10 Ways to Upgrade Your Phone System with Microsoft Teams

Whether you work remotely or in the office, Teams provides a variety of ways to stay connected. Many users are already familiar with its collaborative interface, meeting capabilities, file-sharing, chat, etc. However, one of the most exciting elements within Teams is its expanded calling capacity. For smaller organizations looking to maximize their Microsoft 365 investments, or enterprises looking to establish scalable cloud-based phone solutions, Teams calling can help.

10 Ways Microsoft Teams Supports Next Generation Calling for Businesses:

Teams Calling Features

With the world continuing to embrace remote work, it's important to talk to your team without interruption, no matter where you are. Teams calling provides a complete and rich phone solution within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Here are ten, of many, benefits offered by Teams-based calling:

1. Auto Attendant - easily answer and route calls to the right queues with cloud-based calling; set parameters to route calls by time zone, language, or availability.

2. Auto Conferencing - add flexibility to meetings with a dial-in number, included in every online meeting.

3. Call Queues - create custom greetings, play music of customers on hold, and set up shared voicemail.

4. Contact Center Integration - connect to your favorite contact center software.

5. Cloud Compliance Recording - easily connect to partner compliance recording solutions.

6. Cloud Voicemail - access voicemail messages and transcriptions anywhere from any device.

7. Direct Routing - use your existing telecommunications providers by directly connecting their Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) trunks to Microsoft Teams.

8. Operator Connect - quickly enable calling in Teams using your existing Telecom Operator.

9. Teams Admin Center - centralized management for your calling department in Microsoft.

10. Teams Calling Plans - quickly procure and assign phone numbers or port existing numbers.
    
    
    

Enriching the Collaborative Experience

For small and medium-sized business, Teams calling allows you to maximize a single productivity platform. You can work with your team in teal time, stay in sync and communicate through 1:1 chats and conversations, co-author files across Microsoft 365 applications, and record/transcribe meetings. Microsoft Teams provides a single solution for collaboration, aggregating your files, chats, applications, and coworkers in a single workspace - which calling takes it to the next level. If you decide to leverage Microsoft Teams and Business Voice, it's important to create a unique calling roadmap: 

1. Define Your Strategy - take a look at your business and understand how and why you want to build out a practice around Teams calling.

2. Develop Capabilities - assess your calling needs across departments, and determine what implementation and customization would look like.

3. Operationalize - identify how the first two steps will allow you to better serve your client base, and improve their user experience. 

If you want to learn more about Microsoft Teams calling, reach out to schedule a free IT consultation.