Let’s Draw Up a Winning Game Plan for Microsoft Teams, Starting With the Phone System
There’s no doubt that Microsoft Teams is an awesome tool for communication and collaboration. Your often-remote employees can huddle up with group chats or one-on-one messages. Easily jump into video conferencing. Share files and co-author documents in real time, or share screens for true collaboration. But, as Microsoft Teams usage skyrockets, driven in part by COVID-19, there’s one area where it comes up short: Telephony.
Microsoft Teams Can’t Replace Your Phone System ...
At least not if you want something beyond just a basic business phone solution. While the Teams phone system does offer an impressive array of calling features and management tools, it doesn’t quite dot all the i’s.
Sometimes the call quality just isn’t there, especially when your employees are spread out across the country or around the world. “I didn’t catch that” and “Can you repeat that?” are annoying in any language.
Or call features fail to make the grade. Microsoft Teams’ phone system offers some important tools, like call queues, auto attendant, call routing, and more. But it’s nowhere near the innovative range of features you and your team really need.
Or maybe reliability issues raise their ugly heads, with an overtaxed network leading to congestion and brownouts. You should have phone service you can count on—a reliable, secure, and redundant communication platform with failovers and SLAs.
Businesses generally are being forced to speed up their digital transformation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. They’re looking for ways to maintain or even improve employee productivity following a shift from working in a central office to remote locations or from home. Superior calling capabilities play a key role in meeting the needs of the new modern workplace.
That’s why they often turn to the strong combination of Microsoft Teams and a proven Unified Communications provider for their communication and collaboration solutions.
The idea is to ensure that employees have the premium calling features they need to be successful in remote locations and the call quality they expect from a standard telecommunications provider—plus simple onboarding and maintenance.
That’s Where Vonage Comes In
Vonage Business Communications for Teams is specifically designed to allow MS Teams users to take advantage of enterprise-grade phone quality and a wealth of features that they don’t currently have—all within the Teams’ interface.
Employees can place internal calls using three-digit extensions, and there are no external calling restrictions. They can make and receive calls right from the MS Teams dialer thanks to the direct routing capabilities with Vonage. And VBC for Teams will soon add SMS and MMS capabilities for U.S. users.
Check out some of the key areas where Vonage stands above the competition:
● App Center—Houses apps, CRMs, and other productivity tools that can be seamlessly integrated within the VBC platform for both desktop and mobile
● SmartWAN—Vonage’s SD-WAN solution that minimizes disruption and delivers reliability, with guaranteed 99.999% uptime reliability*
● SmartNumbers—Allows you to intelligently route numbers and build custom voice workflows for your VBC numbers with just a few simple lines of code
● CRM integrations—VBC seamlessly integrates with 10 CRM solutions
What’s more, Vonage is equipment agnostic—you won’t face new investments or additional costs. And you get a single point of contact—just one number to call.
It’s Time to Truly Complete MS Teams
More and more companies are enjoying the powerful collaboration that Microsoft Teams offers. But, like anything else, there are pros and cons. Luckily, the cons are easily fixed with the right tech.
If you’re looking to integrate Teams with a reliable, flexible, feature-rich business phone system with global capabilities—then Vonage Business Communications for Teams should be on your radar. Learn more about our solution here.
*Based on Vonage's average uptime and/or availability
