In the digital first era, data has become the foundation of all winning marketing policies. Businesses (B2C and B2B) need the correct insights to define their customers, conduct a successful campaign, interpret the feedback, and optimize the customer experience. Creating related, personalized experiences is no longer a mere competitive advantage, but the key to customer acquisition and retention.
Decentralized customer data is one of the largest challenges an organization is experiencing in the present day. The spreading of customer information across various systems (CRM, marketing systems, sales systems, or support databases) causes silos that do not allow any team to see the full picture of the customer journey. Such silos not only prevent the collaboration of the departments but also reduce the insight into customer behavior and tastes. In the absence of a single source of truth, businesses will be left relying on disjointed pieces of information, making it more difficult to provide individualized experiences, create trust, and make meaningful growth.
Here is when Microsoft Customer Insights comes in. Organizations using the platform reported 75% time savings in customer journey development, 25% savings in outreach and reporting, and a 15% boost in conversion rates per journey. Now that we’ve looked at the impact and numbers, let’s dive deeper into the blog to explore what Microsoft Customer Insights really is, how it works, its core features, and why it’s becoming a must-have tool for businesses aiming to deliver personalized, data-driven customer experiences.
What Is Microsoft Customer Insights?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is a customer data platform which is AI-powered that assists businesses to break down data silos and consolidate all customer information in a single place. Customer Insights does not work with disparate information in sales, marketing, and service divisions; rather, it brings all customer insights together.
Under this common perception, organizations are better equipped to comprehend customer requirements, preferences and behaviors. The platform will help the teams anticipate future moves, find new opportunities, and provide personalized experiences at every touchpoint. Turning unrelated data into valuable information, businesses can be able to make smarter and faster decisions and enhance collaboration between departments.
In addition to data integration, Customer Insights also offers real-time analytics and predictive modeling. Finally, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights converts unstructured data into practical plans that support customer experience, drive better efficiency, and lead to a sustainable business.
How many Components does Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Include?
The Customer Insights Dynamics 365 is organized into two major parts, both of which are intended to make business as much as possible out of its customer data. Their combination offers a strong solution of data unification and journey orchestration that helps organizations to offer personalized and connected customer experiences at all customer touchpoints.
Customer Insights – Data (Customer Data Platform)
This component is aimed at consolidating the data gathered by several sources CRM, ERP, web interactions, and third party applications into a single comprehensive customer profile. It can be used to bring together transactional, behavioral, and demographic data to enable organizations to create a 360 profile of their customers and utilize AI-driven insights to make smarter decisions.
Customer Insights – Journeys (Customer Journey Orchestration)
It is an element that helps businesses to establish customized, real-time customer experiences. It allows marketers to plan campaigns across multiple channels, automate communications, and react to customer actions in real-time. Using cohesive profiles and predictive views, organizations are able to provide relevant and timely experiences that increase engagement and improve customer relationships.
What are the Key Features of Customer Insights?
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights assists companies in removing the barriers that exist between fragmented data and releases the potential of customer information. It helps businesses to provide meaningful experiences that deepen relationships with customers and increase their growth by consolidating records, using AI-based analytics, and supporting real-time personalization.
360-Degree Customer View
Bring all your customer information into one unified, reliable profile. Dynamics 365 Customer Insights merges transactional history, behavioral patterns, demographic details, and operational data from across touchpoints. This consolidated view helps teams understand who their customers truly are, how they engage with your brand, and what drives their decisions
Real-Time Data Integration
Connect data from CRM, ERP, IoT devices, and web interactions to get instant visibility into customer activity. Break the silos between systems and access up-to-date customer activity as it happens.
AI-Powered Predictions
Leverage Microsoft’s built-in AI and machine learning models to forecast key behaviors and business outcomes. Predict customer churn, identify high-value buyers, estimate lifetime value, and uncover intent signals early. These predictive insights empower organizations to take proactive actions, design targeted campaigns, and allocate resources based on real customer needs and future opportunities.
Advanced Segmentation & Personalization
Segment audiences with precision and deliver hyper-personalized engagement across channels. Dynamics 365 lets you build dynamic segments that update in real time as customer behaviors change. Marketers can then trigger tailored content, offers, and journeys that resonate with each customer, improving conversion rates and strengthening long-term loyalty.
Journey Orchestration
Create intelligent, automated customer journeys that adapt to individual actions and preferences. Customer Insights enables real-time decisioning. Whether it’s email, SMS, push notifications, or in-app prompts, journey orchestration ensures consistent, relevant experiences at every step.
Natural Language Exploration (Copilot)
Empower teams to uncover insights without relying on analysts or complex queries. With Copilot, users can ask questions in plain English like “Which customers are most likely to purchase next month?” and instantly see clear answers, visualizations, or recommendations. This democratizes data access and speeds up decision-making across the organization.
Data Enrichment & Partner Integration
Supercharge customer profiles by enriching them with external datasets from Microsoft partners, data providers, and industry-specific sources. This added context such as household insights, firmographics, or market indicators which helps teams refine segmentation, improve analytics accuracy, and deepen understanding of customer motivations and behaviors.
Privacy, Consent & Compliance
Protect customer trust with robust, built-in privacy and compliance tools. Customer Insights simplifies consent management, opt-in tracking, and enforcement of data permissions. It also helps organizations stay aligned with global regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and other data governance frameworks while ensuring ethical and transparent use of customer data.
Use Cases of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
Companies in any industry are progressively incorporating the use of Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to achieve the potential of their data. Through the unification of the scattered information and converting it into actionable insights, businesses will be able to provide more personalised experience, enhance decision-making, and increase efficiency. In healthcare, retail, and others, Customer Insights is flexible to meet various demands, which spur expansion and closer customer relationships.
Healthcare
Customer Insights help healthcare providers to consolidate patient data (medical history, appointments, engagement) to enhance the outcome and efficiency. For example, Microsoft reports that hospitals produce 50 petabytes of siloed data per year, and yet 97% of that data goes unused, highlighting a huge opportunity for platforms that unify and analyze this data to deliver better care. Additionally, the U.S. health systems are claiming that the amount of time physicians spend on documentation has dropped significantly with the use of such tools as AI-powered documentation assistance by Microsoft, and clinicians are saving meaningful time per patient visit (up to 40 minutes per day reports).
Retail
In retail, companies have been using Customer Insights to unify the data of sales, in-store behavior, online browsing, and loyalty to provide customized shopping experiences and optimized inventory. A case in point of a global fashion retailer using a customer insights analytics framework achieved a 15% increase in retention rates by integrating fragmented data, optimizing engagement, and refining customer sentiment analysis.
Finance
Dynamic 365 Customer Insights enables financial institutions, credit unions, and insurance suppliers to merge the fragmented customer information of transactions, loans, digital interactions, and service histories into one database. This 360-degree perspective will help institutions provide individualized financial advice, high-value customer recognition, and predict the possibility of a churn before they happen. Using AI-based insights, teams can identify cross-sell and upsell, including credit card, loan, and investment product recommendations based on the profile of a customer.
Automobile
Dynamic 365 Customer Insights is used in the automotive business to centralize customer data between various touchpoints, which include test drives, online research, showroom visits, and after-sales services. Through such consolidation, the businesses will be in a better position to learn the preferences of customers, predict their needs and tailor each phase of the buying process. As an example, predictive insights can be used to suggest dealers the appropriate types of vehicles, send out maintenance messages at the appropriate time, or develop specific campaigns to upgrade the current vehicle.
How Does Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Work?
The initial step on the way to a data-driven enterprise is the creation of a Customer Data Platform(CDP). A CDP works in a similar way as Master Data Management (MDM), where customer related data are centralized. Nonetheless, in contrast to MDM, which requires consistency in the various systems, a CDP consolidates, enriches, and unifies customer data to be the main source of the truth, without modifying the original sources of data.
Using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, companies are able to develop a CDP that is driven by artificial intelligence as opposed to manual data integration. The platform does not only simplify the process of integrating different data sources, but also offers the control over the relationships between different data and information channels. Individual customer profiles are generated through its unification process which can be easily exported and shared among applications to enhance better alignment and tracking.
When customer profiles have been created, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights uses AI to convert raw data into recommendations. Such insights enable companies to improve their strategies, customize customer interaction, and maximize platform features usage. The platform allows teams to store, organize, and manage all customer information under a single roof without the help of AI, which guides them.
The result is business action intelligence. With a single customer database, organizations can create new marketing campaigns and optimize the existing campaigns or improve customer acquisition and retention, and transform at-risk customers and high-value customers into long-time loyal customers.
Time to Take Action
In the modern competitive environment, providing highly personalized and data-driven experiences is not a luxury any longer, but a necessity. Whether it’s to maximize marketing efforts or build and deepen customer relationships, the platform can enable you to realize the full potential of your customer data.
At Folio3, we have a Dynamics 365 team that works with organizations in all phases of the process, such as discovery and strategy, implementation and integration, and continuous support and optimization. We provide a smooth and efficient process in your migration to the Microsoft Customer Insights based on your business objectives.
Now is the time to take action. Through the appropriate expertise and equipment you can change the way your business relates to the customers and how it remains in front of the curve. Folio3 Dynamics will be happy to make it happen.
