Dynamics 365 Customer Insights - Simply Explained

Imagine a customer called support after buying from you twice, signing up for emails and downloading a guide from your website. Can the person answering the call see that whole story? Often no, sales sees one part, customer service sees another, your website has clicks and form fills, marketing has email activity, eTaoTems, one customer, but every team holds a different page from the same file. Welcome to another episode of Microsoft Knowledge Nuggets on M365, FM, I out M, M, Melcopeters and we out TM were going to put Dynamics 365 customer insights into play in English including its two parts and how they fit together Think of a large office building where each department keeps customer files in separate locked rooms Customer insights creates one shared customer desk so the right teams can work from a fuller picture Morselle the simple definition and the name changed Dynamics 365 Customer insights helps a business understand its customers and respond to them with more relevant communication That sounds broad because it is broad a customer does no temperate experience your business as separate teams They don't know what might think oh, yeah I'm now dealing with marketing and later you out and will deal with service a yo They bought something asked for help visited your site or requested information They expect your business to recognize that context Customer insights brings the customer view and customer communication closer together before September 2023 Microsoft sold Dynamics 365 marketing as its own product if you worked with dynamics before that change You may still hear people call it D365 marketing real-time marketing or just marketing those names have not been disappeared from every day conversations Microsoft renamed that product customer insights journeys at the same time the original customer insights data product became customer insights Data both now sit under the larger dynamics 365 customer insights name that naming change causes a lot of the confusion You might hear someone say how we use customer insights are you but they could mean the data side the journey side or both So when you are in a meeting it helps to ask one simple question Oh, do you mean data or journeys? Oh those are the two building blocks customer insights Data brings customer information together and helps you understand it Customer insights journeys uses customer information to plan and send communications based on who someone is and what they do a Simple way to remember it is this data helps you see the customer journeys helps you respond to the customer You can use one without becoming an expert in the other but they make more sense together One part creates a clearer customer picture the other part let's teams act on that picture through planned communications Now don't attempt confused customer insights with the rest of dynamics 365 Dynamics 365 sales remains the place where sellers manage leads accounts opportunities and their sales work a Sales person still needs a place to track the deal plan the next call and record what happened Dynamics 365 customer service remains the place where service teams manage cases Knowledge articles and customer support work if a customer reports a problem customer service handles the case itself Customer insights does no temtu replace either product instead it connects customer understanding and communication Around the work those teams already do a sales team can see useful customer activity a service team can understand more context Marketing can communicate based on information the business already knows that outmess a much better setup than exporting lists from one system Uploading them somewhere else and hoping they stay current but before you can understand a customer or send the right message You need to bring their information into one place Customer insights data building one customer record customer insights data works like a shared customer filing cabinet Not a cabinet full of paper folders obviously But one place where the business can bring together the customer information that normally sits in separate systems A customer might appear in dynamics 365 sales as a contact linked to an opportunity While a purchase system records their orders a website records form submissions and a service system stores past support requests Each source knows something useful but none of them automatically tells the whole story by itself Customer insights data connects those sources that can include dynamics 365 apps website activity loyalty systems purchase records customer service data and other Business systems the point isn't to copy every piece of information just because you can The point is to bring together the information that helps you understand the customer and make a better decision Picture a company that sells home equipment It sales team knows that Alex requested a quote last month the store system knows that Alex bought a product two years ago The service team knows that Alex recently asked for help with a repair Meanwhile the website records that Alex has been reading about an upgrade those records may all use slightly different names email addresses or customer numbers Customer insights data can help match them This is where the difference between raw records and a unified profile matters raw records are the separate entries coming from different places a Unified customer profile brings related entries together when the system can identify that they refer to the same person So instead of seeing four disconnected records a team can view one customer profile with the details joined around that customer matching needs care For example two people can share a last name and an old email address may no longer be correct Customer insights data uses matching rules that the business sets up so it doesn't just guess that every similar record belongs to the same person Good matching rules help reduce duplicates without joining the wrong people together Once records come together the profile becomes much more useful you can see purchase history you can see support history You can see marketing activities such as messages received or links clicked You can also include preferences and behavior like a stated product interest a form request or pages visited on a website Suddenly a customer isn't just an email address in a campaign list. They're a person with a relationship and a history That fuller picture helps different teams ask better questions Has this customer board before have they contacted support recently? Are they interested in a certain product area? Did they respond to a previous message or did they ignore it? Customer insights data also lets teams build segments a segment is simply a group of people who meet conditions you choose Rather than exporting a spreadsheet sorting columns saving a new list then repeating the job next week you define the rules once for example You could create a segment for customers who bought a certain product live in a specific region and visited a related page in the past month As customer data changes the people in that segment can change too Someone who meets the rules joins the group someone who no longer meets them drops out That means the group follows the data instead of becoming another old spreadsheet nobody trusts You can also build segments from actions not only profile details maybe you want people who clicked a product link but haven't purchased Or customers who opened a support case in the last 30 days those are behavior-based segments And they let teams focus on what customers actually did not just who they are on paper They're also predictive insights customer lifetime value is an estimate of the value a customer may bring over their relationship with the business Turn likelihood is an estimate of whether a customer may stop buying stop using a service or disengage These aren't promises about the future they're informed estimates based on available customer data and patents from the past If the underlying data is thin or messy the estimate will be thin or messy too Still when used with common sense those estimates can help a team decide where to pay closer attention Copilot can help people explore this customer data in plain English Instead of starting with a complex filter a user can describe the audience or question they have in mind For example they might ask for customers with a high purchase history who haven't engaged recently Copilot can help turn that request into something the team can review and refine But the data only becomes useful when someone can act on it at the right moment Customer insights Journeys turning knowledge into action Customer insights Journeys takes what your business knows about a person and turns it into a planned response Think of a journey as a route a customer can follow after a message reaches them It isn't just one marketing email sent to a list A journey can send a message wait for a response react to that response and then take the next suitable step some journeys are short A customer receives one email about an event then the journey ends Others run across several days or weeks someone receives an introduction email Then a text message if they haven't responded and a different follow-up if they show interest the route changes because the customer did something or didn't Messages can go out through email SMS text messages push notifications for a customer app and custom channels that a business sets up That gives a team choices email may work well for a detailed guide a text message may suit a short appointment reminder A push notification can reach someone who uses the company app the channel should fit the message and the customer's permission choices Not just the team's habit creating those messages doesn't always require a designer or someone who writes HTML code Customer insights journeys includes templates and a drag and drop editor a user can add text images Buttons and other content blocks then build an email that follows the company's usual look Personal details such as a customer's name can appear in the message too But using a first name is only the starting point a message becomes more personal when different customers see different content Someone interested in home insurance could see a section about home cover while another person interested in car insurance Sees a section about car cover in the same email the email itself stays under one design Yet the content inside it changes based on a customer's interests purchase history location or other details that the business knows That helps avoid the familiar problem where a customer receives an offer for something they already own Or content that has nothing to do with them customer insights Journeys can start in two main ways the first is a segment led journey A team chooses a group of people and sends communication to that group It might run once using everyone who meets the segment rules at that moment or it can keep running When new people meet the segment rules they can enter the journey imagine a welcome journey for people who join a mailing list You don't want to rebuild that journey every Monday You want each new subscriber to receive the right welcome message when they qualify The second option is a trigger led journey a trigger is an event that starts the journey when it happens a person completes a website form a contact record changes A customer registers for an event a case closes in customer service instead of waiting for someone to prepare a list The system can react to that event This is often called real-time marketing although the name can sound more complicated than it needs to it simply means a customer action can start a response While that action still has context take a support case as an example a customer contact support because something isn't working The service agent works through the issue records the outcome and closes the case That closed case can start a journey that sends a short survey asking about the support experience timing changes the message If the survey arrives while the conversation is still fresh the customer knows exactly what it refers to If it arrives three months later it can feel random and the feedback may not help much The journey can use the customers details to personalize that survey request It can also send the message through the channel the business has set up and the person has agreed to receive Now a journey shouldn't become an endless machine that sends messages just because it can It needs choices inside it should the system wait for a reply Should it send a different message if someone clicks a link when should the journey stop And when does a person such as a seller or service agent need to take over Those decisions turn a collection of messages into a customer journey that respects the person's time and gives the right team a chance to respond How a customer journey actually works let out Tim's make this real with a simple example Someone visits your website because they are timry interested in a product they fill in a form to request more information entering their name Email address company and the product they want to know about That form submission is more than an email landing in a shared inbox A customer insights can use the submitted details to create a new customer record in dataverse Or update an existing one if the person already exists there Dataverse is the shared data store behind Dynamics 365 business apps So the same customer details can connect with sales, customer service and other apps that use it Imagine the person already spoke with a seller last month Instead of creating another separate contact the form can update the existing customer record with the new interest The seller now sees that this person asked for product information And the communication journey can use that detail straight away The form submission can also start a journey A trigger watches for that action then starts the right set of steps when it happens The first step could send an email with the requested product guide Followed by a pause while the customer has time to read it That pause matters, without it the system could send three messages before the person has even opened the first one A journey needs room for the customer to respond because their response decides what should happen next Suppose the email includes a link to a product page If the person clicks that link, customer insights can send a second message with more detailed information such as a customer story, a demo invitation or a guide that answers common questions They click signals interest so the next message can match that interest But maybe they don't automatically click, the journey can wait a few days and send one reminder Perhaps with a clearer subject line or a shorter message it can also stop after that Not every quiet customer needs a long chain of follow-ups This is where the branches in a journey earn their place A branch is simply and if this happens do that choice Click the link, send more detail Geed no EMT click, send a reminder Requested a demo alert sales, bought the product, stopped the promotional messages Each person follows the route that fits their actions At some point an automated message should turn into a human conversation If the customer clicks an o-talk to sales o-link, requests a demonstration or takes another action that shows strong interest The journey can create a task or phone call for the owner of that customer record The seller does know that a mentee needs to hunt through email reports to spot the signal A task appears where the seller works It might say "Oh follow up with Jordan, requested product information and viewed the demo page" A.O. the seller can see the context, pick up the phone and continue from where the customer left off instead of starting with "Oh, so what can I help you with?" O. the trigger does not know it only need to come from a website form Because Dynamics 365 apps share dataverse, actions and sales, customer service or a custom power app can start a journey too A seller could update a record, a service agent could close a case A custom app used by field staff could record a customer visit Those business events can start the right communication A power automate flow can take the work further For example, an action in a journey could start a flow that sends a notification in teams Updates a record in another connected system or starts a follow-up process outside customer insights That connection matters when a customer journey touches more than messages Still, none of this gives a business permission to contact anyone without limits Commercial messages need consent People may choose which subscriptions they want, such as product news, event updates or special offers They may also decide that they don't now ultimately want those messages anymore and customer insights needs to respect that choice A customer may agree to service updates but not promotional email Those are different purposes and the journey should treat them differently The person out TM's preferences decide whether a commercial message can go out even if they fit every other rule in the journey Teams can also set frequency caps A frequency cap limits how many emails or text messages a person receives during a chosen period If several journeys try to send messages to the same customer in one day The cap can block an extra message rather than overwhelm them That protects the customer relationship Automation can respond quickly but speed alone does no good prove it worked Without measurement, teams only guess whether a journey helped or simply added more noise Seeing results and improving the next journey A journey needs a clear goal before anyone builds it That goal could be more engagement such as people clicking a link It could be a completed purchase, a survey response that measures loyalty or another customer action that the business can define and track Without a goal, a journey can look busy while achieving nothing useful Customer insights lets teams follow what happens at each step in the journey For an email, you can see how many messages reached people and how many people interacted with them For a branch, you can see how many people took one route and how many took the other That view helps answer simple questions Did people receive the message? Did they click the link? Did most people leave before the next step? A journey diagram isn't just a plan on a screen after it starts It becomes a record of how customers moved through the process which gives the team a reason to change a week step instead of guessing at the whole journey The customer timeline also helps the people who speak directly with customers A seller or service agent can see communications that customer insights sent to a customer along with the interaction history that the system records So before someone calls a customer, they can see whether that person received a guide Click the product link or completed a survey That changes the conversation The employee can start from what the customer already knows rather than sending the same information again or asking questions The customer answered yesterday For a wider view, customer insights includes journey analytics and power BI visuals Teams can compare journeys, channels, goals, and exit reasons across a chosen period Maybe emails lead to more guide downloads while text messages bring more appointment confirmations Or perhaps one journey loses people because they complete a goal while another loses them because they no longer meet the entry rules Those are very different outcomes and the reports help teams tell the difference A.B. testing gives teams another way to learn before they send one approach more widely You can test two versions of an email such as different subject lines or different calls to action You can also compare channels where the same type of message reaches one group by email and another by text message The system tracks the result based on the measure the team chooses such as a click or the journey goal Still, don't let a complicated journey distract from the basics Clean customer data affects every segment and every personalized message Consent decides whether a message can be sent A clear goal tells the team what success even looks like Fancy branches can't repair wrong data, ignored preferences or a journey with no purpose With that in place the two parts of customer insights start to make sense as one connected customer experience Where customer insights fits in Dynamics 365 Customer insights fits between knowing the customer and communicating with the customer Customer insights, data provides the customer picture Customer insights Journeys respond to that picture with messages and planned actions that suit the person and the moment Dynamics 365 sales still manages sales work from leads and opportunities to calls and follow-ups Customer service still manages customer cases and the work needed to resolve them Customer insights connects customer understanding and communication around those jobs Because these apps can share data versus their common data foundation Teams avoid the old routine of copying lists between separate marketing and customer systems Then waiting for them to sync A seller, service agent and marketing team can work from one customer story While access controls and consent rules protect customer information Conclusion, one customer story, timely action Customer insights turns scattered customer records into a clearer picture Then helps teams communicate based on that picture Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform For more Microsoft Knowledge Nuggets from Mirko Peters at M365 FM And share this episode with someone still trying to sort out Dynamics 365 names and products