Omnichannel – Wave 2 2020

Yesterday was an extremely exciting day, for a number of reason! The main reason (& the purpose of this article) is that the release notes for Wave 2 2020 dropped. This covers Dynamics 365 (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics365-release-plan/2020wave2/) and Power Platform (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-platform-release-plan/2020wave2/). I’ve been quite eager to see (& talk about) some of the features that will be in it, so here goes!

Now there’s obviously a lot of different stuff in there, covering all of the different first party apps in Dynamics 365, as well as functionality for the different parts of the Power Platform. I’m going to focus on the Omnichannel features, as after all that’s what I (mostly) talk about 🙂

As I’ve done before, I’m going to include the dates that are applicable (at this point in time) for each time.

Agent suggestions for similar cases

Public preview – October 2020. No current date for GA release

Reader Question: What should I do if a project sells in Hollywood ...

Customer service agents will usually use multiple resources to efficiently handle & resolve customer cases. When doing so, the ideal is to provided consistent responses across agents & sessions. Carrying this out can involve knowledge articles, involving other agents, or reviewing active/similar cases.

The aim is to therefore improve this to enable the agents to be more efficient. Items such as being able to identify other cases that similar actions have occurred will result in a much more empowered experience.

The key highlights for this new feature include:

  • AI driven case suggestions bases on the context & historical success rate
  • Secondary actions that can be taken, such as collaboration with an expert
  • Continuous improvement of the recommendation model through a comprehensive feedback mechanism

Embedding chats in mobile experience

GA – October 2020

Until now, the only way possible for customers to engage with Omnichannel customer support on mobile has been through a mobile browser. This hasn’t always been the best of experiences.

This feature allows business with mobile applications to provide customers the ability to engage with customer service directly within the mobile app. There are two options available for this across iOS & Android devices:

  • By embedding the Omnichannel chat widget into an iFrame, with minimal code customisation. The colour & logo can be set through the Omnichannel Administrator app. This method includes a sample app on AppSource with examples for common scenarios
  • Through the React Native Mobile SDK for Omnichannel for Customer Service. This will allow developers to build fully customised chat widgets in mobile apps

Persistent messaging for chat

GA – October 2020

One of the main challenges around chat is that when a conversation is closed, the history is accessible the the chat transcript. It’s not easily visible in the chat conversation history. Asynchronous messaging channels such as WhatsApp don’t have this ‘restriction’, as the chat history is directly available in the session.

If an agent needs to go look up the chat history, it can cause a delay in responding to the customer whilst it’s located, opened & read. This in turn can degrade the customer experience.

In this new feature, admins are able to enable persistent messaging, so that the customers previous conversation shows in the actual conversation window. This in turn allows the agent to have the full context of the customers previous engagement before responding.

Outbound messaging

Public preview – August 2020. GA October 2020

There are occasions when organisations need to proactively reach out to customers. This could be to notify them of a case update, regulatory information, upcoming appointments, etc. Being able to do this via the customers preferred method of communication is important in delivery best-of-class service

With this feature, organisations will be able to dynamically message their customers based on specific events through supported channels. This includes the following capabilities:

  • Creating message templates that can be adopted for outbound messages
  • Configure outbound messages based on specific events on any entity, & send messages when these events are triggered

The customer will now be able to respond back upon receiving one of the messages. This response will be treated like any other incoming conversation in Omnichannel. It will flow through the appropriate routing & work distributions, agent assignment, etc, and the agent will be able to respond back to the customer in real time

Post-conversation surveys using Forms Pro

Public preview – August 2020. GA – October 2020

Until now, there was no (easy) method for post-conversation surveys to be sent out to customers. Businesses wish to ensure that customer satisfaction is met, and often make use of such things. Custom Power Automate actions could be implemented, but this obviously takes additional time &/or resource to develop.

With this new feature, Omnichannel administrators can configure post conversations surveys using Forms Pro. These can be presented natively as part of the customer experience to provide feedback. There’s also support for sending offline surverys through one of the various enabled channels.

Real-time language translation of messages

Public preview – August 2020. GA – October 2020

Language Translator - Apps on Google Play

Customers would like to receive support in their native language. Businesses are not always able to do this, as it would require having staff who can communicate in different languages to their customers.

In this feature, real-time translation of messages is carried out between the customer & the support agent. It’s also available for the internal collaboration between agents. It’s enabled as a plug-in that exposes API’s to bring in 3rd party translation services, & also provides a native implementation through Azure Cognitive Services.

This is a feature that I can see being used heavily by not only multi-national organisations, but also by by smaller national-based organisations that have an international customer base

Agent personalisation of quick replies

What is Quick Response in S Planner of Samsung Galaxy Note2(GT ...

Agents spend a considerable amount of time engaging with customers. We already have quick responses within Omnichannel to save agents time in typing replies, & to deliver consistent replies.

However these can’t be personalised for individual agents to represent their identity. This new feature allows the pre-configured quick responses to be customised by agents to represent their styles. With this, they can then address communication scenarios in a manner that’s common & personal to them.

Agent personalisation of sound notifications

Public preview – September 2020. GA – October 2020

This feature enables agents to customise sound notifications for incoming conversations so that they can easily distinguish between different sessions. It will also allow them to
differentiate their sessions from others around them in a call centre setting.

Agent suggestions for knowledge

Public preview – September 2020. GA – October 2020

Agents typically use several different resources to efficiently resolve customer cases. These include knowledge articles, collaboration with other agents, and reviewing other cases. Up until now, this has all be done manually.

The new feature for this uses AI to proactively surface relevant knowledge articles, taking case context & previous history into account. It also includes a comprehensive feedback mechanism to continuously improve the recommendation model.

Experience designer for multi-session apps

Public preview – September 2020. GA – October 2020

The experience designer is an out-of-the-box solution that lets organisations create targeted app experiences, to be used by agents & supervisors. Administrators can select specific channels & tool to be used by these profiles, as an alternative to building & maintaining custom apps.

All in all, I think that there are some really helpful additions to the core Omnichannel product, aimed at making the customer & agent experiences more productive. I’m looking forward to getting hands on with these, and writing about them!

One thought on “Omnichannel – Wave 2 2020

Leave a Reply