Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Partner

What was Dynamics Marketing is now Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys. This is designed to help teams engage customers using unified data with personalised real-time journeys and AI-powered Copilot assistance. In this presentation, you’ll see an overview of Customer Insights that covers the frequently used functionality areas, including audience segments, journeys and analytics. Let’s start by looking at emails. We’re in the Real-Time Journeys module, so I’ll jump into the email channel to get started. Dynamics includes a library of email templates covering various scenarios and these can be easily branded and customised. For this demo, we are going to be editing an email template that an insurance company will send. Using drag and drop controls, Customer Insights enables marketers to create professional-looking emails very easily. Here, we can drag additional sections onto our email design canvas and populate these with standard elements, and this includes text blocks click buttons and images as well as QR codes which could be useful to support event registrations or offer codes. Although there is an option to view the email HTML, the flexibility of the drag-and-drop controls means that working with the email designer is typically a no-code experience. Branding controls can be defined for organisations that have multiple brands. This includes setting themes to ensure that messages are sent with correct and consistent branding.

Marketers are always under time pressures, so they might struggle for inspiration when creating emails, but here Microsoft Copilot can help. In this example, I’m looking to add a section to this email, but I want some ideas. The Copilot AI assistant helps save time by providing the first draft of additional email content by taking my points and picking up contextual information from our previous messages. Here we can add up to five points and choose a tone of voice that reflects the style that we want. In just a few seconds, Copilot will return with a list of content ideas that we can review. Any of these suggestions can be selected and added to the template. Changes can then be easily made to improve the copy, such as sharpening the call to action. This is just one example of how Copilot helps individuals increase productivity across Dynamics apps, and we’ll be looking at further examples shortly.

Customer Insights – Journeys is built on the Microsoft Power Platform, so it stores email and other marketing interaction data in Dataverse, the unified data storage across all Microsoft Business Applications. Unlike third-party solutions, there isn’t any need to manage integration between a marketing automation platform and CRM or synchronise data because everything is natively stored in Dataverse. That’s important because it will enable you to fully leverage your data to personalise messages quickly and effectively. And effective personalisation is more than just adding a first name field. It’s about using what you know about an individual recipient to adapt a message with content that will resonate and drive a positive outcome. While the same email template may be sent, some audience members may receive different versions of the core message.

Personalisation can reflect demographic and behavioural data, so let’s look at how this can work in practice. Here I want to personalise the email by including additional sections that should dynamically appear when messages are sent to specific types of contact. In this example, we’ll promote content about automotive insurance. Here we’ve set a conditional rule referencing an interest field in Dynamics. This additional content block will be displayed for any contacts where this field is ‘Automotive’. For all other recipients in our audience, the text will be hidden. Now, switching to another rule, we’ll use data values in the same interests field to promote life or health insurance content. In these examples, our dynamic rules worked with email text, but these can just as easily apply to images. For example, a message may include a default photo which could vary for some recipients where similar rules using CRM data are applied to show a different image. With centralised data and these intuitive no-code tools, Dynamics helps marketing teams quickly craft personalised messages that increase click-through rates and boost engagement metrics.

To check these conditional rules, are working correctly, we can preview how the email would look for a specific contact, and this enables us to ensure that each personalised content element is displayed or hidden as appropriate. For a broader check before using any email template, Dynamics includes a preview powered by Litmus to assess how a message will appear on various email clients and devices. Further tools to check content and improve deliverability and engagement include an accessibility test and a spam checker. In this example, we focused on email, but Customer Insights also includes capabilities to send SMS text messages and push notifications, and it supports configurations for custom channels such as WhatsApp.

Now let’s look at how Customer Insights – Journeys handles audience segments. Each segment can represent a combination of demographic and behavioural criteria that will be used to target emails and other messages. This is another area where Copilot can help us save time by reducing the effort to build each segment. After naming the segment and selecting what type of audience we’re going to be targeting, we can use query assist. Here you can type in your selection criteria using natural language and let Copilot create this rule. In this instance, we want to match contact records where there is a credit limit above a certain threshold and an interest in the auto sector. Copilot will then convert these definitions into a query which avoids needing to pick and choose each field manually. It’s another example of how Copilot and Dynamics work together to lighten the load on marketers and help them save time.

Now that’s done, we can refine this segment by adding or editing criteria as appropriate. Because we’re working with unified data, we have considerable scope to build highly targeted segments that can reference any entity or process managed in Dataverse. For example, we can hop onto the related accounts table to query a field that will further refine our list. The segment rules can be grouped so an individual segment could consist of multiple groups that define an audience. This supports a standard ‘or’ rule whereby a record will be included in a segment if it meets the criteria of either group. Using the ‘and also’ rule allows group rules to be intersected. For example, the first group might match 100 contacts, but the criteria of a second group must also be met, and that could reduce the total number of segment members. By using the ‘but not’ rule, an additional group will further refine each segment membership. The criteria of a first group will control which contacts or leads will be matched, then a ‘but not’ command can be applied and that will remove any records from the segments that match the criteria of this additional group.

These examples demonstrate how segments offer significantly more flexibility than the legacy marketing list functionality in Dynamics when determining an audience and how they help marketers avoid the extra effort involved in creating and managing new numerous lists. We can even bring other segments into a group segment. For example, by again using the ‘but not’ rule, this segment definition will exclude any contacts that are a member of our ‘Low Interest’ audience segment even if they were matched by the first group. An estimate of the expected total of segment members is shown so you can quickly check your progress throughout the segment-building process.

Switching to an active segment, here we can check the current membership and see how this count has fluctuated. For example, to see where contacts have been automatically added or removed over time in line with the defined rules. Each of these examples has been a dynamic segment whereby members can constantly change from one day to the next in line with the rule for the segment; however, Customer Insights also supports static segments whereby contacts or leads can be manually selected one by one or added in bulk using a query. So far, we’ve looked attribute based segment rules using CRM data but keep watching for examples of how Customer Insights – Journeys can also use marketing interactions as behavioral triggers to populate segments.

So we now have a marketing email, and we’ve created a segment. To define our audience, the next step is determining when and how this message should be sent. This will be completed by creating a journey to specify the steps involved. It could be as simple as two steps, such as sending a single email to a target segment, but Journeys also supports sophisticated sequences of actions that could involve messaging across multiple channels and using branch rules. Journeys can include steps to alert sellers when people respond to these messages, which helps align activities between sales and marketing teams to coordinate timely outreach activities at key moments. Copilot can again help us by simplifying the creation of a journey. Here we can type a description of what we want the journey sequence to look like. Copilot will then turn these words into a new customer journey. In this example, we’re using a segment journey to send the email that we looked at earlier to our segment of contacts who are interested in auto insurance. We also want to include a wait condition and a simple branching control to check whether recipients have clicked the email. Copilot has now created the journey so this can be reviewed and any changes made as appropriate.

Next, we need to determine the journey frequency. In this example, the journey will run as a one-time process, but in another scenario, the journey could run whenever new members are added to the associated segment. Other options include a control to exclude any participants if they belong to one or more specific segments. Clicking on the email tile in the journey we can see a thumbnail of our earlier message, and then moving down the journey, a branching step has been added. Using an ‘if/then’ rule, this will route people down the ‘yes’ branch who’ve clicked on the email within a week. If no interaction is tracked, then the ‘no’ branch will be followed to send a reminder message. Further actions can be added to a journey by clicking the plus icon. Available options include sending messages by text or other channels and using AI to determine the best channel for each recipient. Journeys can also include actions that will schedule a task or activity and automated actions can be added to a journey that will create lead or opportunity records for highly engaged journey participants, which are assigned to sellers. Each interaction within a journey can also be used as the basis for running a Power Automate flow or as a trigger to launch a different journey. For instance, this journey path could be designed to identify interest in a specific product. To act on these signals, we could then trigger a separate journey that will drip-feed customers additional information about that product.

And that brings us to the second type of journey. We’ve seen how a customer journey can start using an audience segment rule, now let’s look at how Customer Insights enables marketing teams to respond to customer actions in real-time. Using triggers, Customer Insights includes a library of triggers and these cover numerous scenarios which can be used to start a journey. These examples include triggers from actions made in any Dynamics 365 app, such as creating a contact or updating an address. It’s another example of how teams can benefit by using centralised customer data to trigger timely action. When these key events occur in Microsoft Dataverse, Customer Insights will find the appropriate trigger and launch an associated journey. It’s a straightforward process to add more types of triggers, so to set up a new one. We’ll give it a name and select a trigger activation for when the record is either updated or created. Next, we can select any table or entity in Dataverse, that means if we so wished, we could use an action from a table in the Dynamics Sales Hub, the Customer Service app or even a Power App as an activation trigger because they all use the same Dataverse storage. In this example, we’ll select ‘case’ and confirm the audience will be an originating contact. Next, we’ll define if the trigger will be activated when a record is created or updated or if it should fire in the event of either of these actions. Now we can select the relevant table columns or fields where changes will activate this trigger. For this example, we’ll use the case status record. Once that’s saved, the trigger is added to the library, and it can now be used to create a new journey.

Earlier we created a segment-based journey, so now let’s look at a different example that’s driven by a trigger. Using trigger-based customer journeys, organisations can be nimble by reacting to events and actions in real-time and responding with timely actions. Again because you are working with a single source of customer truth, you can easily use this data to send personalised and contextual messages when key moments occur. To create a new journey, we’ll select the trigger-based option and select our trigger for when a case is closed. So here’s our completed trigger-based customer journey.

Let’s now look at some additional controls and capabilities for managing journeys in Customer Insights. Firstly, it’s helpful to define a journey goal for reporting purposes. Out-of-the-box goals include customer engagement and driving a purchase. In this scenario, we’ve selected increasing loyalty as our goal. We’ll need to select a trigger to define when a goal is met. In this example, the goal will be met when a Customer Voice Survey is completed. Finally, we’ll need to set a target for how many completed surveys are required in order to meet this goal. This could be expressed as a specific number or in this case, a percentage. In this scenario, we’ll say the goal is met when a quarter of customers complete a case completion survey.

Within each real-time journey, message frequency caps can be set. This is a useful tactic to avoid scenarios where customers receive too many emails or other messages within a short period of time that could harm the relationship and increase the risk of people unsubscribing. Frequency caps apply across all journeys and can be set for daily, weekly and monthly limits on the number of emails and text messages that people receive. In this example, the cap includes an enforced daily limit of two emails and a monthly limit of ten emails. If any journey attempts to exceed these caps, the relevant message will be blocked, but the contact will still continue down the journey. By default, a customer will exit a journey after completing all of the steps and reaching an endpoint, but alternative exits can also be applied. For instance, a contact could be removed from the journey when another trigger is activated. Previously, we saw how a survey completion trigger could be used as a goal, and this could also be applied as a journey exit rule. Another exit route could be if a person is subsequently added to one or more segments, so while they may have initially met the journey entrance rules based on a trigger or a segment, they won’t be able to continue the journey if they belong to one of these other segments.

Analytics are available on each journey tile showing the number of people who have passed through this step. For an email, we can see how many messages have been delivered and the unique open rate. Detailed delivery and interaction details can also be viewed that lists the tracked behaviour. For each email address switching to a contact record, each message sent by Customer Insights will be shown on the timeline in any Dynamics app. These entries can be expanded so that people in any team can see details of the messages that are sent to customers. On the insights tab, account managers and marketers can assess how engaged an individual has been in response to marketing communications. Here we can see an overview of a contact’s interactions across various channels, so for example, we can see how many emails they’ve opened during the last 30 days and what their open rate is during this period.

We’ve seen examples of analytics across segments, contacts and responses to messages within a journey. Let’s now explore some of the insights that are available through embedded Power BI visuals. In journey analytics, we can assess progress towards our goals. This can start with a high-level look at performance across all journeys that began during the last few months. The default analytics include how many journeys have met their goal and the average email engagement rate. We can also filter these analytics to see how a specific journey has performed. Here we can also explore the reasons why contacts have left a journey which could potentially pinpoint any failures that need addressing. Teams can use these analytics to assess performance across all channels. These default Power BI charts and customer insights also provide performance analysis across marketing assets and journeys which could be measured against milestones. This includes the option to add custom milestones and along with an attribution model, marketing teams can use these dashboards and visuals to track and analyse the contribution of their activities.

Let’s conclude by taking a quick look at one additional feature. Using integrated marketing forms, customers and prospects can register for for an event, request the PDF or make another request by entering their contact details when the form is completed. Customer Insights automatically stores these submitted values in Dataverse creating or updating records as needed, and these actions can also be a trigger to activate segments and journeys. As we saw earlier, to create a new form we need to determine if this will be for contacts or leads. Dynamics can either create a new lead record when a form is posted or by selecting contact it will attempt to map form posts to an existing contact, if not, it’ll create a new contact record. For this example, we’ll create a form with a contact.

Audience signup forms are a frequent example. Here we have a simple form to capture contact details and start the process of enrolling new subscribers into a mailing list. By clicking on the form email field, you can see this is mapped to the email column in our contact table in Dynamics and Dataverse. Just like the email designer, drag-and-drop controls can be used to quickly apply form layouts and add elements such as images or dividers as required. The form could be published as a standalone page, but in most instances, these are embedded within a website page. To do this, we’ll need to grab some code so it can be added to the appropriate page in WordPress or whichever content management system you use.

These are just some of the capabilities to demonstrate how Microsoft Dynamics 365 helps organisations create personalised experiences and deliver connected journeys. To learn more about how Customer Insights – Journeys could work for your business, please don’t hesitate to contact Services. If you enjoyed this video, please do give it a like and to stay up to date, hit the subscribe button to see new presentations about Dynamics and the Microsoft Power Platform.