Unlock The Power of Community and Co-Creation in Customer Care
Effortlessly empower customers with self-service communities using Microsoft Power Apps Portals
It is commonly understood that the likelihood of acquiring a new customer is much lower than the likelihood of persuading an existing customer to repurchase. In fact, it is said to costs 5x more to attract and acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one [1]. The situation organisations face today is juxtaposed. On the one hand, traditional customer support channels remain an expensive operation, and on the other hand, internal data (information, statistics, and trends discovered through operations e.g. customer case resolution outcome) may sit unused. A new wave of low code/no-code solutions are set to change this, with the potential of democratising data, treating it like a shared asset and feeding customer trust.
Introducing Microsoft Power Apps Portals
Microsoft Power Apps Portals allow users within an organisation to easily and quickly learn to create and shape a personalised portal for their organisation. This is part of the new wave of low/no-code Microsoft products, empowering users (so-called Citizen Developers), as well as experienced technical professionals alike, to build applications often without writing a single line of code [2].
Power Portals are websites and by nature they are accessible to external users (customers). By enabling users to interact with data held in Microsoft Dataverse (e.g. knowledge articles, customer case resolution status/outcome etc.), organisations can build direct relationships with customers, removing friction and increasing transparency and trust. External users can access the portal anonymously as un-authenticated users or as external users logged in through common identity providers such as Google or LinkedIn. Either way, Microsoft recognises the importance of data security and privacy, with access controls managing what users can and cannot do on various pages, as well as what data they have access to from Dataverse and beyond.
When provisioning a portal, the most important choices to consider are purpose and audience — ensuring a portal template is chosen that best aligns with business requirements. Templates apply to different use cases and user types, including customer and employee self-service, community, and partner portals. The remainder of this post will focus solely on the features and use cases of a customer community portal.
Power up a community of engaged customers
A customer community is an online space for customers to connect on a regular basis to have conversations, and to share ideas and information with others, including company representatives/agents. Interactions between an organisation and online community members can be broadly categorised into self-service and assisted service.
Let’s look at each of these through the eyes of our community member, Joe.
Customer Self-Service
In a self-service scenario customers can browse readily available information, such as blog posts, knowledge articles or forums. Our community member Joe could find a solution to his query from a knowledge article for example, based off a previous resolved customer case. Knowledge articles can be an instant win for organisations who may already have an abundance of these held within customer relationship management applications. By integrating the capabilities of Dynamics 365 Customer Service, knowledge articles can be surfaced on the portal where users can locate specific knowledge articles using keyword search.
Assisted Service — C2C
Customers themselves can be an overlooked source of knowledge, with organisations neglecting to recognise the willingness of customers to help each other. With a forum hosted on Power Apps Portals, customers can interact with one another, give, and receive support simply by creating a new discussion or by joining an existing thread. Joe in this case, could share a link to the knowledge article that helped him solve his query. In a similar fashion, customers can be a great source of ideas and co-creation. The ideas feature within Power Apps Portals can crowd source ideas and suggestions from community members, allowing visitors to vote and add their own comments.
Assisted Service — B2C
If the information available is not sufficient to resolve an issue, a customer can create a new support case through the portal. With help from a Dynamics 365 Customer Service integration, an end-to-end support solution can be provided, removing friction from the customer journey. Case submission via the portal will create a corresponding case record in Dynamics 365 Customer Service (Dataverse), where support agents can then follow existing processes and procedures to resolve the case. In the case of authenticated users such as Joe, portal activity is visible to support agents and can be attached to the case, with users (Joe) informed of case activity through automatic email updates.
The power up potential with Power Apps Portals
Channels such as customer communities, that provide clear and actionable information, are confirmation that resolution steps are underway, and indications that information is credible, foster a sense of confidence in the customer, which in turn empowers them to continue utilizing self-service channels.
As has been explained, there is real potential to unlock the power of community and co-creation within customer care with Microsoft Power Apps Portals. Feature rich and low/no-code by nature, Power Apps Portals puts the power back in the hands of everyday users. As is the beauty of the Microsoft ecosystem, integration with other applications helps strengthen the solution, and, although this article has solely focused on customer communities, Power Apps Portals are flexible in their application, with use cases ranging from partner communities (allowing distributors, suppliers or partners to have real-time access), to employee self-service portals (empowering every employee with a definitive source of knowledge).
So, readers — where will your Microsoft Power Apps Portals journey take your organisation?
Thanks for reading. Capgemini Invent are looking for a Digital Workplace Management Consultant, who will work closely with the Microsoft Power Platform (and maybe even Portals!).
If this sound of interest to you or someone you know, take a look at the link above to find out more.
