A couple of things about the new Dynamics 365 CE UUI

As many of you are aware Microsoft released Version 9 for Dynamics 365 customer engagement. One of the primary features was the new Unified User Interface (UUI) which originally was going to be just for business edition, but that also seems to have changed / re branded / disappeared. No worries there, we get the new web refresh and UUI in the enterprise release! FAB!!!

All good and well but there are a few things you need to be made aware of if you are looking to implement version 9, especially if its primarily for the new UUI. Firstly, I need to give a shout out to some of the team that have been testing this with me: Rob Dawson, Matt Webb & Jason Almeida… Thanks for having a crack at this with me… I bet we find more interesting little Easter eggs :)

One thing I need to make very clear is that the UUI and the WEB REFRESH are 2 very different interfaces. The Web refresh is the same browser interface that has just had a bit of a coat of paint to remove a lot of the white space. It does look a lot cleaner and “fresher”. Below is an example of my contact record in the web refresh. (Yes you can totally colour brand the subgrid headers)

The UUI is the new unified interface that has been generated with the platform refresh and will provide the same user experience across mobile, tablet, Outlook, web and Unified Service Desk access. This is going to be the preferred interface in the future and it more intuitive which is really going to promote user adoption. The controls are a lot more user friendly and are reliant on the new Custom Control Framework (CCF).

In my experience, the new UUI presented a few challenges during testing. I thought it may be useful to bring up these gaps before you decide to upgrade only to use the UUI. This all being said, the testing has all been undertaken on trial environments and have all been tested across different browsers. The different APPS enabled for UUI were also tested. It also doesn’t mean that you will experience these within the web refresh interface.

Email Activity Creation

Other than from within the Outlook interface I have not yet found a way to send an email from the new UUI. The attempts to send the emails were made directly from the time line on the account and contact forms where the actual email activity option is missing from the list. I also attempted from the quick create for activities from the top nav bar, where the option exists but nothing happens when you select it. You can click the little email shortcut on the right hand of the account or contact, but that will simply utilise the built-in email available on your device.

Advanced Find

I was unable to conduct any Advanced Find within the new UUI. This is a real core function within Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. I can utilise the categorised and relevance search functionality.

Quick Create

A number of the quick create buttons on the top nav bar don’t seem to work. I can create core records from the quick create “+” icon but not from the other 2 icons.

Some other stuff…

There are a couple of other little gotchas in the UUI that you may want to look out for such as:

• No ability to bulk delete (Probably safer this way)
• Quick create doesn’t work with custom entities.
• A few issues with the CCF (Certain controls giving a couple of issues) which definitely deserves a separate post.
• Outlook client is a little clunky but seems to have a lot of potential though.

This being said, the new UUI is looking GOOD and working well for where it is in the release cycle. I feel as if this is fantastic functionality from Microsoft and as the platform gets updated these little kinks will get ironed out and worked out. The experience is definitely A LOT better than the web refresh. The interface is a lot cleaner and it flows better/ It feels as if information is more readily available to users in a more interactive manner.

As we discover things, I’ll keep posting. I’m sure there is loads of amazing functionality buried in there!

Your Online Personality Matters!

This is my second post of my 3 post series talking about brand perception & complaint resolution. There will be a few topics in here that lead off from the original post found HERE.

In my initial post I mentioned that companies need to focus as much energy as possible on resolving problems / complaints when posted in a social forum. The reason for this is that when in a public forum, businesses have the opportunity to generate a following of brand advocates that will wear your companies brand with pride and evangelise the brand across the social-sphere. In my opinion, this is one of the most effective forms of marketing.

If you go onto a business’s website, you will find them selling themselves as providers of a particular product or service in a manner that makes them attractive to a consumer. They will tell you all sorts of wonderful things and often quote all sorts of success stories. THIS is what sets a level of expectation with the consumer base. If a company advertises themselves as an entity that can be implicitly trusted and this trust is broken through the delivery of product or services that don’t align with what they are selling, consumers log complaints across the multitude of channels available to us.

Random example…If a preowned car dealership (Everyone loves a good old car dealership example) tells us that their cars are “absolutely brilliant, never give the drivers any issues, are well priced and are delivered to the consumer’s door step 2 days after the order being placed”, that’s what we as consumers expect. If this doesn’t happen, then we complain. This business has sold their product and service along those guide lines and we trust them to deliver exactly that. (Totally get that this is super farfetched).

To put a spin on this a bit…what if the dealerships sales guide lines were as transparent as: “Need a temporary, well priced car? Come and check out some of the vehicles in our yard. These preowned cars have been serviced and valeted just for you.” The question is, which of these descriptions / offerings is more likely to get scrutinised on the social-sphere if the offering isn’t completely met?

A really good example of where this transparent approach has been effective is with “WeBuyAnyCar.com”. In summary, they basically say that you will get more money selling your car privately, but why would you want to go through the hassle? These guys are actually selling you your time back. They are selling convenience. You immediately know what you are getting. If I ever logged a complaint here, it would be about the service and not about the price I get for my car. Here is their actual marketing blurb:

 “Do you value your time? We Buy Any Car guarantees a fair price for your car without the hassle of selling it privately. Enter your reg number in the box above and get your instant valuation for free.

Whatever your car, whatever its condition, your valuation is valid for 7 days. If you are happy to sell to us, take your car into your local branch for an appraisal and we can pay the money/cash directly into your bank account. Don't waste your time: join over 1 million customers who have sold their car to We Buy Any Car today.”

Super smart advertising…. But they HAVE to deliver on these terms.

If you look at channels like Twitter and Facebook, you don’t actually have this amount of space to work with. You have 140 characters in a Bio and 2 pictures on Twitter to get peoples interest and a click through to your site. If you sell your business as the amazing, trust worthy and customer focused, and you don’t deliver that, expect to be hung out to dry on social media.

That little blurb is an indication of the businesses online personality. Businesses have the opportunity to create a whole online personality that depicts the companies “Persona”. Companies like Nandos and Sainsbury’s have done this BRILLIANTLY! They are GREAT at resolving complaints and interacting, but in a way that still reflects their brand. As an example ASDA wouldn’t be able to start responding to their customers in the same way Sainsbury’s do because consumers perceive the 2 brands VERY differently on the social-sphere. It’s like having 2 VERY different friends :) I know that, most of the time, if I include Sainsbury’s in a Twitter post, I’m likely to get a funny / sarcastic / witty response, but still get my issue addressed. (No, I don’t work for Sainsbury’s…HAHA)

If a business puts “We offer world class customer service” on their Facebook page and they don’t resolve a complaint or respond to a query posted there, they are advertising themselves incorrectly. Just by putting up a tag line like that, businesses may either set themselves up for failure or allow for an opportunity to prove themselves as being absolutely fantabulous!  

Telling everyone how awesome you are means you have to back it up. As I mentioned in my first post… smart marketing and brand awareness will provide a mechanism to avoid the “Villagers with Pitchforks” scenario…. Which businesses DESPERATELY need to avoid.

It's so important to establish your online personality and engage with your consumer base in a way that reflects the type of company you really are.

In my final post I’ll be talking about the Microsoft tech that businesses can leverage to help improve both customer service and marketing, which in turn provides an opportunity to generate brand advocates.

Driving Brand Advocacy Through Complaint Management

I apologise in advance for the long post, but I’ve been DYING to put this into words! Thanks in advance for following.

We have all been in the situation where we have been served a bad meal at a restaurant, received a broken product in the post, had a rude call centre agent or just received service / product that was not up to scratch in general.

The question is, how do you deal with this as a consumer and what are companies / businesses doing about it? Personally, I’m not one to let things like this slide and if someone is rude to me or treats me badly, I tell them. If it continues to happen, I turn to the complaints department as well as social media. Please note that when I receive fantastic service I ALWAYS leave positive feedback. I’m one of those people that will fill out the survey in hope that the company requesting it will actually work on their customer service. I’m not saying any of you should do this… It’s just what happens in my world ;)

Anyway, after that piece of INCREDIBLY USEFUL information, in certain aspects, I’m not alone… loads of consumers out there do turn to social to voice their opinions in whatever way or form. In many cases, complaints or bad reviews left in a social forum are really taken seriously because these can often lead to huge business losses for various business types. Companies that just shut their eyes, block their ears and hum loudly to avoid certain channels are already feeling the brunt of the consumer community. JUST BECAUSE YOU DON’T SEE IT, DOESN’T MEAN ITS NOT THERE!!! You will ALWAYS see the results of badly managed consumer channels. It’s a bit like the movie “Paranormal Activity” where you see the results of the haunting, but not the haunting its self.

Often companies on certain channels are the target of the “Villager with Pitchfork” scenario. One person, brave enough to post a complaint about a company on a channel, can result in MANY others following suit. Kind of like the villagers chasing Frankenstein into the already flaming windmill (Do what you please with that analogy). Some of them aren’t sure even why they are doing it. If these angry mobs are not kept at bay and these complaints not dealt with, they can devastate a company’s brand VERY FAST. People will nearly always rely on the opinions of others before purchasing products or services from a company. Interesting fact: often companies remove the “Review” capabilities from their pages….#BECAREFUL – This is NOT transparency.

Chapter 2… :D

Some time ago I had a conversation with a person who worked at a fairly large airline company. We got chatting about how complaints are resolved across channels (Yes, I know I’m totally lame) and their response was “Sometimes, every now and then, it’s okay to lose a bag” … ME… “EEERMMM, no its not, that upsets people” (definitely not a direct quote). Person X proceeded to explain to me that loosing said bag was not the issue…. It’s how you RESOLVED the issue. Obviously this couldn’t happen all the time… and yes, frequency is relevant.

LIGHTBULB!!!

Translating that conversation into modern social terminology… Loosing said bag, being honest with the person whose bag has been lost, retrieving said bag and then compensating said person in some manner or form will often turn a massively negative complainant into a brand advocate. Obviously this can’t be a regular thing and companies that do truly have great service and product won’t have to worry about this.

Think about this in the social media sense, you have the ability and OPPORTUNITY to resolve a complaint in a public forum IN FRONT OF EVERYONE and turn groups of people into fans… WOW, that’s an opportunity! Teaching people that they can trust you, as a business to deliver the truth, across the right channel, in a manner that resolves an issue and compensates the complainant is often better than just having general day to day service. People love the “Fighting in the trenches concept” … they want to see companies do what’s right, they want to see businesses getting onto the same level as their consumer base and levelling with them. Another thing that's very important here is the complaint must be solved within the confines of the company brand. The way consumers perceive the brand must align with the complaint resolution process. This will be explained properly in another post.

Personally, I am MORE of a fan of a brand that works alongside me to achieve results. Companies that want to do the right thing and talk to me in the language I understand (demographic) across a channel I prefer. So what if I complain over social… in this day and age, I shouldn’t have to call in and have a whinge, I shouldn’t need to send an email or write a letter. As consumers, it’s our prerogative to communicate in the way that I prefer on the channel I prefer.

Chapter 3…

These days, consumers expect businesses to have the ability to communicate across all channels and manage customer’s interactions and complaints without us having to call in and interact with call centre agents over and over again. We expect an “Omni-channel” (First real Buzz word… yessss) experience.  So what’s the solution here? How can we help companies achieve this for their customer base?

Well, OBVIOUSLY, I’m going to say that Microsoft Dynamics 365 has multiple technical elements that will allow a business the ability to focus their energy on their customer base. BUT… that solves only part of the problem. Look out for my next post on how to achieve this through what’s available within the Microsoft stack. Products such as Microsoft Dynamics Customer Engagement, Microsoft Social Engagement, Adobe, CafeX and even ISV Products such as Click Dimensions can be leveraged to achieve the creation of an Omni-channel customer experience.

For now, the suggestion I’m going to make is that companies place absolute importance on the consumers’ satisfaction as their primary goal. The ability to supply value and cohesive interactions to and with a customer across the preferred channels is of vital importance. The ability to RECOGNISE when a customer is unhappy and change the customers’ opinion can be more valuable than a standard customer experience in some cases. If you take anything away from this long post, that line is the most important. As you change your approach you change your result.

Welcome to the age of the digital consumer!

Standby for the next one :)

Microsoft Teams & Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement - And some other ideas :)

Microsoft Teams & Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement – And some other interesting ideas J

There are so many discussions about Microsoft Teams, how they are being used and how they will work with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. If you think about what exactly Microsoft Teams really does it starts to make perfect sense.

GOOGLE TOLD ME THIS: “Microsoft Teams is a chat-based collaboration tool that is part of the Office 365 suite of services. Teams enables local and remote co-workers to work together in real and near-real time.”

AWESOME, sounds very useful, but don’t we have Office 365 groups and Yammer for that? Recently a few enthusiasts and I (One of them being Ken) had a discussion about what works where and how. Rather interesting because the results were quite different. I’m also almost 108.65% certain that various people were asking the same thing when O365 groups were released. “Why can’t we just use Yammer?”….???? Well I’m DEFINITELY not answering that question with this blog post and if you need more information Please look HERE… A really rock solid article that talks about some of the stuff that’s going on. I will take it on properly at some point.

What I am going to answer is how deeply MS Teams works with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. At the moment my personal preference is towards MS Teams because I feel as if a lot of the existing O365 collaborative functionality is going to get absorbed by MS Teams. (Personal Opinion).

MS Teams actually has an existing “Integration” (More of a connection) with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement and will let you surface certain information within a MS Team as well as track certain activities and changes. It’s really simple… Simply follow the instructions below and you are off to a good start:

Get a team up and running and create a channel of your preference.

Once you have done that… jump into the menu and hit connectors.

Filter the connectors menu and select Dynamics 365.

Select the correct instance of Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. Looks like you need to select an instance within your O365 tenant.

From there select a record you would like to connect with. I only saw the ability to connect with “Accounts”, “Opportunities” and “Leads”. I have a workaround for other records explained at the end of the post for other record (Entity) types.

Once you’ve connected to a record (It seems as if you can only select one at a time), you will see the “1 Configured” link under the Configuration button.

If you select the link you only have the option to remove the record. Nothing else. (YET!!!)

After you have decided not to remove the D365 Customer Engagement records because of its vital importance to your team, you will see an update on your team channel with the records addition details.

I can go into D365 Customer Engagement, search for the record, make my updates and then these will be posted to the Team Channel.

Obvs' you can then click through the Team link through to the Dynamics 365 instance record to review and interact with the record as required.

NOW… That’s the easy part done… Here’s the hard part. There is a lot I / we don’t know. In honesty format here we go:

1.     There are only certain entity types you can connect to out the box.

2.     There are only certain fields and activities that sync through to the Teams channel from the record.

3.     The information displayed is okay, but may not be enough to inform the right team members.

The solution:

I created an MS flow to interact with Teams and D365 Customer Engagement. It solves a lot of the problems that you would generally perceive with the MS Teams and D365 connector. IE… It doesn’t only look at Accounts, Leads and Opportunities. Because flows are pretty easy to create. I reckon this solves a lot of thaw current connector gaps.

Probably another blog post for another time…

If you are serious about using teams, in my opinion, that’s the right route! Have fun and shout if you need help!

MULTISELECT Optionsets in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

MULTISELECT Optionsets in Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement

This may sound so strange but THANK YOU MICROSOFT!!! This is a piece of functionality that loads of us have been waiting for for A LONG time. It probably got me more emotional than the release of editable grids.. and I'll tell you what, that was a pretty emotional day!

SO what exactly are "Multiselect Optionsets" and how do they work? In this post I'll be showing you as much as I possibly can about this functionality as well as how it will work across the system. A good example here is "How would one search Multiselect Optionset values using Advanced find?" WELL... if you need to know about that type of thing, hopefully this post will help you out.

Traditionally, we had to create 1:N relationships with meta data type entities to allow users to replace Multiselect optionset requirements. This worked but often solutions became rather entity heavy and there were just loads of categorisations and filtered relationships. It also wasn't feasible to  have hundreds of standard optionsets on a form. It all kinda turned into Optionset Armageddon.

The Multiselect Optionset enables users the ability to select multiple options from a pick list type control and associate these options to the relevant record. 

To create these optionsets, simply go into your form configuration environment and create a new attribute. Select "Multiselect Optionset" and then add in your values.

The Multiselect Optionset is then made available directly on the form for interaction by users. The question is, How does this work with the rest of the solution? Can users still utilise this for reporting and searching. ABSOLUTELY!!!

In order to make these Multiselect fields visible within the views, simply add the field to the view and VIOLA, there it is, with the options separated by semi colons. The Multiselect fields are also both VISIBLE AND EDITABLE from within the editable grids when they are enabled.

The filter criteria still work against the column and it will allow you to filter on a collection of the options or simply if the Multiselect only contains 1 of them. This works in a similar manner within Advanced Find, however users can be a lot more precise in their searches.

In the advanced find selection criteria there is now an option called "Contains Values". This will select all records where the Multiselect Optionset contains ANY of the values described / selected in the Advanced Find query. It is a bit like an "OR" query but in one line and against 1 field. You will have the ability to run a similar query with the "Does Not Contain Values" option. Should you select the "Equals" option then the Multiselect Optionset MUST contain each one of the fields stipulated. This is similar to an AND query in one line and against 1 field.

Ultimately, the new Multiselect optionset functionality is absolutely fantastic and will resolve MANY issues within the Dynamics 365 solution. There are 1 or 2 smaller functions to do with the Multiselect, such as the inability to include the field within a business process flow, but I'm sure things will get better as the UI and controls improve.

HAPPY MULTISELECTING!!

Hootsuite & Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Integration

Hootsuite & Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Integration

As you all well know, there are hundreds of social tools out there that companies and people use to manage their personal and corporate social media profiles. There are a few of them that are more widely used than others, these being the likes of Oktopost, Buffer, Hootsuite, Tweetdeck and LOADS more.

I am a big fan of social and how it works with Microsoft Dynamics 365. Today I'm going to talk a bit about how HOOTSUITE integrates with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement. This article is to support a recording I did recently to show how this integration works. This can be found HERE.

NOW.. before I go off on another social mission I need to make a few things clear

1. Hootsuite does not fulfil the same task Microsoft Social Engagement will fulfil. MSE is very focused on the Customer service side of things.
2. Hootsuite will compete with the likes of Oktopost but does not integrate with Click Dimensions. Hootsuite has its own integration to Dynamics.

To begin this process, simply create a new Hootsuite account and add your profiles. You can get a free one that allows for 3 profiles to be added. You should end up with a dashboard like the one below where you can add your profiles as "Streams". In the example below I have added 2 streams.

Navigate to the "App Directory" on the left hand side of the page and select the "Free" apps option. In the top right hand search box enter in "CRM". This will filter the list to the CRM apps where you will need to scroll until you see Dynamics. Click the "Install" Button.

The App installs and once it is complete you will be notified through a small notification. This means the plugin can now be accessed from the main screen in Hootsuite.

Navigate to the main screen, click the extension link under the post and you will see that "Send to Dynamics Online" has now been added to the menu. Click that option on any of the posts to configure the Dynamics 365 integration.

When the configuration box appears simply enter the URL of the Dynamics 365 instance, your user name and your password. This will connect Hootsuite to Dynamics 365. After connecting once the following connection screen will appear.

After waiting a few seconds you will be presented with the Dynamics 365 limited UI within Hootsuite where you can undertake very basic tasks such as capturing lead information, Searching contacts, viewing contacts and managing activities.

Essentially, this integration into Dynamics 365 from Hootsuite is a basic Dynamics 365 user interface within the Hootsuite UI, that exposes basic Dynamics 365 functionality and data to Hootsuite users. Users will require a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement user license to access the information and functionality in order to track leads from Hootsuite to Dynamics 365.

Tools such as Oktopost will allow users the ability to generate social posts within Dynamics 365 and track analytics and engagement statistics within Oktopost. Hootsuite will enable standard lead tracking through from social media to Dynamics 365. Simple, but effective if you are already using Dynamics 365 and Hootsuite.

Check out the video HERE for a live demo.

Social Engagement: MSE & ClickD

Social Engagement: MSE & ClickD

Microsoft acquired Netbreeze many moons ago and over the years, transformed it into "Microsoft Social Engagement" - MSE. MSE is an AMAZING tool and supplements the Dynamics 365 landscape brilliantly. It will allow you to listen to various social feeds and channels, gauge sentiment, understand location, consolidate posts into feeds, auto create posts in Dynamics 365 and then engage the relevant social profile in a simple and integrated manner. Microsoft have taken this product A LONG way and I truly commend them on the work that they have done with it.

That being said, there are a couple of places where MSE is not really as strong as we would like. This has a bit to do with the functionality and a bit to do with how it’s being positioned to customers. If you go onto the Microsoft website and Click on the Customer Service Solution you will in fact notice that MSE is part of the Customer Service module! The ability to ENGAGE the customer is absolutely crucial. MSE is not inherently a Marketing tool. The listening and analytics element of MSE may be used for marketing, but MSE is an ENGAGEMENT tool... I've seen many scenarios where MSE has been positioned as a social marketing solution because sentiment and brand advocacy can be gauged, which is half true, but the power of MSE is the engagement element. I've seen multiple blog posts and requests for "Post Scheduling" in MSE... As awesome as this would be (Not sure if it’s being road mapped), MSE is still an engagement tool. Cross over to marketing would just be magical though :D

Now that I have gotten that out the way, it brings me to my next point.... Enter my pals from good old ClickD. Recently, I was putting a ClickD demo together for a current customer and I stumbled onto a "Connect to Facebook" option in the ClickD settings menu, under the connector section. Well, Well, Well... I easily connected it to one of my 5 trillion Facebook pages, it authenticated and BOOM!!! I easily created a post directly from within Dynamics. I could choose whether to schedule it or post immediately, and off it went to my CRM Facebook page.

Now I see that ClickD have added a whole bunch of other connectors: Facebook Profiles, Twitter, LinkedIn & Google+, all of which are authenticated securely and can be posted to directly from within Dynamics 365. This allows us to truly manage social posts from within Dynamics 365, without the need for a tool such as Hootsuite, Hubspot, Buffer, etc...  I'm also assuming that the connectors will not stop here. I reckon that in the future we can probably look forward to a few more additions or sources.

The ability to manage posts couples onto Click Dimension’s full Social Engagement offering which will enable users to: Quote "Manage all your social media activity -- including scheduling, publishing, analytics and reporting, content curation, listening, campaign tracking and advocacy programs –in one convenient platform." This functionality is provided through a partnership with "Oktopost", A leading Social Media Management platform. Another fundamental and key principal to remember here is that ClickD is built within the Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement platform, so it can be further extended to provide some even more amazing functionality.

Both Microsoft Social Engagement and Click Dimensions Social Engagement have got some AMAZING features and in-depth functionality that I feel can be leveraged in MANY different situations, dependant on the customer’s requirements. I've thoroughly tested MSE but still need to really take the ClickD / Oktopost stuff through the wringer. I've been reviewing the current functionality and am impressed thus far, however, this will definitely require another post to really dig into it. Here's a small sample of the Oktopost user interface that I am busy testing out.

The trick here is to position each one correctly to your customers and make sure they understand the pros of each product and in what situations they will both work in either as a combination or separately. This will set both your customer and yourself up for success.

For what's new within Microsoft Social Engagement, check out the following blog post for more information: Microsoft Social Engagement

If you need any more information, need a demo on either, or want to have a chat please give me a shout and I’ll be happy to help out :)