Omnichannel digital messaging with third-party voice service and Dynamics 365 Customer Service

  • Article

This architecture is intended for contact centers with a voice channel that is currently supported by a third-party Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) provider. It also applies to scenarios where a third-party CCaaS provider is preferred for voice engagements. Using this approach, Dynamics 365 Customer Service delivers digital messaging channels. Self-service activities in the voice channel are enabled by third-party CCaaS provider. Self-service activities in the messaging channels are enabled by Microsoft Copilot Studio.

There is a unified experience in Dynamics 365 Customer Service for agents that integrates the third-party CCaaS provider's functionality using the Channel Integration Framework. Supervisors use Dynamics 365 Customer Service and supervisor functions provided by the third-party CCaaS provider. Engaging other employees using Microsoft Teams can be accomplished using Microsoft's Context IQ approach. It might also be delivered by the third-party CCaaS provider.

Potential use cases include the following examples:

  • Retailers providing online sales and support

  • Healthcare providers offering support for patient questions

  • Financial Services companies providing help and advice for banking, investments, mortgages, and so on

  • Internally facing help desks for employees

Architecture

The following diagram illustrates the architecture. Choose the magnifier icon for a more detailed view.

Architecture with supervision in Dynamics 365 and third-party cCaaS.

Dataflow

  1. Customers engage via the digital messaging channel of their choice, including potentially using Microsoft Teams as a channel for internally facing contact centers (such as employee help desks).

  2. Customers engaging via the voice channel will interact with a third-party CCaaS provider and any included IVR self-service capability from that provider.

  3. The Channel Integration Framework, provided by Microsoft, enables third-party CCaaS providers to integrate into Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

  4. Copilot Studio provides self-service automation in the form of messaging chat bots.

  5. Work is routed to agents, who use the customer service workspace within Dynamics 365 Customer Service. The third-party CCaaS providers voice channel is visually integrated into the customer service workspace using the Channel Integration Framework.

  6. Both the agent experience and the supervisor experience are built upon and integrated with the Power Platform. Dataverse stores all core data and events to for the customer data platform.

  7. Supervisors interact with the built-in capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, including insights, forecasting, and scheduling. There may also be some supervisor and administration capabilities provided by the third-party CCaaS provider.

  8. Using Context IQ, Teams collaboration is enabled between Dynamics users and Teams users, including the ability to collaborate one-on-one or through swarms. Other features provided by the third-party CCaaS provider may also be used to integrate with Microsoft Teams.

Components

Assumptions

In all Digital Contact Center Platform architectures, wherever possible, we assume that all or most solution components use the core capabilities of Microsoft Azure, including, but not limited to, compute, storage, identity, security, management, and compliance.