D365: Rich Media for Customer Service

Key insights

• Rich Media Messages: Interactive chat content that embeds forms, carousels/cards, suggested-reply buttons and custom adaptive-card JSON to make conversations faster and more engaging across supported channels.
  Use these elements so customers respond with structured input instead of long free-text messages.
• Admin Center: A visual designer where administrators build, publish and assign reusable rich message templates to workstreams and agents.
  Templates can be shared across channels and previewed before publishing to ensure consistent rendering.
• Forms: Multi-field components that collect structured data (single-line, multiline, dropdowns, date pickers, single/multi-select) directly inside the chat.
  They reduce back-and-forth by guiding customers to provide required information quickly.
• Suggested Replies and Cards/Carousels: Clickable reply buttons and visual cards let agents steer conversations and present clear options or images; carousels show multiple choices in a single view.
  These controls improve speed and clarity on channels that support them.
• Adaptive Cards JSON: A custom message option for complex or highly tailored layouts when built-in types don’t meet requirements.
  Teams can send custom JSON for advanced scenarios while keeping template governance in place.
• Agent workflow and benefits: Agents open the rich message panel (or use /rm), preview and, when allowed, make single-use edits before sending.
  This speeds resolution, enforces approved content, improves customer experience and reduces overall agent handling time.

Overview

Dian Taylor - [MVP] (Dynamics 365 Talk) published a YouTube video that explains how rich media messaging in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Contact Center modernizes chat interactions. The video presents the new 2025 Wave 2 features and demonstrates how admins can design templates while agents send interactive content. Moreover, it shows concrete examples such as Forms, carousels, suggested replies, and custom Adaptive Cards JSON. Therefore, the piece is aimed at service leaders and makers planning to improve response times and customer experience.

What the Video Demonstrates

First, Taylor walks viewers through the authoring tools inside the Admin Center, showing how admins build reusable message templates and publish them to workstreams. She emphasizes the visual designer and the ability to preview rendering so authors can reduce formatting mistakes. Then, the video shifts to the agent experience, where representatives search and send rich messages during live conversations or press /rm to open the message panel. In these scenes, agents can preview templates and, when permitted, make single-use edits to personalize replies without republishing.

Next, the presenter highlights message types that teams will use most often, such as multi-field Forms for structured data, clickable suggested replies to reduce typing, and card or carousel layouts to present options visually. She also demonstrates how custom Adaptive Cards JSON supports complex scenarios when prebuilt types fall short. Finally, Taylor notes the practical differences across channels and that Microsoft documents per-channel support at rollout, which affects which types will render where.

How It Works in Practice

In practice, admins author and publish templates that then appear in a centralized Rich Messages table for assignment to agents and workstreams, as the video explains. Consequently, organizations gain a governance layer: approved templates limit inconsistent messaging while allowing controlled personalization. Agents browse, preview, and send messages during conversations, and some templates permit configuration for single-use adjustments, which increases flexibility without sacrificing control. The preview pane helps both authors and agents verify how content renders before sending.

Moreover, the video clarifies channel behavior: live chat supports forms, suggested replies and custom JSON, while messaging apps like WhatsApp currently prioritize suggested replies, and other channels vary by geography and capability. Therefore, teams must map template use to channel capabilities to avoid poor customer experiences. Taylor also shows how a single cross-channel template model can reduce duplication and maintenance when channels share rendering behavior. Still, she cautions viewers to test templates in each supported channel to catch layout or interaction gaps.

Benefits and Measurable Outcomes

Taylor frames rich messages as a way to speed resolution and decrease agent handling time by collecting structured responses instead of relying on free-text back-and-forth. As a result, organizations can expect faster data capture and clearer next steps, which often reduces repeat contacts. The approach also improves visual clarity through cards and carousels, making prompts easier for customers to understand and act on. Meanwhile, centralized templates increase content consistency and simplify compliance for regulated industries.

Additionally, the presenter notes that channel flexibility enables teams to reuse a single design across multiple channels where supported, reducing management overhead and accelerating rollout. The option to include Adaptive Cards gives makers a path for complex interactions that built-in templates cannot satisfy. Consequently, teams can balance quick wins with later investments in custom cards when they need richer layouts or advanced logic.

Tradeoffs and Implementation Challenges

However, Taylor also outlines tradeoffs that organizations must weigh, beginning with channel fragmentation: not every channel supports all rich elements, so designers must plan fallbacks for unsupported channels. Testing and validation across browsers, devices, and regions add time to rollout, and administrators must maintain templates as needs or regulations change. Therefore, teams often face a choice between fast adoption with simple templates and longer rollouts that deliver highly customized experiences.

Operationally, there are challenges around training and governance: agents need clear guidance on when to personalize templates and when to use default content to preserve brand voice. Data capture raises privacy and security questions, so designers must avoid collecting sensitive information directly in chat unless properly secured. Finally, complex Adaptive Cards enable powerful interfaces but increase development and maintenance cost, which means teams must balance upfront engineering with long-term support.

Practical Advice and Next Steps

Taylor closes her video by recommending a staged approach: pilot a few high-value templates on one channel, measure resolution time and customer satisfaction, and then expand designs based on results. She suggests building governance around tagging and publishing so that authors maintain a clear inventory of active templates and usage patterns. Moreover, she encourages teams to use the preview tools extensively and to include agents in testing to catch usability issues early.

Ultimately, the video presents rich media messaging as a practical evolution for service teams that want faster, more consistent, and more engaging customer interactions. While adoption requires careful planning, testing, and training, the potential gains in efficiency and customer clarity make the effort worthwhile for many organizations. For newsrooms and editorial teams, Taylor’s demonstration provides a clear starting point for evaluating how interactive messaging could change service delivery in 2026 and beyond.

Keywords

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