Customer service in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2016

What is available with CRM 2016 is not just a token upgrade of the existing customer service module. There is a whole lot of new functionality and capabilities within the system.

To quote Bob Stutz from Microsoft

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“The way people interact with businesses has changed dramatically, and companies are looking for ways to respond.  A recent Customer 2020 report noted that by the end of this decade, customer experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differentiator — placing customer service at the epicenter of a company’s ability to deliver a consistent and intelligent engagement experience.”

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So what has Microsoft actually done with the service module? It has put in place the tools and mechanisms to enable businesses to get a head start on this differentiator outlined above.

They have introduced something called the “Interactive Service Hub” that allows data to be presented logically, graphically and contextually. It no longer looks the same; it is vibrant, powerful and obvious.

The enhanced Unified Service Desk has had a makeover and now introduces a chat element, via Skype and Yammer. This in reality means the capability to interact directly with a customer from within the application. This is becoming more and more the norm today for customer service.

However if you look closely at what Bob has said, it’s all about customer service. Many organisations have their own internal help desks or functions where the customers they service are actually people within their own business. Consider for a moment an internal IT service desk, they need to raise tickets, action requests and meet SLAs etc. This is what Microsoft Dynamics CRM can deliver.

Therefore it maybe is worth having another look at this new functionality, look at things from a different perspective and through some other lenses, and consider that customers may actually not be who you first thought they were.