Microsoft introduces contact center service

Microsoft is officially entering the contact center industry with the release of its Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform.
The newly-launched service combines voice, video, and chat from its array of existing products such as Dynamics 365, Teams, Power Platform, Azure, and Nuance.
According to the firm’s executives, the combination of telecommunications infrastructure, agent experience, and artificial intelligence (AI) allows Microsoft to address the three main pillars of a contact center.
Microsoft Business Applications Corporate VP Charles Lamanna added, “When we called it the digital contact center platform, we called it that very deliberately — the platform piece — because we think integrations and interoperability and being open is so key.”
Microsoft’s product, a blend of productivity, collaboration, and customer-service technologies, follows in the footsteps of Zoom’s new Contact Center product and Salesforce’s acquisition of Slack.
It also enters into competition in the customer service space with Zoom, Salesforce, incumbents such as Genesys or NICE, and a whole array of startups.