Category: Customer-service

This includes Dynamics 365 Customer Service & Contact Centre

contact-centre, Customer-service

Microsoft named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for the CRM Customer Engagement Center

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Microsoft named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for the CRM Customer Engagement Center

(Recognition of Microsoft’s vision and execution in the “Agentic” Service era, specifically focusing on Dynamics 365 Contact Center and Customer Service).

Real-time User Journey: The Modern Agentic Service

This recognition was driven by how Microsoft integrates AI into the service journey. Here is a typical user journey enabled by the “Leader” category features:

  1. Intelligent Intake: A customer initiates a voice call. The Conversational IVR uses natural language processing to understand the intent (e.g., “I need to dispute a double charge on my last bill”).
  2. Contextual Routing: Instead of a generic queue, Unified Routing matches the customer to a specialized “Billing Dispute” agent.
  3. The Copilot Sidecar: As the agent accepts the call, Copilot automatically pops up a summary of the customer’s recent interactions and a drafted resolution based on the disputed transaction found in the ERP.
  4. Autonomous Support: While the human agent speaks with the customer, a Case Management Agent works in the background to automatically update the case records and trigger the refund workflow in the finance system.
  5. Quality Oversight: After the call, the Quality Evaluation Agent reviews the interaction for empathy and accuracy, providing an instant score for the supervisor’s dashboard.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable the “Leader” Capabilities

To utilize the specific features highlighted in the Gartner report (the “Agentic” suite), follow these steps:

  • Step 1: Consolidate to a Single Platform

Ensure you are using the Dynamics 365 Contact Center (standalone) or the Customer Service Enterprise license. This recognition is based on the unified nature of the Microsoft cloud.

  • Step 2: Enable Copilot for Service

Navigate to the Customer Service admin center > Agent Experience > Productivity. Toggle on “Copilot Help Pane” and “Summaries” to give agents real-time AI assistance.

  • Step 3: Activate Autonomous Agents

Visit the Agent Hub (found under Operations). Here, you can toggle on the Case Management Agent and the Knowledge Management Agent to begin automating lifecycle tasks.

  • Step 4: Set Up Unified Routing

Go to Customer Support > Routing. Configure “Intents” so the AI can categorize incoming requests and route them to the most qualified agent (human or digital).

  • Step 5: Implement Generative AI Knowledge

Under Knowledge, point Copilot to your SharePoint or website. This allows the system to provide “Generative Answers,” which was a key differentiator in the Gartner evaluation.

  • Step 6: Monitor via the Agent Activity Feed

Add the Agent Activity Feed to your supervisor workspace to maintain “human-in-the-loop” oversight of your autonomous agents.

Infographic: Why Microsoft is a Leader

Strategic PillarKey CapabilityBusiness Value
Agentic AICase & Quality Evaluation Agents.100% coverage of QA and lifecycle automation.
Unified DataDataverse & Microsoft Fabric integration.Eliminates data silos for a 360-degree customer view.
OmnichannelVoice, SMS, WhatsApp, and Social.Meet customers on any channel with consistent AI logic.
CollaborationNative Microsoft Teams integration.Swarm complex issues with back-office experts instantly.
TrustHITRUST and FedRAMP High certification.High-security standards for Healthcare and Government.

References

Microsoft is named a Leader in 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for CRM Customer Engagement Center
AI Foundry, contact-centre, copilot-studio, Customer-service

Elevate support excellence with Quality Evaluation Agent in Dynamics 365

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Based on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 blog post from October 30, 2025, here is the breakdown of the Quality Evaluation Agent.

Elevate support excellence with Quality Evaluation Agent

(An autonomous AI agent designed to automate the Quality Assurance (QA) process by evaluating 100% of customer interactions against defined business rubrics).

Real-time User Journey: From Manual Sampling to Total Oversight

This journey highlights how a Quality Manager shifts from “hunting for errors” to “strategic coaching”:

  1. Continuous Analysis: Throughout the day, thousands of calls and chats occur. In the background, the Quality Evaluation Agent automatically analyzes every single transcript.
  2. Rubric Application: The agent applies the company’s specific “Excellence Rubric,” checking for compliance, empathy, accurate product knowledge, and adherence to greeting protocols.
  3. Anomaly Detection: The agent identifies a specific agent who is consistently providing high-quality service but struggling with a new “return policy” detail. It also flags a wider trend where customer sentiment drops whenever “shipping delays” are mentioned.
  4. Proactive Reporting: Instead of the manager listening to random tapes, they open their Insights Dashboard. They see a prioritized list of interactions that require human attention (e.g., high-risk calls or those with low AI-generated quality scores).
  5. Targeted Coaching: The manager clicks on a flagged call. The agent provides a Reasoning Summary: “Score: 65/100. Agent missed the mandatory privacy disclosure at 02:14.”
  6. Loop Closure: The manager uses these precise insights to provide a 5-minute targeted coaching session. The agent continues to monitor the agent’s next calls to track improvement in real-time.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable This Feature

The Quality Evaluation Agent is part of the “Agentic” suite in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

  • Step 1: Access the Agent Hub

Sign in to the Customer Service admin center. Navigate to Operations > Agent Hub.

  • Step 2: Activate the Quality Evaluation Agent

Locate the Quality Evaluation Agent card and select Manage. Toggle the status to Enabled.

  • Step 3: Define Your Evaluation Rubric

Upload or define your scoring criteria. You can set specific parameters such as:

  • Compliance: Did the agent verify the customer’s identity?
  • Soft Skills: Was the tone professional and empathetic?
  • Process: Did the agent follow the standard troubleshooting steps?
  • Step 4: Configure Sampling (Optional)

While the agent can evaluate 100% of calls, you can configure it to prioritize specific high-value queues or new trainees for more frequent reporting.

  • Step 5: Connect to Power BI Insights

Enable the Quality Insights Dashboard. This will pull the agent’s evaluations into visual reports showing trends across teams, time periods, and specific product categories.

  • Step 6: Set Up Supervisor Alerts

Configure “Critical Failure” alerts. For example, if a “Compliance Score” drops below 50 on a single call, the supervisor receives an immediate notification to review the interaction.

Infographic: Traditional QA vs. Quality Evaluation Agent

FeatureTraditional Manual QAQuality Evaluation Agent
Coverage1–2% of interactions (Randomized).100% of interactions (Total).
SpeedRetrospective (Days or weeks later).Near Real-time (Minutes after call).
ObjectivitySubject to human bias and fatigue.Consistent & Unbiased application of rules.
InsightsAnecdotal/Small sample size.Data-driven trends across the whole org.
Supervisor RoleListening to tapes (Manual labor).Coaching & Strategy (High value).

References

Elevate support excellence with Quality Evaluation Agent 
AI Foundry, contact-centre, copilot-studio, Customer-service

Try rich messaging for live chat and WhatsApp in Contact Center in Dynamics 365

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Try rich messaging for live chat and WhatsApp in Contact Center (Enhancing digital customer service with interactive elements like forms, carousels, and suggested replies).

Real-time User Journey: Interactive Troubleshooting

This journey demonstrates how rich messaging replaces tedious typing with intuitive visual interactions:

  1. Customer Initiation: A customer messages a retail brand via WhatsApp to report a missing part in a furniture delivery.
  2. Suggested Replies: The AI agent instantly provides Suggested Replies (e.g., “Missing Part,” “Damaged Item,” “Wrong Item”). The customer taps “Missing Part” instead of typing it out.
  3. Interactive Form: The agent sends a Rich Form directly in the chat. The customer uses a dropdown to select the furniture model and a date picker to specify the original delivery date.
  4. Visual Confirmation (Carousel): The system displays a Carousel of parts for that specific model. The customer swipes through high-quality images and taps the exact screw or bracket that is missing.
  5. Agent Handoff: If the customer needs a human, the conversation is routed to a live agent. The agent sees the completed form and the selected part in the Agent Workspace, allowing them to finalize the replacement order without asking repetitive questions.
  6. Confirmation: The agent sends an Adaptive Card showing the new delivery tracking number, which the customer can track with one tap.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable This Feature

Administrators can configure rich messaging templates that work across multiple digital channels:

  • Step 1: Admin Center Access Sign in to the Customer Service admin center or Contact Center admin center.
  • Step 2: Navigate to Rich Messages Go to Workforce Management (or Customer Support) > Rich messages.
  • Step 3: Create a Message Template Select New and choose the message type:
    • Forms: For structured data collection (text, numbers, dates).
    • Suggested Replies: For quick decision buttons.
    • Custom JSON: For advanced Adaptive Cards.
  • Step 4: Design for Channels Use the designer to build your message. The system is channel-aware, meaning you can design one template that automatically adapts its appearance for the Live Chat widget versus WhatsApp.
  • Step 5: Preview and Publish Use the Preview Pane to see how the message will render on different devices. Once satisfied, select Publish to make the template available to agents and bots.
  • Step 6: Integration with Copilot Studio In Microsoft Copilot Studio, use the Adaptive Card node to call these published templates, allowing your AI agents to send rich interactive content autonomously.

Infographic: Plain Text vs. Rich Messaging

FeatureTraditional Text MessagingNew Rich Messaging
User InputManual typing (high friction).One-tap buttons & dropdowns.
Data CollectionOpen-ended text (requires parsing).Structured Forms (validated data).
VisualsBasic attachments/links.Interactive Carousels & Cards.
AccuracyProne to typos and ambiguity.Precision through predefined choices.
Resolution TimeSlower (back-and-forth questions).Faster (all data gathered in one card).

References

Try rich messaging for live chat and WhatsApp in Contact Center 
contact-centre, copilot-studio, Customer-service, Power Apps

From systems of record to systems of action: Dynamics 365, agentic business applications for the frontier

Goloknath

From systems of record to systems of action: Dynamics 365, agentic business applications for the frontier

(A strategic shift where AI agents move beyond simple data storage to autonomously driving decisions and business outcomes).

Real-time User Journey: The Quality Evaluation Agent

The post highlights several agents; one of the most prominent is the Quality Evaluation Agent (GA October 24, 2025). Here is a journey for a Customer Service Supervisor:

  1. Massive Data Influx: A contact center handles 10,000 interactions a day. Historically, supervisors could only manually review 1-2% of these calls.
  2. Autonomous Evaluation: The Quality Evaluation Agent works in the background, automatically reviewing 100% of conversations (both human and AI-led) against company rubrics.
  3. Anomaly Detection: The agent flags a sudden trend where customers are unhappy with a specific refund policy.
  4. Real-time Alert: The Supervisor receives a “Service Quality Pulse” notification on their dashboard, highlighting the specific anomaly and providing a summary of the sentiment drop.
  5. Data-Driven Action: The Supervisor opens the Quality Dashboard to see AI-generated scores for empathy, accuracy, and compliance.
  6. Resolution: Based on these 100% accurate insights, the Supervisor immediately updates the agent training materials and adjusts the refund business logic, resolving a systemic issue in hours rather than weeks.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable These Features

To move your organization toward “Systems of Action,” follow these steps to activate the new agents:

  • Step 1: Dataverse Consolidation

Ensure your data is unified in Microsoft Dataverse. Agents require a clean, structured data foundation to “act” across silos.

  • Step 2: Access the Agent Hub

Log in to the Dynamics 365 Admin Center. Navigate to the Agent Hub, which serves as the control center for all agentic applications.

  • Step 3: Activate Specific Agents
    • For Sales: Enable the Sales Close Agent (Public Preview Oct 25) to prioritize high-value deals.
    • For Service: Enable the Quality Evaluation Agent (GA Oct 24) to monitor conversation quality.
    • For Field Service: Enable the Scheduling Operations Agent to keep schedules agile.
  • Step 4: Configure Governance and Guardrails

Use Microsoft Copilot Studio to define the business logic and “Safety Instructions” for each agent, ensuring they operate within your organization’s ethical and legal boundaries.

  • Step 5: Allocate Copilot Credits

Starting late November 2025, ensure your Dynamics 365 Premium licenses are assigned to users to receive the 1,000 monthly Copilot Credits required to run these autonomous processes.

  • Step 6: Monitor Performance

Use the newly launched Agent Benchmarks (like the Sales Research Bench) to measure the accuracy and impact of your agents against industry standards.

Infographic: The Agentic Evolution

DimensionSystem of Record (Old)System of Action (Agentic)
Primary GoalStoring and retrieving data.Driving outcomes and decisions.
Human EffortHigh (Searching, entering, analyzing).Low (Supervising and directing).
SpeedReactive (Human must initiate).Proactive (AI acts on events).
VisibilitySiloed by department.Unified (Connected via Dataverse).
User InterfaceForms and Dashboards.Almost Invisible (AI works in background).

References

From systems of record to systems of action: Dynamics 365, agentic business applications for the frontier
AI Foundry, contact-centre, copilot-studio, Customer Experience, Customer-service, Power Apps

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event: 2025 Release Wave 2 Innovations

Goloknath

Based on the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event blog post from October 9, 2025, here is the breakdown of the major AI innovations announced for the 2025 Release Wave 2.

Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event: 2025 Release Wave 2 Innovations

(Focusing on the transition from AI assistants to Agentic AI across Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Copilot Studio).

Real-time User Journey: The Agentic Workflow

This journey showcases how new autonomous agents collaborate across the platform to resolve a complex business challenge:

  1. Detection: A Service Operations Agent detects a spike in support tickets related to a specific product defect.
  2. Collaboration: The Service Agent automatically alerts a Supply Chain Agent, providing a summary of the affected batches.
  3. Autonomous Action: The Supply Chain Agent checks inventory levels and proactively contacts the supplier to pause orders and request replacements.
  4. Sales Insight: Meanwhile, Dynamics 365 Sales agents receive a notification from Copilot informing them of the delay for their open deals, along with AI-generated talking points to manage customer expectations.
  5. Supervisor Oversight: The Operations Manager monitors this entire “Agent-to-Agent” interaction through the Agent Activity Feed, ensuring the logic remains within company policy before the agents finalize the supplier communications.

Step-by-Step: How to Enable These Innovations

Because this event covers a “Wave” of features, enabling them follows the standard Release Wave process:

  • Step 1: Access the Release Planner

Navigate to the Microsoft Release Planner to identify which specific agents (e.g., Sales, Finance, or Service) are available for your region and environment type.

  • Step 2: Environment Validation

Log in to the Power Platform Admin Center. Create a Sandbox environment to test new features without impacting production.

  • Step 3: Opt-in to 2025 Wave 2

Go to Environments > [Your Env] > Settings > Updates. Click “Update now” under the 2025 Release Wave 2 header to enable early access features.

  • Step 4: Configure Copilot Studio Agents

Open Microsoft Copilot Studio. Use the new Agentic Templates to build autonomous agents that can trigger Power Automate flows and query Dataverse without manual intervention.

  • Step 5: Enable the Agent Hub

In the Customer Service/Contact Center Admin Center, navigate to the Agent Hub to toggle on specific autonomous agents like the Knowledge Management Agent or Case Management Agent.

  • Step 6: Deploy to Users

Update your Agent Experience Profiles to ensure the new Copilot sidecar features (like real-time web search and autonomous summaries) are visible to your staff.

Infographic: The Shift to Agentic AI

FeatureCopilot as Assistant (Current)AI Agents (Wave 2)
InitiativeReactive (Wait for user prompt).Proactive (Starts work based on events).
LogicFollows specific instructions.Reasoning-based (Solves multi-step problems).
IntegrationLimited to the current app.Cross-platform (Talks to other agents/apps).
Human RoleDoing the work with AI help.Supervising the AI doing the work.
Scale1:1 interaction.1:Many (Agents handle thousands of tasks).

References

Explore new AI innovation for Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Copilot Studio at the Business Applications Launch Event