Microsoft has announced their Dynamics 365 Wave 2 plans, which will be released between October 2023 and March 2024.

Our previous blog explored the new capabilities in Dynamics 365 Wave 1 to boost member engagement. Now, Microsoft has unveiled their plans for Wave 2, coming later in 2023.

The upcoming Dynamics 365 and Power Platform updates in Wave 2 promise even more ways for membership organisations to strengthen relationships and deliver value to members. With hundreds of features planned, Wave 2 represents a significant advancement of Dynamics 365.

Some of the most exciting we've highlighted for membership organisations include further enhancements to Dynamics 365 Copilot, new analytics between marketing and sales, and AI-powered productivity gains for member services teams.

This blog summarises the key features of Dynamics 365 Wave 2 that membership organisations should plan for.

Dynamics 365 Marketing is bringing major enhancements through AI-powered Microsoft Copilot features. This will enable marketing teams to easily deliver highly personalised, relevant messaging and campaigns to different member segments.

• Use Copilot to rewrite email content, change the tone of voice and extend text to suit different audiences and campaigns.
• Automatically generate tailored customer journey maps in Dynamics 365 Marketing through natural language prompts. Quickly build personalised journeys for member onboarding, renewals, event promotion, etc.
• Leverage new journey templates for common scenarios like member renewals, event registration, proactive member services, and sales qualification.
• Enhanced analytics provide insight into member journeys, revenue attribution and the impact of campaigns on the pipeline.

For member support, Dynamics 365 Customer Service brings new Copilot capabilities to speed up response times and resolution.

• Get summaries of support cases and member conversations to understand context and history quickly.
• Discover relevant knowledge articles and resources to resolve member queries faster.
• Use Copilot to automatically draft member emails based on previous conversations and case details.
• Join members on Teams calls directly from within the Customer Service workspace.
• Visually enhance your teams' workspace with the ability to see live chats and calls.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights provides powerful new ways to unify member data and draw insights to inform strategic decisions.

• Integrate analytics between marketing, sales, and service to track member journeys and revenue attribution.
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• Leverage real-time member data for the latest profile information across touchpoints.
• Get quick access to member insights directly within Dynamics 365 apps to deliver seamless and personalised experiences.
• Ask natural language questions to receive data-driven insights on your member base quickly.
• Watch the video on what is coming to Customer Insights. 

Dynamics 365 Sales introduces AI-powered productivity features for account managers and sales teams.

• Summarise individual and organisational member accounts and opportunities with Copilot - this will save time getting up to speed on members.
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• Get prepared for meetings with relevant member details from Dynamics 365 CRM.
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• Use Copilot to draft better sales emails using past data and context.
• Lead and opportunity summaries provide an overview of member status and history.

In addition to the hundreds of feature updates, Microsoft has announced some notable name changes:

• Dynamics 365 Marketing will become Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, focused on marketing journeys.
• Azure Active Directory will be renamed to Microsoft Entra ID.
• Viva Sales is now called Microsoft Sales Copilot.

There are many more Wave 2 features that can benefit membership organisations - let us know if you need any advice on planning your Dynamics 365 deployment or upgrade.