D365PPUG Birmingham – April 2024 Event
Mar07

D365PPUG Birmingham – April 2024 Event

We have another amazing free Dynamics 365 / Power Platform event planned for April! Our next in-person meeting will take place on Thursday 11th April from 18:00 at the Wesleyan Building in Birmingham. You can register on meetup.com here. Regular attendees will already know that parking is available close by at the B4 Car Park or it’s a short walk from any city centre train station.

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Dynamics 365 – Knowledge Base Filtering
Mar05

Dynamics 365 – Knowledge Base Filtering

I was recently asked how we can control the filters available to agents when using the knowledge articles. I needed to research this feature; in this post I explain the filtering options. We can search the knowledge base from several points in Dynamics 365. You might, for example, be using the customer service hub and search for solutions directly from the case form. Or you maybe using the… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Phone Number Formats
Feb16

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Phone Number Formats

When using Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service you may need to ensure phone numbers held on your accounts and contacts are in a specific format. In this post I will explain why and how I validate my numbers. There are several times when the phone number format may be significant. I will list a few examples below. Outbound CallsBelow you can see I have entered a phone number in… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Change Agent Presence
Feb12

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Change Agent Presence

Within Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service agents can manually change their presence / status to be available, do not disturb etc. Supervisors can also change this status for individuals from the real-time conversations dashboard. But what-if you wanted to quickly change the status of multiple agents. In this post I will explore the challenge of updating the status on all… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – v2.0 Chat Widget Customizations
Feb09

Omnichannel for Customer Service – v2.0 Chat Widget Customizations

I recently explained how we can customize the appearance of chat widgets within Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service using data tags. In this post I will expand on that theme by looking how with the v2 chat widget code snippet we have additional customizations options. You can read my post about data tags here. Data tags are great! They are simple to use and offer a quick way to… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Data Tags and Chat Widgets
Feb08

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Data Tags and Chat Widgets

When we create a chat widget using Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service we can customize its appearance in several ways. In this post I will explain how “data tags” can be useful (and simple). When we create a chat channel, we can customize several aspects of the widget. (As shown below.) Including some control over colours, position and more. These customization options are… Continue Reading Neil...

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Copilot Studio – Hide Fields in Adaptive Cards
Feb07

Copilot Studio – Hide Fields in Adaptive Cards

I have recently been experimenting with adaptive cards within my Copilot Studio BOTS. (Previously known as Power Virtual Agents!) In this post I will explore how we can hide (and show) fields based on variables passed into the cards. In my previous posts I have already tackled several challenges (I guess this is turning into a mini series of adaptive card post!) … Toggle… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s Article on their...

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Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards Toggle Visibility
Feb06

Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards Toggle Visibility

I have recently been experimenting with adaptive cards with my Copilot Studio BOTS. (Previously called Power Virtual Agents!) In this post I will explore how to toggle the visibility of fields within my cards. In my previous posts I have already tackled several challenges, including … Dynamic Choices Variables Using a card as a pre-chat survey My latest challenge has… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s Article on their blog...

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Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards, Dynamic Choices
Feb01

Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards, Dynamic Choices

I have recently been experimenting with adaptive cards within my Copilot Studio BOTS. (Previously called Power Virtual Agents!) Recently I explained how we could use variables to customize our cards, in this post I will take that concept further by exploring how we can make the options in a choice field dynamic. You can read how to use variables in adaptive cards here. In this post I… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards and Variables
Feb01

Copilot Studio – Adaptive Cards and Variables

I have recently been experimenting with adaptive cards within my Copilot Studio BOTS. (Previously called Power Virtual Agents!) For example, I have replaced my pre-chat survey with an adaptive card. To aid reuse of these cards I’ve needed to pass variables from my BOT into the card. In this post I will explain how this is achieved. You can read how I created my first adaptive card to act… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Role Persona Mapping
Jan22

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Role Persona Mapping

When using Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service or Unified Routing “Role Persona Mapping” can come into play. In this post I will explain how and why. If I’m completely honest, until recently I hadn’t given persona mapping much thought! And therefore, I admit I hadn’t fully appreciated why I might amend these settings or considered the implication of the persona! You will find…...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Copilot Studio, Transfers to Agent Message
Jan15

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Copilot Studio, Transfers to Agent Message

Whilst using a Copilot Studio BOT with Omnichannel for Customer Service I recent had a problem adding variables into the transfer message. I will explain the challenge and how I resolved it in this post. I guess you might know that we now have two authoring experiences for CoPilot Studio BOTS! The original approach is now called “Classic”. You can see below that with my classic BOT, I have… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service Training – March 2023
Jan11

Omnichannel for Customer Service Training – March 2023

I am very pleased to announce my first Microsoft Omnichannel for Customer Service training course Omnichannel for Customer Service is part of the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, a comprehensive solution for contact centers. This is a “must attend” course for anyone implementing Dynamics 365 into contact centers. It is fair to say that all contact center projects… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s Article on...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Adaptive Cards as Pre-Chat Survey
Jan10

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Adaptive Cards as Pre-Chat Survey

Within Omnichannel for Customer Service, on the chat channel we can configure a pre-conversation survey. This functionality works well but I’ve recently been experimenting with using an adaptive card instead. In this post I will explain why and how! Newer style copilot studio BOTs support adaptive cards. These give us the ability to prompt the customer with questions, validate the… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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D365PPUG Birmingham – Jan 2024 Event
Jan03

D365PPUG Birmingham – Jan 2024 Event

The first in-person meeting of the Dynamics 365 and Power Platform User Group for Birmingham will take place on Thursday 25th Jan from 18:00. I can’t believe we are entering our 8th year of hosting events! As usual the event will be at the Wesleyan Building. Parking is available close by or it’s a short walk from any city centre train station. Please arrive early (6pm) to meet others… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Store Voice Surveys
Jan02

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Store Voice Surveys

Within Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service we can enable post-call surveys. I recently published a post explaining this feature. In this second related post I will explain how I have enhanced my post voice call surveys. You can read my original post here. (You might need to read that post before digesting this one!) In my original post I explained how we can use a Copilot… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voice Channel Surveys
Dec06

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voice Channel Surveys

Within Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service we can enable post-call surveys. In this post I will investigate how we can configure these surveys on the voice channel. With the chat / messaging channels we can use a Customer Voice survey as a post conversation survey. Voice channel surveys operate differently, for these we create a copilot studio Bot (PVA). At the end of voice… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – IVR BOTs and Languages
Dec04

Omnichannel for Customer Service – IVR BOTs and Languages

I recently created a blog post which explained the options we have in Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service and Unified Routing around languages. In this post I will continue that content and explain how an IVR might operate in multiple languages. You can read my original post here. In my original post I explained that we can implement a “no code” approach to our IVR by leveraging the… Continue Reading...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – New Dialer
Dec03

Omnichannel for Customer Service – New Dialer

When we make outbound telephone calls used Microsoft’s Omnichannel for customer service a new dialer is now available. I will highlight its features and explain how to enable it in this post. You can read about the new dialer experience here The old dialer worked fine but I admit it did have some limitations. My main frustration was around the way we were forced into entering the country code… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Languages
Nov26

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Languages

Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service supports multiple languages. In this post I will describe the options we have around channel language. I’m going to document this subject in the context of a phone call. (As this is probably the most common use case.) But you could obviously tailor these concepts to work with web chat and other conversation channels. Focusing on voice also allows me… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Agent Specific Capacity Profiles
Nov11

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Agent Specific Capacity Profiles

Microsoft have recently released a change to capacity profiles within Unified Routing. As we can how have agent specific capacities. Meaning in Omnichannel for Customer Service one agent might be able to handle 3 conversations at once, while another agent in the same profile might be able to handle less. Why is this important? Well often in contact centers we might say that senior agents can… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel For Customer Service – Identify Customers
Nov11

Omnichannel For Customer Service – Identify Customers

Within Microsoft’s Omnichannel for customer service we can automatically identify customers based on their phone number. (Or email for web chat!) But what logic is used and how can we customize it? In this post I will try to answer this question. Say you are an agent using the voice channel …. often contact or account record will be automatically linked to the conversation based on the… Continue Reading Neil...

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D365PPUG Birmingham – 2nd Speaker Announcement November 2023
Oct24

D365PPUG Birmingham – 2nd Speaker Announcement November 2023

Registrations are open for our next Dynamics 365 / Power Platform event in Birmingham. And this time I am very pleased to announce another amazing guest speaker. You can find more details and register on meetup.com here. Our next in-person meeting of the year will take place on Thursday 23rd November from 18:30 at the Wesleyan Building. Parking is available close by, at the B4 Car… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s Article...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Complex Conversation Routing
Oct22

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Complex Conversation Routing

Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service allows a single agent to handle conversations from multiple channels. Unified Routing is used to configure how those work items are distributed. This is a great feature but brings with it the opportunity for some complex routing requirements. In the post I will explain one such scenario. Possibly the easiest way to route things like webchats is to… Continue Reading Neil...

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D365PPUG Birmingham – Speaker Announcement 23rd November 2023
Oct18

D365PPUG Birmingham – Speaker Announcement 23rd November 2023

Registrations are open for our next Dynamics 365 / Power Platform event in Birmingham. And this time I am very pleased to announce a very special guest speaker. You can find more details and register on meetup.com here. Our next in-person meeting of the year will take place on Thursday 23rd November from 18:30 at the Wesleyan Building. Parking is available close by, at the B4 Car Park. Or… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Assignment Priorities
Sep20

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Assignment Priorities

Within Omnichannel for Customer Service we use Unified Routing to assign conversations to agents. Out of the box we have several assignment methods including round robin, highest capacity and longest idle. We’ll typically assign work items in the order they arrive based on one of these methods. But what if you want to prioritize certain conversations? In this post I will explain how we can use… Continue Reading Neil...

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Dynamics 365 Field Mappings to Quote, Order and Invoice
Sep14

Dynamics 365 Field Mappings to Quote, Order and Invoice

In Dynamics 365 it might be common to add custom fields to opportunity products, quotes lines, order lines and invoice lines. As we progress from an opportunity into a quote, or a quote into order etc, we’d want these custom fields to carry forward. But the relationship between these tables is (for some crazy reason) hidden. In this post I will explain how to resolve this challenge. I’m… Continue Reading Neil...

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Birmingham D365 and Power Platform User Group – September 2023
Sep13

Birmingham D365 and Power Platform User Group – September 2023

Our next Dynamics 365 / Power Platform user group meeting is fast approaching! On 21st September, if you are in Birmingham why not come and join us? As always, our event will be free and open to all. Our next in-person meeting of the year will take place on Thursday 20th July from 18:30 at the Wesleyan Building. Parking is available close by at the B4 Car Park or it’s a short walk from… Continue Reading Neil...

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Sales Sequences
Aug23

Sales Sequences

Have you used the Sales Sequences feature of Dynamics 365? I hadn’t until recently, so in this post I will explain the concept. Sales Sequences can be useful if you have a defined process involving consecutive activities that collectively progress a lead, contact, account, or opportunity towards a positive outcome. They help ensure activities are completed in a timely and consistent… Continue Reading Neil Parkhurst’s...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Session Icons
Aug02

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Session Icons

I love finding small features I’ve previously missed! This post is about such a feature, the ability within the customer service workspace to have custom session icons. When using Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service agents will open sessions in the customer service workspace. Out of the box I think all conversation sessions have the same logo. It’s a generic chat / conversation icon…. Continue Reading...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Summaries
Jul28

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Summaries

We have a new feature available in Omnichannel for Customer Service! We can now use co-pilot to generate conversation and case summaries. In this post I will review this new feature. Setup Before you can use summaries, they will need to be enabled. To enable and configure your “Summaries” settings, open the Customer Service Admin Center. Then within the productivity option you should find the… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – OTP
Jul25

Omnichannel for Customer Service – OTP

I recently read a post by Joe Gill around setting up one-time passwords (OTP) using a Power Virtual Agent. It got me thinking about other scenarios when we might want to use OTP. In this post I will explore how we might enable an OTP process within Omnichannel for Customer Service. You can read Joe’s original blog post here. My idea was for an agent to generate a one-time password. This… Continue Reading Neil...

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D365PPUG – Birmingham Event July 2023
Jul01

D365PPUG – Birmingham Event July 2023

I guess your mind might be focused on summer holidays right now! And I don’t blame you … but don’t forget that our next amazing free Dynamics 365 and Power Platform event will be in July. This face-to-face event in Birmingham will give you chance to meet with likeminded users, consultants, and developers. Additionally, you will witness some thought-provoking presentations. And if that wasn’t… Continue Reading...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voice Greeting
Jun26

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voice Greeting

First impressions count! Microsoft has recently added a new automated message to the voice channel within Omnichannel for Customer Service. In this post I will explain why I think this is a significant step …. I’m going to be honest here, I have never been 100% happy with the initial experience a customer has when a phone call connects with Omnichannel for Customer Service. The reason for… Continue Reading Neil...

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Sending Dynamics 365 Emails from Queues
Jun07

Sending Dynamics 365 Emails from Queues

I recently had a small challenge, which I have decided to blog about just in case you face a similar issue. I had a requirement to send emails from a queue but when I created an email in my Dynamics 365 Sales Hub app I could only send emails from users. It will be a common requirement to send emails from queues. As most companies would prefer the emails to be from “info@” or “support@” etc…. Continue...

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Customer Service Workspace – Enhanced Case Experience
May25

Customer Service Workspace – Enhanced Case Experience

We can now enable enhanced case forms within the Customer Service Workspace. (Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Customer Service app that supports multiple sessions / tabs.) In this blog post I will explain how to enable this new experience and explain some of its features. Enabling the new experience is simple enough. As an admin you just open your “Customer Service Admin Center”, locate the “Case… Continue...

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Unified Routing – Preferred Agent Routing (and Agent Scripts)
May09

Unified Routing – Preferred Agent Routing (and Agent Scripts)

When we are using Omnichannel for Customer Service we can use Unified Routing to assign conversations to a contact’s preferred agent. This is a useful approach to give a personalized experience to customers. But I’ve always had a concern about the amount of maintenance required to assign a preferred agent to each customer. In this post I will try and address that concern … The link to my… Continue Reading Neil...

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Birmingham D365 & Power Platform User Group – 25th May 2023
Apr26

Birmingham D365 & Power Platform User Group – 25th May 2023

I can’t believe it is almost May already! Summer is almost here …. We are busy planning the next Birmingham Dynamics 365 and Power Platform User Group (D365PPUG). It’s going to be a great free evening of presentations in Birmingham. So I suggest you register ASAP. You can register here on meetup.com. Our next in-person meeting of the year will take place on Thursday 25th May from 18:30 at… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Real-time Analytics
Apr14

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Real-time Analytics

Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service includes “loads” of reporting options. One of my favourite reports right now is the “real-time analytics” dashboard. In this post I will explain why and comment on how you can enable this feature. It might be worth considering that the real-time analytics dashboard is currently a preview feature. (As of April 2023!) And as a preview feature it maybe…...

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Power Apps – Show Currency in Canvas App Gallery
Apr04

Power Apps – Show Currency in Canvas App Gallery

I recently had a requirement to display a list of opportunities in a gallery in a canvas app screen. This was easy to achieve but my opportunities were in multiple currencies so how could I show money values with the correct currency symbol? In this post I will explain what I did. You might not know that money values in the Dataverse involve three columns. The first (as you’d expect) holds the… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel Voice – Phone Number Setup
Mar12

Omnichannel Voice – Phone Number Setup

In this post I will explain how I initially connected Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 Omnichannel for Customer Service to Azure Communication Services and configured the voice channel. I’d already installed Dynamics 365 Omnichannel and enabled the voice channel. So now is time to end the related trial subscription and provision a phone number using Azure Communication Services! Maybe I am just slow,… Continue Reading Neil...

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SLA – Recalculate on reactivation of cases
Mar10

SLA – Recalculate on reactivation of cases

I have blogged a few times about capabilities around service level agreements (SLAs) within Dynamics 365 Customer Service! This time I plan to cover a specific requirement that frequently arises …. as we often need to understand the impact on our SLA when re-opening a resolved case. Obviously, we’d like to think our agents always fully resolve all issues on their first attempt! But in the… Continue Reading Neil...

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Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Birmingham – 22nd March 2023
Mar02

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Birmingham – 22nd March 2023

I love Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform but I admit keeping up-to-date with all the latest developments can be a constant challenge. I’ve been very busy recently! So I haven’t given the next release enough attention. Meaning I am really looking forward to our next Birmingham user group …. we plan to focus on all the exciting features expected in the next release. If you are involved with… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – “internal” chat

I recently had a requirement for internal users to chat with agents in the contact center. Maybe (for example) sales app users would want to speak to agents staffing the helpdesk. Dynamics 365 does include Teams integrations which may be useful for this scenario! But what-if you wanted to apply the same routing logic for these internal users as your external customers. Then it might be useful… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Rejecting or missing notifications

When a conversation starts in Microsoft Omnichannel for Customer Service app the agent typically sees a notification including the ability to reject the call. Or if they miss the notification a wait timer will eventually hide the notification. That is great but what happens after the conversation is missed or rejected?? When a conversation is missed or the agent rejects the work item, it will… Continue Reading Neil...

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Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Birmingham – 25th Jan 2023
Jan03

Dynamics 365 and Power Platform Birmingham – 25th Jan 2023

Christmas is done the New Year has started and so our attention is turning to our next free Dynamics 365 event in Birmingham! A key focus of which will be a timely presentation on developing your Power Platform and Dynamics 365 career. For details read on … All of us that work with Microsoft products already know how quickly the technology evolves. January is always a good time to consider… Continue Reading Neil...

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Unified Routing – Effort Base Routing
Dec20

Unified Routing – Effort Base Routing

Within Dynamics 365 we can now use effort-based routing to assign conversations or records to users. Meaning from Omnichannel for Customer Service we could route case records, web chat conversations and more to agents based on effort estimate models. I will describe this new feature in this post. Before I start, I guess I should suggest why this might be required! Often complex queries can… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Callbacks
Nov15

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Callbacks

The new direct callback feature found in Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service gives customers the ability to request a callback as soon as an agent becomes available. I will explore this new feature in this blog post. The concept of a callback is simple enough! If a customer is going to be in a queue for longer than a specified duration, then instead of them holding we will offer the… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voicemail
Nov08

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Voicemail

A great new feature in Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service app relates to allowing customers to leave voicemails. In this blog post I will explore this new feature. Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service has included the voice channel for some time now! But the recently deployed 2022 Wave 2 release (aka October 2022) included a new feature to allow customers to leave voicemails… Continue Reading Neil...

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Omnichannel for Customer Service – Overflow (v2)
Oct28

Omnichannel for Customer Service – Overflow (v2)

I have previously blogged about the overflow capabilities in Microsoft’s Omnichannel for Customer Service. But the recent 2022 Wave 2 release has given us some additional capabilities. So, in this blog post I will approach this subject again! You can read my previous blog post here. But that post is now largely replaced by the information I will provide here!! I am sure every contact centre… Continue Reading Neil...

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