Dive Brief:
- Microsoft is bringing its generative AI solution Copilot to the contact center, the company announced Tuesday.
- Dynamics 365 Contact Center, which will be generally available July 1, includes tools to aid agents as well as self-service capabilities. Its agent-facing tool will allow users to pull up relevant customer information and context when trying to resolve inquiries.
- "Now we're saying you could use all of our contact center functionality, along with all the AI functionality, outside of Dynamics," Marcus Schmidt, a principal program manager at Microsoft, told CX Dive’s Bryan Wassel. "So you could use it with a different CRM application."
Dive Insight:
Microsoft is stepping into an established market of contact center vendors rolling out generative AI tools, including the likes of AWS, NICE, Genesys and Talkdesk.
“It disrupts the ecosystem,” Kate Leggett, VP and principal analyst at Forrester, said. “It’s really significant. There's a lot of opportunity to give Genesys and NICE a run for their money.”
Among its advantages is that Microsoft offers an all-in-one solution.
“AWS and Microsoft have built their solutions on their hyperscalers,” Leggett said. “Your hyperscalers are going to be able to better compete on price.”
While established players may have a better product at the moment, Microsoft also has a roadmap to build out its capabilities as well as the resources to do so quickly, Leggett said.
Microsoft began testing out Dynamics 365 Contact Center on its customer service and support team last year. The team is one of the largest support teams in the world, aiding more than 1 billion end consumers every year in 120 countries.
Prior to 2020, Microsoft’s customer service team was using over a dozen different systems and 500 individual tools, the company said. But with its in-house solution, Microsoft was able to serve more customers and resolve queries faster.
The service team was able to bump up its first call resolution by 31% and reduce missed routes by 20%.
Agents took on between 9% to 12% more cases and chats support conversations, while decreasing the average handle time for chat cases by 12%. It also reported a 13% decrease in agents needing/requesting peer assistance.
While Dynamics 365 Contact Center will be generally available July 1, Synoptek, Mediterranean Shipping Company, and 1-800-Flowers are currently using Microsoft’s solution as part of its early-access program.
