Last week, Microsoft launched a new CCaaS platform, which brings together Dynamics 365, Microsoft Teams, and the enterprise AI capabilities of Nuance.
The scale of the announcement hints toward the determination of Microsoft to deliver end-to-end experiences. Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, clarified this intent during a recent earnings call, stating:
We are helping organizations digitize their customer experience, service, finance, and supply chain functions as we continue to outgrow the market in every category.
These aspirations to “outgrow” the market are perhaps most evident in its analytics capabilities, with Microsoft Power BI leading the business intelligence space – according to Gartner.
Its vision is also attracting interest from high-profile clientele, with VISA switching to Dynamics 365 for its sales and call center functions and Carlsberg working with Microsoft to standardize its field service and customer service operations.
However, in terms of the full CX stack, Microsoft has lots of work to do to “outgrow” the market. Consider its CCaaS solution. Yes, it currently contains many impressive building blocks, but it is far from the finished article.
Making this point in an upcoming CX Today video interview, Dave Michaels, Lead Analyst at Talking Pointz, stated:
Really, what Microsoft has announced is its vision and intent. Now, we’ve got to see where they are going to go.
Many predicted that this vision would see the merger of its contact center solution with Teams. Yet, while Microsoft mentions that Teams will feature in its CCaaS platform, it goes into little detail.
Such a lack of detail has many industry analysts scratching their heads, Michaels included. He said:
Microsoft is calling this a Digital Contact Center, but we’re not clear on what it really is. Sometimes we use the term “digital contact center” to describe everything but voice and telephony. But they already announced an entry-level contact center through Dynamics, so maybe it already has voice and telephony.
“They also have partnerships with companies like Genesys and NICE, so maybe it’s supposed to work with those more? It’s a little bit unclear.”
Yet, few of the announced contact center capabilities will add lots of value to the current offerings of these leading contact center players. Take NICE as an example. The vendor already offers excellent bot technology while also working with Amelia – a top-rated conversational AI provider. Some analysts rank it even higher than Nuance.
So, unless a NICE customer has an ecosystem entirely driven by Azure, Dynamics, and Teams, where the Microsoft Digital Contact Center fits in is a little tricky to decipher.
“It’s not really clear what is going to stand out in the stack,” adds Michaels. “That said, as was announced, it’s going to get better, and that is the way Microsoft tends to work.”
Look at Teams when it was first announced, it was pretty bare-bones, simple, and lacking a lot of core features, which it ended up getting over the next few years.
Will replicating such an approach across the CX stack work? Only time will tell. Yet, perhaps the contact center is its biggest test, as it’s an mission-critical function to most organizations, and maybe a half-baked platform will not cut the mustard.
However, the vision Nadella shares is already garnering great interest, and – as previously promised – Microsoft will likely continue to ”aggressively” innovate in the CCaaS space and beyond.
