Capricorn Co-operative reengineers customer service for revved up support with Dynamics 365

Capricorn Co-operative, Australasia’s largest automotive cooperative, supports over 28,000 members, including mechanics, panel repairers, auto electricians, and commercial vehicle businesses across Australia and New Zealand.

With annual sales topping $3.4 billion, Capricorn needed a more reliable and flexible contact center solution. Capricorn’s old on-premises contact center solution had frequent performance issues: dropped calls, slow performance, and limited flexibility. To fix this, Capricorn implemented Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center as a standalone voice solution. The result? Better service, greater agility and scalability, and smoother operations.

Shifting to modernization

Founded in 1974 by a small group of Western Australian service station owners, Capricorn was built to give small businesses more buying power and level the playing field with large multinational oil companies. Today, it offers members access to financing, business protection, billing services, and exclusive rewards, supported by over 2,000 preferred suppliers.

When its Genesys system neared its end-of-life, the company didn’t just replace it. Instead, it modernized its entire technology ecosystem by moving to the cloud with Dynamics 365. It became the first organization in Australia to deploy Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center as a standalone voice solution. This milestone was celebrated during a visit by Capricorn’s board of directors to the Microsoft Innovation Hub, which significantly elevated the visibility of the initiative across both organizations.

What makes Capricorn’s journey truly unique is its bold decision to begin with contact center capabilities—a reversal of the typical adoption path, where most organizations start with Dynamics 365 Customer Service and later expand into contact center functionality.

Strong partnerships for success

Capricorn worked closely with Microsoft FastTrack and Velrada to ensure a smooth rollout. After evaluating several leading systems, Capricorn chose Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform for its deep integration, cloud-native foundation, and powerful AI capabilities.

With advanced automation through the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) bot framework, Capricorn streamlined processes, improved responsiveness, and laid the groundwork for a future-ready contact center.

Overcoming old challenges in a new world

The old system needed heavy customizations to support distinct duties between Sydney and Perth centers. Due to the lack of flexibility, any change—no matter how small—required extensive IT support.

With Dynamics 365 Contact Center, IT administrators and business users gained significantly more control, especially over IVR flows and call routing. For example, if there’s a flood or another emergency, they can swiftly update phone numbers, reassign teams and queues, and adjust IVR messaging in real time. This newfound ability to manage and configure the contact center internally puts ownership directly into the hands of the business and enables faster, more flexible responses to changing circumstances.

Managing call queues—adding users, assigning supervisors, and configuring who handles which queues—is now straightforward and user-friendly. Setting opening and closing times, including adjustments for public holidays that vary by state, is fully self-service, eliminating previous reliance on third-party vendors.

Updating voicemail messages is also much simpler. Instead of recording, uploading, and managing audio files as required in the old system, staff now simply input text, which the system converts to speech automatically.

With Dynamics 365, Capricorn can easily modify call scripts—the order of questions asked and escalation paths. This flexibility enables a contact center experience tailored precisely to business needs. Given the critical role of the contact center in business continuity planning, having a reliable, easily manageable system is essential. “The improvements in Dynamics Contact Center have significantly enhanced our ability to communicate effectively with members and employees, even during disruptions,” explains Mary Karborani, Chief Information Officer at Capricorn.

Capricorn also implemented an emergency line that can be activated immediately to prioritize calls during critical events such as natural disasters. This setup allows Capricorn to respond quickly without waiting days for external support, greatly enhancing their operational agility.

Smooth workflows yield better service

Capricorn had been using a customized Epicor ERP system for case management which led to inefficient workflows. Agents would take a call, jot down notes, then switch to another call and repeat the process. “The agents had to manually copy and retype notes into the system. There was a lot of double handling, and it was error-prone and wasted agents’ time,” says Sachin Patani, Project Manager, Strategic Projects, Capricorn.

By connecting Epicor with Azure Communication Services (ACS), agents can now make outbound calls directly from the CRM. The screen pop feature automatically displays the caller’s information, enabling faster access to records and more efficient service.

Microsoft Copilot’s call summarization also saves time. Agents no longer need to retype notes during calls. This shift improved the overall member experience, ensuring callers feel truly heard and supported.

“The new system’s automated call summaries have been a game-changer for our team. It takes care of most of the notetaking, allowing agents to reflect and make quick edits afterward. This process, which used to take a lot of time and mental effort, now happens much faster—saving valuable minutes per call,” says Karborani. This efficiency means agents can handle more calls, which translates to better member service.

Capricorn plans to fully roll out summarization through its phone system to make work smoother and more efficient. Since the solution is built into the platform, it works naturally with their communication tools without the need for complicated integrations or extra setup. “As we continue to expand into Dynamics 365 CRM and ERP systems, this native compatibility ensures smooth, ongoing connectivity across our technology stack,” says Patani.

Contact Center insights unlock operational efficiencies

Out-of-the-box dashboards and reports provide significantly more detailed and near real-time insights than the organization’s legacy system. The dashboards allow contact center leaders to monitor queue activity closely and respond dynamically. For example, if one queue is overwhelmed with calls, supervisors can quickly reassign agents to balance the workload and reduce member wait times. Previously, long hold times with repetitive music caused frustration among members, but these improvements have relieved even the busiest call days for Capricorn.

During the Members Convention, the ticket sales overwhelmed Genesys. Members tried repeatedly to get through, sometimes after enduring long wait times over days or even weeks, eventually giving up. The event wouldn’t sell out, and members were frustrated. But with Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Capricorn created a dedicated IVR to handle ticket sales. All 700 tickets sold out in a single day without any complaints.

In fact, on its first day of going live with Dynamics 365 Contact Center, Capricorn managed thousands of calls without major disruptions or technical issues.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center as a standalone solution has strengthened the support and development for contact center teams, improving agent performance and member experience. “With the call sentiment analysis feature in Contact Center, supervisors monitoring live calls can jump in if required when sentiment shifts negatively,” says Shane Lovegrove, Procurement Advisor at Capricorn. “This helps teams resolve issues in real time.”

Additionally, the call transcription feature enables better performance management by allowing supervisors and agents to review conversations for coaching and quality assurance. With a more reliable and easier to manage system, remote work is now efficient and straightforward, eliminating hassles for agents and management.