Microsoft Introduces GenAI-First Dynamics 365 Contact Center Solution

Microsoft made a major contact center announcement recently with the introduction of its Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center product, which it’s calling a “Copilot-first” contact center solution.

What’s a “Co-pilot first” solution, you may ask? Well, it's one that offers experiences led by a non-human "co-pilot"… in this case, a generative AI agent that can work in every customer engagement channel. Microsoft’s new standalone contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) solution was designed to help customers maximize their current investments by connecting to preferred customer relationship management systems (CRMs) or custom apps, said the company. The solution will become generally available on the first of July.

“Generative AI is transforming customer service and revolutionizing the way contact centers operate — from delivering rich experiences across digital and voice channels that enable customers to resolve their own needs, to equipping agents with relevant context within the flow of work, and ultimately unifying operations to drive efficiency and reduce costs,” said Microsoft in the blog post announcing the product.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a multichannel solution that makes use of generative AI throughout the contact center workflow — spanning the channels of communication, self-service, intelligent routing, agent-assisted service and general operations to help contact centers solve problems faster, empower agents and reduce costs.

The company noted that its own wildly busy Customer Service and Support (CSS) team, one of the largest customer services organizations in the world, has been a perfect testing ground for the product.

“Before the support team migrated to Microsoft’s own tools, CSS was previously using 16 different systems and over 500 individual tools — slowing down service, hindering collaboration and producing inefficient workflows,” according to the blog post. “With Copilot as part of the solution, the CSS team achieved a 12 percent decrease in average handle time for chat engagements and 13 percent decrease in agents requiring peer assistance to resolve an incident. And more broadly, CSS has seen a 31 percent increase in first-call resolution and a 20 percent reduction in missed routes.”