What Is Dynamics 365 Customer Service?

Dynamics 365 Customer Service is a business application that empowers service teams to provide fast, consistent, high-quality customer service and gather insights about customer trends and interactions.

As one of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 CRM applications, Customer Service integrates with the rest of the Dynamics 365 stack, but can also stand alone.

Encore has implemented Dynamics 365 Customer Service for multiple clients. This article includes some foundational information, similar to what we share with clients when starting the process of assessing which Dynamics 365 solutions are right for them.

Note: Customer Service is one of the five different Dynamics 365 applications that serve various CRM needs. In some contexts, you may also see those products referred to as “Customer Engagement” or “CE” apps.

Main Features of Dynamics 365 Customer Service

The key features of Dynamics 365 Customer Service concern modernizing service operations, providing accurate and timely support, and both understanding and guiding the customer experience.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service includes:

• Cases and queues
• Accounts, contacts, leads, and opportunities
• Online chat, phone, Teams, and email support
• Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) and entitlements
• Knowledge base
• Interactive dashboards and reporting with embedded AI insights

Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides omnichannel access to customer communications, including SMS text, Teams chat, email, calls, and more. That means your customer service reps can see the full history of interactions with the customer. The interface is built like an inbox to show each user all communications across any channel on the accounts or cases they are responsible for.

Customer Service also provides configurable automation and business rules that allow companies to adhere to not only broader industry standards, but also their own internal standards.

Copilot Embedded in D365 Customer Service

Microsoft has been at the forefront of AI innovation in recent years, and they have infused Dynamics 365 Customer Service with AI capabilities to drive efficiency and deeper personalization for customers. For instance, a case in Customer Service might include multiple text messages, emails, and more from the client. You can use Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service to generate a summary of all that documentation for a case. This will save your customer service representative all those minutes that would have been spent gathering the information to even know what a case is about.

Furthermore, Copilot now assists representatives with the “write an email” functionality. The system can generate a draft response based on the context of the case, as well as approved documents from your internal knowledge base. Your representative can guide this email with pre-filled prompts like “request more information,” “empathize with feedback,” and “resolve the customer’s problem.” Of course, you want to make sure your representatives are well-trained, and will review each AI-generated message for accuracy before sending it to the customer.

As Microsoft rolls out new Copilot AI features in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, we expect to see more and more efficiency for customer service representatives, which ultimately translates to better customer experiences.

Common Uses for Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Dynamics 365 Customer Service is commonly used by companies that receive customer issues, have response teams in place, and perform both immediate and long-term remediation. For example, we recently implemented Dynamics 365 Customer Service for a retailer to help them manage warranty compliance for their in-house repair and maintenance.

Most often, these companies have a service or support department that’s responsible for driving results for the organization. Dynamics 365 Customer Service improves both customer and employee satisfaction. Together with Power Pages and the rest of the Power Platform, D365 Customer Service can reduce overhead through easily managed self-serve tools like customer portals.

Industries and Sectors that Use D365 Customer Service

Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides tools typically required by a service department, and offers high value to both small (1 – 10 employees) and large (upwards of 10,000) or complex organizational structures.

Examples of industries and sectors that benefit most from Dynamics 365 Customer Service go beyond traditional service companies. Some examples of industries that commonly use D365 Customer Service include:

Co-ops and Membership Organizations

Although it’s called D365 Customer Service, it’s also often used by co-ops and professional organizations to manage relationships with their members. Bringing together all the data about interactions with members into a single place, and integrating that with other tools in the Microsoft stack, can build tighter relationships with the people these organizations serve.

Financial Services and Banking

In addition to managing customer issues and engagement, financial/banking companies can use D365 Customer Service to improve compliance and risk management related to providing services to their customers.

Healthcare

D365 Customer Service helps healthcare organizations provide personalized care, manage records and patient data to comply with regulations, and facilitate clear communication between care providers and patients

Public Sector and Government Services

Government organizations like municipalities and utilities use D365 Customer Service to streamline service requests from constituents, manage workflows for cases and projects, ensure compliance, and support transparency and accountability for service delivery.

Retail

Retail organizations can offer support over multiple communication channels, personalize the customer experience based on data, and provide real-time information to customers for inventory and tracking orders.

License Pricing

Dynamics 365 Customer Service starts at $50/month/user USD or $67.80/month/user CAD for a Professional license.

There are also Enterprise licenses, and considerable discounts for users with more than one Dynamics 365 application.

Based on the contract commitment, the per month price may differ from the price listed above. All pricing is subject to change without notice. Contact Encore for the most current product pricing and available contract options.

There are also several other related license types for add-ons: Virtual Agent for Customer Service, Digital Messaging Add-In, Chat Add-In, Customer Insights, and Customer Voice. Contact a partner for details.

Professional vs Enterprise Licenses in D365 Customer Service

The main differences between the Professional and Enterprise licenses for Dynamics 365 Customer Service are that the Enterprise licenses include portals and unified service desk tools.

Portals provide a web-based location for external users (e.g. customers, staff, and partners) to access knowledge bases, use self-service features, and facilitate collaboration. Unified service desk tools are helpful for customer service agents and call centers involved with high-volume or complex service operations.

The general idea is that while the Professional license covers requirements around case management and communications, the Enterprise license augments that with the optimization tools larger teams need to streamline their operations.

Limitations

While D365 Customer Service is a very adaptable solution, it does have some limitations you should be aware of:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service is not a “plug-and-play” solution.
  • Configuring it to fit your specific needs requires implementation by a skilled partner who understands your business needs in depth, will train your key users, and can provide ongoing support after go-live.
• It has no built-in asset management functionality for equipment in the field.
  • Note that Dynamics 365 Field Service is the Microsoft solution most often used for seamless asset management and field servicing, although Encore has also created similar functionality for clients using Power Apps.
• It doesn’t provide functionality to assist with the sales process or revenue tracking.
  • However, Dynamics 365 Customer Service can be integrated with Dynamics 365 Sales to enable transparency and governance related to revenue tracking and sales processes. This can create a unified view of each customer, from the sales process through to service cases.

Integrations with Other Apps

Integrating with other apps, from both the Microsoft stack and ISVs, is a key part of tailoring your Dynamics 365 solution to address the inevitable gaps between what any CRM solution provides and your company’s specific needs.

In particular, because Dynamics 365 applications are built to work together in a mix-and-match fashion, Dynamics 365 Customer Service combines with other Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM solutions to provide full transparency and greater automation across the customer lifecycle. Customer Service is often deployed alongside Dynamics 365 Sales for a smooth hand-off between departments.

In order to provide self-service portals to your customers, you can also use Power Pages together with Customer Service. This can let your customers create and view the status of customer requests without having to phone your agents.

For larger customer service teams, Power BI can also work together with Dynamics 365 to provide dashboards that give an instant overview of the number of cases and their statuses and can point to any potential bottlenecks.

Implementing D365 Customer Service

Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides a multifaceted solution and is highly configurable with the ability to integrate applications your organization needs. To best leverage the many options available for your business, an implementation requires careful assessment of your needs and planning of the solution. Learn more about Dynamics 365 CRM implementation with Encore.

If you are comparing different applications for handling customer interactions, you may also be interested in:

• Comparison of Dynamics 365 Field Service and Customer Service
• Comparison of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Marketing, and Sales
• Dynamics 365 CRM License Pricing Overview

For specific advice about implementing, configuring, and integrating Microsoft applications for your business, contact us to see how we tailor Dynamics 365 solutions for our clients.

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