Next, in my blog series, I move on to the first-party applications of Sales, Marketing, Customer Service and Field Service. In today's post, I talk about some of the new features and functionality that we can expect to see in Release Wave 2 of 2023 for Dynamics 365 Sales.
New features coming to Dynamics 365 for Sales focus primarily on Sales Copilot and its complete rebrand from Viva Sales. Sales Engagement is paramount throughout the updates with an improved Sales Accelerator and additional functionality being added to Sales Sequences.
The Dynamics 365 Release Wave 2 for 2023 outlines all the new features that will be released between March 2023 through August 2023. You can either browse the release plan online or download the document as a PDF file. The PDF file also includes information about Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Pages, Power Virtual Agents, Microsoft Dataverse, Microsoft Power Platform governance and administration, and data integration.
The Microsoft Power Platform features coming in the 2023 release wave 2 have been summarized in a separate release plan as well as a downloadable PDF
Copilot in Sales
The primary goal of Copilot is to enable users to maintain their customer connections effectively while saving time, enhancing productivity, and lightening their workloads.
All Viva Sales functionality has now been integrated into Sales Copilot, making it all accessible with Dynamics 365 Sales as part of Sales Enterprise and Premium licenses.
AI-generated lead and opportunity summaries provide an immediate snapshot of each potential deal, including any changes made since the last sign-in. This easy accessibility to vital information is purpose-built to streamline the selling process, enabling sellers to make well-informed decisions promptly.
Copilot presents summaries within the Dynamics lead and opportunity records, these insights may soon emerge within Teams once the new Business Chat preview feature is introduced. Stay tuned for more details on Business Chat.
Sales Copilot also incorporates a new lead qualification experience, enabling the mapping of leads to one or multiple opportunities. This improvement provides sellers with greater flexibility in determining the pursuit of leads across various avenues.
Sales Copilot will also introduce a new feature which was actually mentioned a couple of release waves ago. This feature is email-to-lead matching. With Copilot, users will have the ability to create new leads directly from external Outlook emails or align incoming emails with existing lead records.
AI in Dynamics 365 Sales
Users will have access to suggested tasks for follow-ups on incoming emails, conveniently displayed within the Up-Next Dynamics widget and the Copilot pane for quick reference.
In addition, Copilot's AI capabilities will offer a concise summary of recent interactions, streamlining meeting preparations. This summary encompasses recent contact emails, notes, and previous meeting summaries, making it easier for sellers to prepare effectively. Moreover, thanks to seamless Bing integration, sellers can stay updated with the latest pertinent news related to their accounts, aiding them in preparing thoroughly for upcoming meetings.
A suite of generative AI functionalities for Dynamics 365 Sales is poised for a public preview launch.
Among these features are AI-driven sales proposal generation, which utilizes existing data to maintain a consistent style and format. These draft proposals are conveniently output in PowerPoint format, facilitating easy editing and sharing.
Additionally, users will gain the ability to swiftly obtain a comprehensive understanding of each account through AI-generated account summaries. These consolidated summaries serve as an efficient alternative to sifting through account timelines or applying filters, as they encompass associated opportunities and cases, ultimately saving valuable time.
Sales Engagement
Microsoft plans to officially rebrand the Sales accelerator as Sales Engagement. The functionality is specifically designed to help seller-customer engagements by employing AI-driven insights into customer relationships, meaning we can standardise the sales process.
In the 2023 Release Wave 2, Sales Engagement is set to introduce new features, including:
Sequence Step Evaluations - This feature will enable repeated evaluations of sequence steps until the exit criteria are met, simplifying the process of following up with prospects and customers.
New Notification System - Sellers will benefit from new notifications that promptly alert them to incoming leads and opportunities. This enhancement ensures that no valuable leads or opportunities go unnoticed, contributing to improved responsiveness and efficiency in managing customer interactions.
Guide sellers to work simultaneously using multiple sequences
With this update, users can assign multiple sales managers to work on different sequences for a particular record at the same time.
This will enable sales leads to:
View team members who are also using sequence on a record.
Attach additional sequences to a record that already has sequences attached.
View details of a sequence and find a list of completed and upcoming activities.
Follow up on emails using recommended actions
The system monitors and identifies action items from the emails we track and populates them within the Up-Next widget for easy reference. The system also sends reminders to complete the task, thus reducing notetaking and the risk of missing tasks. In addition to this users can also,
View suggestions to create follow-up tasks based on the content in an incoming email in Dynamics 365.
View the follow-up tasks in the Copilot pane.
Get reminders to complete tasks.
Hope you all enjoyed this post on the Release Wave 1 for 2023 features of Dynamics 365 Sales. I will continue this series with some additional content specifically related to other Dynamics 365 CE apps and what we can expect to see in the coming months. Take Care, Speak Soon!
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