Microsoft Teams Voice Integration
Microsoft Overview
According to Gartner, “By 2022, 70% of businesses will rely primarily on workstream collaboration tools to get work done… (and) Microsoft Teams will soon become just as common as Outlook”. Microsoft has always been a popular company, and now with several months into a pandemic that has forced companies into remote work, their collaboration tool, Microsoft Teams, is heavily used. MS Teams is not itself a license, it is a feature included with the MS 365 license. Since 90% of companies use MS 365, it makes sense to utilize it. Most everyone is aware of the great collaboration features of MS Teams like live video, screen sharing, cloud recordings, chat, and accessibility over all your devices. However, now with teams being so popular, there is a huge push to integrate your phone system directly into the team's collaboration tool. This integration can be accomplished directly through Microsoft or via a telecom/UCaaS provider.
Voice Integration Benefits
Normally with MS Teams, you are only able to communicate internally with your coworkers requiring a separate phone system for external communication. Now however, by incorporating the phone system into MS Teams, there exists a dial pad feature which enables users to make external calls while maintaining the same voice quality. With Microsoft not being a traditional telecom provider, the most efficient way this integration is done is by going through a 3rd party telecom vendor that already has a UCaaS platform such as RingCentral, EvolveIP, Fuze, Broadvoice, or Net2Phone among many others in the field. Conectrix helps cater to your company’s needs by representing 30 + of these 3rd party providers to help make this integration possible for your company. The benefit of having this voice integration is that a company can now perform all of their communications (both internal and external) through MS Teams, instead of having to manage a separate phone system. This change helps make companies more efficient by saving valuable time and money. Some extra added benefits from utilizing a UCaaS provider can include a CRM tool, analog ports, auto-attendants, IVR, call recording, and many others depending on the chosen provider.
Recap
Microsoft has enabled your employees to collaborate in real time, within different mediums and applications, while also providing a unified communications experience. Forrester had this to say about Microsoft 356, “The opportunities for traditional meeting and calling partners are very large because of an expanded pool of possible customers and a limited number of partners with skills around voice.” Having the opportunity to communicate, collaborate, customize and extend, having consistent experiences, and working with confidence are a few of the perks when using MS Teams voice integration.
At Conectrix, we strive to educate ourselves on all the technology advancements that occur so we can be ready to assist our clients. Let us help your company make this MS teams voice transition smoothly by using our technology experience and resources to get your company fitted with the right service provider. Please reach out to us.