Modern people have more material, purchasing channels, and brand selections than they did in the past, and their expectations for excellent customer service keep rising, especially in downturns. To find a way to keep loyal consumers, businesses must first comprehend, value, and believe them, then serve them effectively through smooth, personalised experiences across all channels.

Companies require a consolidated view with a single perspective of each customer to deliver these types of experiences, and this source of info must provide not only a present view of customers but also a potential future perspective.

Why is it so difficult for businesses to obtain such information? Data is pouring from everywhere, thanks to the creation of so many customer contact points, the evolution of a company’s infrastructure through time, and the exponential data expansion of recent years.

Data is frequently fragmented across various systems and departments, making it difficult to collate, organise, and mould into a holistic image of a client, let alone extract useful insights that empower staff with predictive, next best actions.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights can help with that. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is a user-friendly and adaptable customer data platform (CDP) that lets you consolidate all of your customer data from a variety of sources to create a single, authentic view of your customers.

You can use Customer Insights to:

• With pre-built connectors, you can link data from any source, like point-of-sale, transactional, behavioural, and consumer preference data, or connect to a data lake to intake data and construct the view.
• With out-of-the-box and custom models, anybody from data analysts to marketing and sales professionals can use the data to uncover insights and take action.
• Use Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications, and other connections to fourth solutions to consume, adapt, and expand these capabilities, as well as Azure Machine Learning and Azure Synapse for advanced analytics.
• So that all client data is safely managed and adheres to GDPR legislation and high privacy standards, rely on the trusted, hyper-scale Microsoft Azure platform. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is also accessible on the Microsoft Government Cloud, which is designed to meet the government’s compliance requirements.

Connect to a wide range of data sources using pre-built connectors

Pre-built connectors for a variety of first- and third-party data sources, such as Dynamics 365, Azure SQL Database, Azure Blob storage, Salesforce, and SAP, make importing data easier. Check out the documentation to learn more about data sources.

To develop unified consumer profiles, map, match, and integrate data.

The mapping, matching, and merging of data into a single, unified image of your consumers is a three-step procedure. Go to the documentation to learn more about the map, match, and merge processes: Unification of data

To gain a better understanding of your customers, expand your customer profiles.

You can add data from other sources to your customer profile, such as Microsoft Graph or firm data from Leadspace or CivicScience. This information can subsequently be used to develop actionable categories, such as for high-value clients. Alternatively, broaden the categories to include lookalike modelling for targeted marketing and sales initiatives.

Make predictive insights a reality.

On top of your single customer profile, Customer Insights allows you to take advantage of out-of-the-box AI capabilities. The subscription churn insight, for example, can help you estimate whether a client is likely to stop using your company’s subscription products or services.

You may train the model using data from your unified customer profile, and then have it retrain itself on a regular basis to keep improving outcomes.

Azure Machine Learning and Azure Synapse Analytics connect consumer data with enterprise data to design, train, and fine-tune machine learning models for unique predictive insights.

At every consumer touchpoint, expose data and insights.

Customers’ unified data and insights can be surfaced and consumed at every touchpoint where employees interact with them, such as the following:

• Create a Power App that displays extensive customer data such as transaction history, customer-specific segments, and suggested next best actions.
• To access unified profiles directly within Dynamics 365 business applications, download the customer card add-in from AppSource.
• To export data for usage in other third-party programmes, use third-party connections like LiveRamp, Facebook Ads Manager, or other pre-built connectors.
• For your own in-house apps, leverage APIs to augment the customer view.
• Use Power BI to connect consumer data and generate bespoke dashboards and reports that help you make better decisions.

Recent enhancements

Here’s a quick rundown of newly announced features:

• Common Data Service is now available for building data sources in Customer Insights, allowing you to import analytical data from Dynamics 365 apps. Learn more about how to connect data in a lake maintained by the Common Data Service.
• Export to LiveRamp as a destination – Connect with over 500 platforms across the digital, social, and TV ecosystems by activating your data in LiveRamp. In Customer Insights, you can learn more about how to use LiveRamp.
• Become a member of Microsoft Teams – Connect to Microsoft Teams and use an add-in from AppSource to look up customer profiles with the help of a bot. Learn more about how to use the Teams plug-in.
• With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Government, you can meet stringent security and compliance standards. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is now available on the Microsoft Government Cloud, a platform designed to help US government organisations achieve their stricter compliance requirements. Learn more about Microsoft Dynamics 365 Online Government and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Keep up to date with what’s coming up in the next six months and what’s just arrived by following these links.

Become a member of our community and get started right away.

The Dynamics 365 Customer Insights community page has the most up-to-date information, including forthcoming events, featured blogs, and other relevant pieces. Also, take a look at the following links:

• ms/CIdoc How-tos and more detailed information about capabilities can be found in the documentation.
• ms/TryCI To develop unified customer profiles, start a free trial, see a demo, and import your own data.
• View a video overview of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
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