Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights: July 2017 Refresh

We’re excited to announce the July 2017 Refresh for Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights (Preview).  This refresh includes powerful new applications that can transform your customer data into actionable insights to drive intelligent customer engagement.

This release introduces the preview of 3 new applications, in addition to the existing Customer 360°:

  • Predictive Match uses contextual information to associate activities or records across channels with known customers
  • Predictive Scoring enables any business user to predict any business outcome, by automatically generating Machine Learning models
  • Segmentation allows you to identify the right audience based on your all your historical customer data and related entities

In November, with the Customer Insights Preview, we introduced the Customer 360° application.  With this release, AI is now embedded into Customer Insights, to help you make better inferences from your data, predict outcomes specific to your business process, and identify cohorts for better targeting of your communications.

Predictive Match

You collect customer data from diverse sources, across multiple channels and touch points.  There isn’t always a single identity for an individual or organizational customer across channels or sources, e.g. individuals registering for an event on a website or on social media may be ambiguously identified.

With Predictive Match, you can use contextual information to match such activity or records across channels, with known customer profiles.  It leverages AI and heuristics, to infer high-confidence links and relationships to known individuals or organizations.

Predictive Scoring

Anticipating business outcomes, can help business users make better decisions, and be more productive.  But outcomes you need to predict are specific to your business process.  They may range from identifying customers that may churn, to leads that will qualify, opportunities likely to convert, service case escalations, or anything of importance to your business case.

Predictive Scoring in Customer Insights allows business users to create custom prediction model for any outcome using Machine Learning.  It discovers your historical data about known outcomes and related signals, and automatically creates a Machine Learning model, and validates it.  Prediction scores are automatically generated for new and updated entities. and used to grade entities by predicted outcome.

Segmentation

Reaching the right audience, with the right message, at the right time is important for effective marketing.  With vast amounts of data, it can be overwhelming for marketers to use this effectively for segmentation.

Segmentation in Customer Insights, allows marketers to look beyond the customer, and incorporate related entities, as well as inferences & predictions, into marketing segments.  Customer Insights provides marketers an innovative visual exploration of your data, to enable you to intuitively find the attributes you need.  Segments are always up-to-date, with individuals automatically promoted to or removed from segments, depending on their customers journey.

Data Ingestion and Insights Access

In addition to these intelligent applications, this release includes out-of-box connectors to additional data sources, with just a few clicks.  The Exchange connector allows you to access metadata about email communication and calendar appointments with your customers, with security and privacy.  The Microsoft Social Engagement connector allows you to bring in social content.

A new Power BI desktop connector allows you to access profile and KPI’s processed from Customer Insights information in your Power BI reports.  In addition, profiles and KPI’s can also be automatically exported in bulk to Azure Storage for integration with other applications.

New Tier

The existing Basic tier of Customer Insights, includes access to Segmentation, as well as the ability to pilot Predictive Match and Predictive Scoring.  We’ve also introduced a Standard tier of the service, which includes higher usage of these predictive capabilities.

Try Now

Customer Insights now enables you to harness the power of AI for your business to make smarter decisions and better engage your customers.  Learn more.

Try the new applications and capabilities by deploying Customer Insights for your organization through the Azure Portal.

 

Santosh Chandwani

PM Lead, Dynamics 365 for Customer Insights