Microsoft empowers support engineers to shine brighter with Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Big challenges at every scale

From video game consoles and personal computers to small businesses and globe-spanning corporations, Microsoft technology lies at the beating heart of operations throughout the world. With over one billion end users, Microsoft operates with a customer-first mindset across everything it does. The Microsoft Customer Service and Support division is one of the largest in the world, with tens of thousands of customer support engineers working tirelessly to offer outstanding service to customers at every level.

As such a large operation, the customer support team requires a great deal of cooperation across personnel to handle different cases as well as coordination of all the tools and software necessary for a varied customer base. For many years, the customer support engineers at Microsoft operated with more than 16 different case management systems and over 500 individual tools used to track customer support requests.

As a result, engineers couldn’t easily navigate between tools, had to be trained on multiple services, and had to utilize multiple technologies to support their knowledge and expertise and deliver outstanding service. Under the previous systems, customers were occasionally routed to the wrong engineers or had to call in multiple times because their cases weren’t properly documented. Shifting to a scalable, unified solution that had better tool integration could help engineers serve customers more efficiently.

A transformative solution

Looking to give the engineers a more unified toolset, Microsoft rolled out Dynamics 365 Customer Service across the entire team. With this software, engineers have access to a single window showing who is contacting Microsoft and what software the customer is using along with other valuable data. Cross-disciplinary knowledge is also important and served with built-in Microsoft Teams integration, supporting quick communication between engineers with different experience and knowledge. New features have been steadily added to the software over time, including the newly integrated Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. 

Using the single solution, engineers can quickly access information without repeatedly switching windows. “You don’t think about screen real estate with these tools,” says Director of Business Programs John Birrell-Levine. “Dynamics 365 Customer Service places this information all on a single pane of glass. Engineers don’t have to switch between multiple tools and possibly forget which tool they need for a given task.” Dynamics 365 Customer Service also improves routing for calls, sending support requests to the engineers best trained to handle specific situations. 

Dynamics 365 Customer Service has been a true transformation for the support team. “Our support operation encompasses everything from individual users to some of the largest corporations in the world,” explains Geoff Maxwell, General Manager of Customer and Digital Experience at Microsoft. “Dynamics 365 Customer Service lets us tailor our understanding quickly no matter the customer.”

With Dynamics 365 Customer Service in place, first call resolution rates have increased by 31 percent for the first call, so fewer customers need to call back and spend more time troubleshooting. Engineers have seen a 20 percent reduction in missed routing for calls, as well as a 32 percent increase in self-help with the assistance of chatbots powered by Microsoft Copilot Studio that can handle routine problems quickly and easily. Engineers can use Teams to collaborate in real-time with colleagues who have different fields of expertise, resulting in more complex issues solved live. Intelligent routing also ensures that the engineers best suited to any individual problem are being called on first and foremost. “We’re able to manage the case for the customer in a very integrated way now,” says Maxwell. “We can close cases faster and with a better outcome for the customer now that we’re integrated.”

Using AI to empower people

Microsoft is continuing to expand its solution further with the integration of Copilot. This generative AI tool helps engineers by suggesting next steps for troubleshooting, offering tone and context suggestions for written and verbal communication, and generating quick summaries of important information about the software under discussion. Copilot is not intended to take over interactions from human agents, but to offer guidance and suggestions the engineer can use or pivot away from based on their own expertise. Copilot also uses its large language models to provide real-time translations of conversations so that engineers can communicate fluidly with someone on the other end even if they do not share a language with the customer in need.

“The challenge for every support engineer is to connect with the human being on the other end of the call who has a problem that needs solving,” says Ric Todd, Director of Support Strategy. “You want to connect with them, but you also need to be able to pull in a great deal of technical information. Copilot provides us the support to offer the customer understanding while also sorting out their technical problems.”

With Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft has transformed its support department by allowing these experts to do more with their existing knowledge. And the story demonstrates the power of using technology to empower everyone on the planet to achieve more.