It’s that time of year again. Summer, the season that yields peaches, picnics and picture-perfect sunsets, is nearing its conclusion. You knew it was coming and it still doesn’t make it any easier to see it go.

However, fall – filled with fairs, foliage and football – brings its own set of perks. Here’s the special part about this year’s installment: the highly anticipated sequel to Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Scheduled to drop as early as October, Wave 2 of Microsoft Dynamics 365 will feature all the capabilities of its predecessor, only this one will have hundreds more enhanced, far-reaching optimizations. They include, but aren’t limited to, more sales data analytics, customer service insights, an artificial intelligence-powered virtual agent that businesses can leverage for online customers as well as fraud protection to guard against the ubiquity of cyberattacks. According to the Identity Theft Resource Center, data breaches rose 23% in 2018 and 446 million records were exposed, a 126% increase from 2017. The fraud protection upgrades in Wave 2 can provide better data deterrence capabilities by blocking and/or identifying potentially vulnerable network thoroughfares.

And that’s just the beginning. Here are a few of the new applications and enhancements found in the second wave of Microsoft 365 for business, starting with Customer Service:

Customer Service

A core component to providing full-fledged customer satisfaction is engagement – supplying patrons with opportunities to better connect and interact with the goods and services they use. Dynamics 365 for Customer Service makes this possible through more efficient case routing and agent productivity features, such as improved email authoring – this allows agents to more quickly and seamlessly connect with customers to address posed questions and/or concerns. There’s also an updated and upgraded service scheduling-migration tool, which has a smoother interface and allows for more intuitive transfer from the previous configuration. Updates to the timeline will help customers see more data all at once without having to scroll down.

Field Service

From electricians to plumbers, roofers to IT techs, field service is an inherently reactive profession: customers have an issue, the experts are on-site to address it. Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Field Service leverages AI so companies can be more proactive. This is made possible through predictive scheduling that can provide a rough estimate of when installations may break down and become candidates for replacement or repair. Dynamics 365 Guides leverage step-by-step instructions that can help field service representatives use these advanced capabilities whether at the office or on-site.

Marketing

Turning solid leads into loyal customers derives not only from the opportunities to reach these people but the relationships. Dynamics 365 for Marketing uses more feature-rich content-creation templates that marketers can use to better customize the content they ideate, such as new email layouts, skins, subscription-list management and simplified navigational tools. Wave 2 also features quick send, which enables marketers to quickly create and dispense informative emails without requiring follow-up automation. Now, it only takes is a few clicks of your mouse.

Talent

While the low unemployment rate is great for America’s economy, it’s made recruitment more difficult for HR. Some of the enhancements available through the latest version of Microsoft 365 for Talent that can address this issue include intelligent candidate recommendations, a feature that identifies keywords listed in resumes so recruiters can more strategically and seamlessly select applicants with the appropriate qualifications. Some of the other new features include streamlined employee data entry, broader environment management and more customization options for analytics reports.

Retail

Customers have more ways than ever to shop to their heart’s content, including online, by mobile device, mail or within brick-and-mortar locations. Retailers need technologies to better identify shopping trends. Wave 2 of Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Retail supports this function by building on the features found in the previous version. These include centralized and in-store inventory management, omnichannel capabilities that track order processing and improved CDX scalability through Cloud Async Client. It also offers offline availability for modern point-of-sale systems, so stores don’t need an internet connection to track sales data or conduct transactions.

These are just a handful of the optimization’s forthcoming in Wave 2 for Dynamics 365, which again is scheduled for October release. For more information on how this ERP can transform your business, contact TM Group today.