Social Listening, Mobility and the Unified Service Desk

Jessica Becher, a Datix consultant, attended Microsoft Convergence this last year to get the inside scoop on the latest releases from Microsoft Dynamics. Microsoft rolled out these changes in the spring 2014 “Leo Update.” Becher presented her findings on social listening, mobility and the new unified service desk at a weekly Datix Lunch and Learn.

Key Takeaways from the Presentation:

Social Listening

Social listening includes Dynamics CRM Online Pro customers at no additional cost at the ten plus user level. On-premises or online users with fewer than ten users have the option to add social listening at an incremental cost.

The key features for this Dynamics CRM add-on are:

Sentiment Analysis

• Natural language processing grades sentiment as neutral, positive or negative
• Context awareness
• Ability to override and manually edit sentiment terms
• Authorship helps you identify and respond to your critics and fans
• Keywords and phrases are tracked across Twitter, Facebook, RSS, News and Youtube

Context-aware sentiment

Competitive Intelligence

• Measure competitor activity and trends
• Compare your social accounts to others in your industry

Social monitoring features as shown with Twitter

Campaign Management

• Measure the social impact on marketing and sales campaigns

Social Listening Takeaways

• Your entire UI (User Interface) adjusts to the device you are working from
• Monthly post analysis quota limit is 1,000,000 (with an option to increase that limit)
• When creating search queries, you can specify inclusions and exclusions within the same sentence, paragraph or post

Mobility

Microsoft is looking to make it easier to access valuable customer and CRM data from your tablet or mobile device.

• BYOD (bring your own device) is supported
• Mobile access allows you to work wherever you need during your day
• Cross device support for IOS, Windows 8 and Android
• Google and Samsung will eventually be supported
• CRM for the tablet and phone make access convenient

Configuration of the forms using a tablet

Tablets

• Process follow is fully supported
• Same functionality as using the web version
• Create experience is quick and simple
• You get the information you need from each CRM record
• You can switch processes
• Design once, deploy everywhere
• All custom table entities are supported

User interface on mobile devices

Phones

Offline Capability:

• Will depend on your device and other programs on your phone
• Caching will occur with the available storing you have on your device rather than syncing
• Offline records based on recently viewed records

You can view contact, account, lead, opportunity, activity feeds and task info on and offline.

Takeaways From Mobile Options

It is suggested to set up a security role for mobile users so you can then control security at the user and entity level.

• Device level encryption is recommended
• Currently not encrypted at the app level
• The tablet dashboard is set by default to Sales Dashboard (easily renamed)
• Reconfiguration is possible within the app

Unified Service Desk

Microsoft is staying on top of current customer service trends with this new release of the unified service desk. Customers expect that an organization provides a reliable and consistent experience across channels.

• Gain complete visibility across channels
• Give agents the ability to see what a customer was doing prior to landing in the contact center
• You will have full interaction history prior to the call
• Reduce process complexity through call scripts
• Increase customer satisfaction due to fewer errors and quick turnaround
• Decrease average handling time due to automations and streamlining agent interactions

The new unified service desk optimizes customer service process flow tablet

Service Desk Takeaways

• Can have up to 10 sessions running concurrently
• Call scripting can be based on environment (contact session vs. account session)
• Single UI for access to all tasks and apps for a complete customer interaction process
• Centrally manage, configure and authorize from Dynamics CRM

These features mean less development effort for call center applications. Extend the abilities of your CRM and allow your sales team and customer service teams to better assist your customers.

Your Take:

What features would make the most impact on your business? Tell us in the comments below.

Suggested:

• Our consulting services for Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM features
• Connect ERP and Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• Additional Datix Insider articles