What Is Dynamics 365 Customer Service?

Microsoft 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 Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 applications, Customer Service integrates with the rest of the Dynamics 365 stack, but can also stand alone.

This article will cover D365 Customer Service features, pricing, limitations, and more. Let’s start with an overview table.

 
Note: Customer Service is 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. To properly configure the system so that it fits your business needs, strategy, and technology, reach out to a skilled Dynamics 365 Customer Service Partner like Encore.

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 warrantee compliance for their in-house repair and maintenance.

Most often, these companies have a service or support department that is 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. To learn more about Power Platform licensing, talk to a Dynamics Partner.

Common examples of companies that benefit most from Dynamics 365 Customer Service go beyond traditional service companies, and include IT and computer services, financial services and banking, retail, manufacturing, transportation, and healthcare. It is also useful for managing membership organizations like co-ops or professional associations.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides every tool 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.

License Pricing

Dynamics 365 Customer Service starts at $50/month/user USD or $63.70/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 portals and unified service desk tools. The general idea is that while the Professional license solves for every requirement 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 flexible solution, it does have some limitations you should be aware of:

• It also doesn’t provide asset management or servicing either equipment or customers in the field.
  • For that, you should look at Dynamics 365 Field Service.
• Neither does it have project management solutions including project scheduling tools and billable time entry.
  • For that, you should explore Dynamics 365 Project Operations.
• It doesn’t provide transparency or governance in the sales process or revenue tracking.
  • For that, you should explore Dynamics 365 Sales.

Integrations with Other Apps

Dynamics 365 Customer Service is built to connect with applications and tools in both the Microsoft/Office 365 and Dynamics 365 suites.

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 status, and can point to any potential bottlenecks.

Implementing D365 Customer Service

As discussed, Dynamics 365 Customer Service provides a multifaceted solution, and is highly configurable. To best leverage the many options available for your business, an implementation requires careful planning. You may find our CRM Implementation FAQ helpful as a general introduction.

To get specific advice about implementing, configuring, and integrating Microsoft applications for your business, please contact us.

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