In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, customer expectations are higher than ever. Businesses must adapt to meet these demands by providing timely and personalized interactions. This is where the transition from outbound marketing to real-time journeys becomes crucial. Outbound marketing, while effective in its time, often lacks the immediacy and personalization that modern customers expect. Real-time journeys, on the other hand, offer advanced capabilities that allow businesses to react to customer actions instantly, providing a more dynamic and engaging experience.

Why Transition to Real-Time Journeys?

The outbound marketing module in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys will be removed on June 30, 2025. To avoid interruptions and ensure optimal performance, all customers still using outbound marketing must transition to real-time journeys before this date. Real-time journeys have been the default offering to new customers since August 2023 and provide several benefits over outbound marketing, including:

• Immediate Reaction to Customer Actions: Real-time journeys enable businesses to respond to customer actions as they happen, creating a more personalized and engaging experience.
• Advanced Enterprise Capabilities: With features like SMS and push notifications, richer email editing experiences, and support for larger-scale communications, real-time journeys offer a more robust solution for customer engagement.
• Ongoing Product Investments: Microsoft continues to invest in real-time journeys, adding new features and enhancements to ensure businesses can leverage the latest technologies for customer engagement.

Frequently Asked Questions

To help you better understand the transition, here are some frequently asked questions:

• What happens if I don’t transition by June 30, 2025? If you do not transition to real-time journeys by this date, you will no longer be able to use the outbound marketing module, which may result in interruptions to your marketing activities.
• I’m a new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys customer. How do these changes impact me? As a new customer, when you provision Customer Insights – Journeys, you only see real-time journeys. We don’t offer outbound marketing to new customers, so you should plan to implement and go live with real-time journeys. 
• How do I start the transition? You can begin the transition by following the detailed guidance provided in the Microsoft Learn article.  In addition, if you need additional assistance, read below about how we can help.

Introducing “Activate – Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys Outbound to Real-Time Transition”

To support businesses in making this transition, we are excited to introduce our new service, “Activate – Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys Outbound to Real-Time Transition.” This service is designed to help organizations streamline their customer engagement by transitioning from outbound to real-time customer journey insights. Work closely with a Microsoft architect to learn key concepts and best practices to enable a real-world deployment scenario.

Service Overview:

• Duration: 1 – 3 Days (Remote/Onsite)
• Difficulty Level: 300 – Advanced
• Description: This engagement focuses on building a plan to transition your business from Outbound marketing to Real-time journeys.

If you are interested in getting more information on engaging in this service as part of your Unified Support agreement with Microsoft, please contact us at pfedynamics@microsoft.com or reach out directly to your Microsoft Account Manager.

Conclusion:

The transition from outbound marketing to real-time journeys is not just a necessity but an opportunity to elevate your customer engagement strategy. With our new service, “Activate – Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys Outbound to Real-Time Transition,” we are here to support you every step of the way. Embrace the future of customer engagement and ensure your business remains competitive in the ever-evolving digital landscape.

For more information, visit the Microsoft Learn article.