When it comes to Microsoft, contact center is the gift that keeps on giving. Recently, the company tore the wrapping paper from its latest contact center offer with the general availability of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center on July 1, 2024. With the latest move, Microsoft is perpetuating a puzzling contact center journey, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Enterprise Technology and Services Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “Pre-dating the new arrival is a string of ancestors born annually, featuring overlapping functionality and sometimes bearing similar names. Sorting through the morass is confusing.

“It is not clear whether Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center is a unique persona or merely a twin. Its name reads like a cross between ‘Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform’ released in July 2022 and ‘Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service’ released in March 2023. Also, its functionality bears a striking resemblance to the two older offers.”

The confusion does not terminate there. Microsoft also just introduced ‘Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium’, which takes Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center and layers on top of another service: the similar sounding ‘Dynamics 365 Customer Service Enterprise’. The offer integrates contact center and CRM functionality, allowing for personalized customer journeys, but that value gets lost in the shuffle of perplexing naming conventions.

Willsky adds: “A history of contact center offers that are difficult to distinguish is only one Achilles’ heel for Microsoft. Competitors such as Cisco, Zoom, and RingCentral are continually enriching their offerings with new features. Also, they don’t suffer puzzling nomenclature, nor do they come with historical baggage attached; customers don’t need to decipher the portfolio.”

Willsky concludes: “Microsoft could alleviate some competitive pressure. It should follow the lead of rivals and declutter the naming conventions and capability rosters plaguing its contact center collection. It should also take the logical step of coupling Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center with Microsoft Teams and fill the growing need for integrated UCaaS and CCaaS. Executing these moves would plant a firm stake in the ground with an unwavering, definitive, flagship offer. That would make for a nice springboard for future success in the contact center space.”