coaching and training.

AI can be directly integrated with contact center service agent workstations, providing immediate insight and empowering them to make every customer experience the best one possible. The result is faster response times, a higher first-call-resolution rate, and happier customer service agents who now have the tools to do their job at a higher level.

Artificial Intelligence can change the role of agents and impact processes in ways that create new opportunities for the contact center to help customers, bringing never-thought-of value to the business.

Jack%20M.%20Germain How to Ride the Consumer Wave to Better Customer Experiences
Jack M. Germain has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His main areas of focus are enterprise IT, Linux and open-source technologies. He is an esteemed reviewer of Linux distros and other open-source software. In addition, Jack extensively covers business technology and privacy issues, as well as developments in e-commerce and consumer electronics. Email Jack.

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CRM Buyer

Can’t Add Members to a Marketing List From a Saved View in Dynamics 365

April 7, 2021 CRM News and Info

We recently found an issue in Dynamics 365 where a customer could not add members to a Marketing List From a Saved View in Dynamics 365. Read on to find out why.

THE PROBLEM

My customer confirmed they had a saved view of contacts that brought up the correct records in advanced find. Second, she opened a new marketing list and went to Add Members using the saved view of Contacts. Dynamics 365 displayed the criteria and then…Boom! Zero contacts found. What?! We know the criteria was good in advanced find, so what happened when we tried to use it to populate a Marketing List?

THE EXPLANATION

After working through testing in different ways, it was a mystery. Yes, the criteria looked a little different in the “add members” window, but all the logic appeared to still be there. Since this was a Dynamics 365 Online system, I opened a ticket with Microsoft support. After 5 minutes on the call, the Microsoft rep told me that the problem we were seeing was a known bug. Sometimes the criteria from advanced find doesn’t translate correctly, when using a saved view to add members to a marketing list. It just happens, and not always with the same field. In our case, it was the “Email messages (regarding)” field. There was good news, though, the workaround was an easy fix.

THE WORKAROUND/SOLUTION (FOR NOW)

During our short call, the Microsoft rep told me that this issue is slated to be fixed in a future release. However, which release or when that will happen, is not yet known. I said there was some good news and yes, we have a way to get around this problem. Simply put, compare the Saved View to the Add Members view, line by line. If any of the lines are not the same in the “Add Members” view, then change them so they match the Saved View. In the example below, take a look at the Email Messages (Regarding) line. Notice that the lines are different between the saved view and the add members view.

Advanced Find:

Saved view criteria when used to add members to a marketing list:

Picture2 Can’t Add Members to a Marketing List From a Saved View in Dynamics 365

Picture3 Can’t Add Members to a Marketing List From a Saved View in Dynamics 365

The “add members” criteria above found zero Contacts.

Changing the Email (regarding) filter in the “add members” screen to look like this, retrieved the expected Contacts.

add members after Can’t Add Members to a Marketing List From a Saved View in Dynamics 365

Need help with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing or other areas of the system? We can help!

Get in touch with Beringer Technology Group today!

Beringer Technology Group, a leading Microsoft Gold Certified Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and CRM for Distribution, also provides expert Managed IT Services, Backup and Disaster Recovery, Cloud Based Computing, Email Security Implementation and Training, Unified Communication Solutions, and Cybersecurity Risk Assessment.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

Upcoming Webinar: Mold Dynamics 365 Sales to match your sales process with customized UI Apps

April 7, 2021 Microsoft Dynamics CRM

See first-hand how you can customize the new Dynamics 365 Unified Interface to implement Dynamics 365 Sales apps that match your existing sales processes.

When: Wednesday, April 28^th at 11 AM CT

In this webinar you’ll learn:

What the Unified Interface is and how it works.
How you can customize Dynamics 365 sales apps to fit the needs of individual roles within your sales and marketing teams.
Get insight into specific use cases for Sales UI apps.
See detailed demos of the out-of-the-box UI app for Dynamics 365 Sales and a customized app for a specific role.
Get your questions answered through a Q&A with our Dynamics 365 Sales Consultants.

What is the Unified Interface?

Back in 2018, Microsoft introduced a new version of Dynamics 365 aimed at streamlining the interface and making it easier for users to find and utilize the entities they need. They call this the Dynamics 365 Unified Interface. To be clear, this is not a new Dynamics 365 – it’s actually a new layer on top of the classic web application that still uses the same forms and data you are currently using. Another big benefit? The Unified Interface is designed to give users the same experience no matter what device they are using. This means Dynamics 365 will adapt to phones, tablets, and many browsers while providing the same optimal viewing experience.

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

How to Get the CRM System of Your Dreams at a Price You Can Afford

April 7, 2021 CRM News and Info

For companies with big budgets, SalesForce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 are often the CRM of choice. But many smaller businesses simply can’t justify the expense. So how can you get the CRM system of your dreams at a price you can afford?

The answer is CRMPlus³⁶⁵ from P2 Automation.

CRMPlus³⁶⁵ is a highly customizable, affordable CRM system built on the same technology as Microsoft Dynamics 365. Think of it as a cloud-based “mini” Dynamics 365 at a fraction of the price. It has the same look and feel as Dynamics 365 and seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook, but without the complexity that most small businesses do not need.

Migrating to CRMPlus³⁶⁵

We customize each CRMPlus³⁶⁵ system individually to fit our customers’ specific needs. If you already have a CRM we’ll use it as a “blueprint” for your new system. We’ll then go through our standard discovery process to find out how you work today, what functions you need, and what data you want to track. We’ll come up with a design plan that will meet all your needs.

We can make the screens match the fields and drop-down lists you are used to seeing in your current system. Familiarity will help your team adapt to the new system and expedite data migration.

Data Migration

If you migrate from another CRM system like SalesForce or Microsoft Dynamics 365, we can give you an accurate migration quote. We’ll migrate your data after hours so we don’t impact your business. You’ll start fresh Monday morning with your new system.

When our team is done, you will have a fully custom CRM system that is easy to learn and easy to use. Every month after that, you’ll see the financial savings. You can use that savings to fund other functionality that your team will actually use, or put it in your pocket!

If you are using SalesForce CRM or Dynamics 365 now, let’s talk about getting you the CRM system of your dreams at a price you can afford.

Contact our CRMPlus³⁶⁵ experts at P2 Automation today.

By P2 Automation, www.p2automation.com

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CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365

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