Omnichannel for Customer Service
Omnichannel for Customer Service provides omnichannel capabilities for Dynamics 365. Giving us web chat, SMS, voice and more directly within Dynamics 365.
Other related functionality includes Unified Routing to intelligently allocate work items to agents and also the Customer Service Workspace which gives agents a multi-session UI. And not forgetting Power Virtual Agents that can be used as voice IVRs or webchat BOTs.
Since the launch of Omnichannel I have often blogged about its capabilities. In this post I will create a collection of links to all of my posts concerning Omnichannel and its related technologies.
Channels
Other
Overviews / Theory
In this section I will include any posts that cover general theory about Omnichannel for Customer Service.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Introduction | Omnichannel for Customer Service, my initial thoughts. | May 2019 |
| Video Demo | Omnichannel for Customer Service – Video demo. | May 2019 |
| Omnichannel Entities | What entities re used to hold omnichannel chat data | Nov 2019 |
| Migrate to Omnichannel Admin Center | In this post I explain how to migrate workstreams from the original Omnichannel Administration app to the newer admin center | June 2021 |
Social Channels
In this section I will list any posts specific to working with social channels, including Facebook, Twitter and more.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| A video demo of creating a Facebook app to enable conversations with Omnichannel | Jan 2020 | |
| In this post I explain how to configure Twitter with Omnichannel for Customer Service. | June 2020 | |
| Microsoft Teams | In this post I explain how we can integrate Omnichannel for Customer Service with Microsoft Teams | June 2020 |
| WhatsApp (Twilio) | In this post I describe out to configure WhatsApp | December 2020 |
SMS Channel
In this section I will describe the setup of SMS.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| SMS | In this post I explain the customer experience and setup process for the SMS channel. | July 2020 |
| SMS – Twilio | In this post I describe out to configure the SMS channel, but this time using Twilio | November 2020 |
| Outbound Messages (SMS) | An example of sending an outbound message via SMS. | December 2020 |
Webchat
In this section I will list any posts connected with webchat.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Web chat (pick method) | In this post I explain how to configure the web chat channel and work stream to use a cherry pick approach to work distribution. | October 2020 |
| Reconnect | How to reconnect chats | October 2020 |
| Proactive Chats | What-if we want to proactively prompt the customer to start a chat? | July 2021 |
Voice
Voice is obviously a key channel, so any posts about voice calling will be included here.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Voice Channel Demo | A video demo of the voice channel in action. | February 2022 |
| Outbound Calling | An explanation of how to configure and use outbound calling. | April 2022 |
| IVR | In this post I explain how to use a Power Virtual Agent as an IVR BOT. | April 2022 |
| Overflow | In this post I describe how to handle overflow and out of hours situations. | April 2022 |
| Interruptible BOTs | Sometimes we want to ensure the customer hears certain messages in full. In this post I explain how to control when a BOT can be interrupted. | May 2022 |
| IVR Skills Routing | In this post I describe how we can implement skills based routing based on data collected in the IVR BOT. | May 2022 |
| Emergency Situations | In this post I explain one approach we could implement to handle emergency situations. It also serves as an example of how an IVR BOT can call a Flow to query the Dataverse. | May 2022 |
Agent Productivity
Here I will show any posts connected with agent productivity.
Tip: Often there maybe an overlap between agent production and the interface they use. So also check the customer service workspace section!
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Masking Data | Masking data in Omnichannel for Customer Service. | Nov 2019 |
| Chat Transcripts | How do chat transcripts work? | Nov 2019 |
| Agent Scripts and Macros | An explanation of how agents scripts can be combined with macros to aid agent productivity. | May 2020 |
| Video and Voice Calls | In this post I explain how to configure video and voice call escalation. | May 2020 |
| Skills Based Routing AND Virtual Agents | In this video I show a complex routing example, making use of skills based routine and a virtual agent | June 2020 |
| Notifications | In this post I explain the options we have to configure notifications as conversations arrive (and more). | June 2020 |
| Session Templates | In this post I explain how to create a custom session template and custom application tab. | July 2020 |
| Co-browse | This post (and video) will explain how to use and configure the co-browse capability with your web chat. | August 2020 |
| Post chat surveys | In this post I complete a review of the new post chat survey capability | August 2020 |
| Slugs | Use data parameters (slugs) to add automatons into your macros and agent scripts. | August 2020 |
| Geo Locations | See your customer’s location by enabling geo locations with Bing maps. | August 2020 |
| Translations | Real-time chat translations explained. | September 2020 |
| Quick Replies | Quick replies and automated messages explained. | September 2020 |
| Sound Notifications | How to create sound notifications for your agents. | November 2020 |
| Insights Dashboards | An overview of how to setup Omnichannel insights dashboards and what information is included. | January 2021 |
| Simplify Navigation | In this post I explain how to enable simplified navigation in Omnichannel for Customer Service or Customer Service Workspace | April 2021 |
| Teams chat | A demo of how to chat with other agents using Teams | December 2021 |
| Conversation Category | Allow agents to add a category to conversations | May 2022 |
Power Virtual Agents
Power virtual agents give us a low code approach to creating intelligent BOTs that might be used in web chat scenarios or maybe as an IVR for voice calls.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| PVA and Omnichannel | Power Virtual Agents and Omnichannel | January 2020 |
| Pass pre-chat survey details to virtual agent | A description of how we can pass pre-chat survey questions into a Power Virtual Agent. | August 2021 |
| BOTs that don’t understand! | Often you might have a BOT which repeatedly says “I don’t understand” or the customer repeatedly answers a question “incorrectly”. In this post I explain how we can use a fallback topic to transfer to a human when the BOT can’t work out the customer’s intent. | June 2021 |
Unified Routing
Unified Routing is a powerful tool to distribute work items (and conversations) to our agents.
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Voice Channel Demo | A video demo of the voice channel in action. | February 2022 |
| Routing Diagnostics | In this post I explain how we can use routing diagnostics | July 2021 |
| Machine Learning | Use machine learning to route cases intelligently. | October 2021 |
| Routing without Omnichannel | Unified Routing without Omnichannel! How to “just” route records. (Can also be done with Omnichannel!!) | October 2021 |
| Custom Assignment Logic | In this post I show an example of how we can use a custom assignment rule to allocate records based on the owner field. | June 2022 |
Customer Service Workspace
Here I will include any posts that are connected with the customer service workspace. (Which is out multi-session interface used in conjunction with Omnichannel.)
| Title | Summary | Date |
| Customer Service Workspace | Customer Service Workspace – App Profile Manager, Session templates and more! | April 2021 |
| Customer Service Workspace – API (Video) | A video showing how we can use JavaScript to control the agent experience in multi-session situations. | June 2021 |
| Macro to create a case | How to create a macro that will not only create a case but also save it and link it to your conversation | January 2022 |
| KNOWN ISSUE | Having problems moving app profiles using a solution?? If so then this blog post might be for you! | February 2022 |
| Email Macro | How to create a macro to open an email based on a template. | February 2022 |
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