The power of proactive engagement in Dynamics 365 Contact Center

The power of proactive engagement in Dynamics 365 Contact Center (Transitioning from reactive support to anticipatory service through AI-driven outbound interactions).

Real-time User Journey

This journey illustrates how a utility company uses proactive engagement to manage a service outage:

1. Detection: A power grid sensor triggers an alert in the CRM that a specific neighborhood has lost power.
2. Automated Trigger: Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys identifies all customers in that segment.
3. Proactive Outreach: The system automatically initiates a Copilot Dial campaign.
4. AI Interaction: A conversational AI bot (Copilot) calls the customer, informs them of the outage, and provides an estimated restoration time.
5. Option for Human Support: The customer asks a complex question about a specialized medical device needing power. Copilot recognizes the high-priority intent and performs a Seamless Handoff to a human agent.
6. Agent Context: The human agent receives the call with the full transcript of the bot’s conversation, allowing them to provide immediate specialized assistance without the customer repeating themselves.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable This Feature

Proactive engagement requires the integration of Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Customer Insights, and Copilot Studio:

• Step 1: Admin Center Configuration Go to the Contact Center admin center. Under Channels, navigate to Voice and ensure the outbound calling voice channel is provisioned and active.
• Step 2: Integration with Customer Insights Ensure you have a Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys license. In the settings, link your Contact Center environment to Customer Insights to enable event-driven triggers.
• Step 3: Define Dial Modes In the outbound settings, configure your preferred Dial Modes:
  • Copilot Dial: Fully automated AI-led calls.
  • Progressive Dial: Calls only placed when an agent is available.
  • Preview Dial: Allows agents to review customer data before the system dials.
• Step 4: Create Copilot Studio Topics For AI-led calls, open Copilot Studio and design the conversational flow (e.g., payment reminders or service alerts). Use the Answering Machine Detection topic to handle voicemails.
• Step 5: Design the Journey In Customer Insights – Journeys, use the low-code journey builder to create a new journey. Choose an “Event-based” trigger (like a status change) and set the action to “Place a phone call” via the Contact Center channel.
• Step 6: Test and Launch Use the simulation tools to verify the call pacing and AI responses before activating the journey for live customers.

Infographic: Dial Modes Comparison

Dial Mode	Level of Automation	Best Use Case
Copilot Dial	High (AI-led)	Transactional alerts (Outages, payment reminders).
Preview Dial	Low (Agent-led)	High-value sales or complex follow-ups.
Progressive Dial	Balanced	General service updates where a live agent is preferred.
Predictive Dial	High (Efficiency-led)	High-volume campaigns (requires AI availability forecasting).

References

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/dynamics-365/blog/it-professional/2025/06/10/the-power-of-proactive-engagement-in-dynamics-365-contact-center/