Microsoft Teams is now the collaboration application of choice for many businesses, especially those with remote teams or hybrid working policies in place. However, a recent report by the Cavell Group found that more than 80% of Microsoft Teams users who have telephony enabled, use third-party solutions rather than Teams’ in-built telephony. We’re going to share some more insights from this report to explain why that is.
With all the talk of video, messaging, and other digital channels, you would be forgiven for thinking that the humble phone call might have had its day – but not so. In their research, Cavell found that 92% of businesses still use phone, and alongside email, it’s their most popular communication channel for both internal and external communication. Our own research with Ipsos supports this too.
Teams provides many communication and collaboration methods, but telephony isn’t included in most Teams packages. If you want to enable it, there are several ways to do it.
You can choose to purchase Microsoft Phone System licences (included with E5 licences) along with Calling Plans, which includes a phone number and a bundle of domestic or international minutes. This route adds simple telephony functions into Microsoft Teams, with Microsoft providing the entire service end to end.
Microsoft’s Operator Connect lets you use phone numbers and telephony services directly from a third-party carrier, from within the Teams Admin Centre. There are about 60 operators in the programme. From a technical perspective, it’s simpler than Direct Routing – it gives you the flexibility and convenience of managing everything in your tenant so you don’t need to configure new solutions to connect to your environment, as you do with Direct Routing. Instead, it’s the operator’s responsibility to connect you to the right services.
The final option is using a unified communications provider to enable telephony in Teams. It’s the simplest option to set up because the third party does all the heavy technical work for you. It’s also the only option you don’t need a Microsoft Phone System licence for, so it can save you money.
If you use Operator Connect or Microsoft Calling Plans to enable telephony, you must use the Microsoft Phone System for each user’s PBX call control. But as the Cavell report highlights, Microsoft’s phone system has some limitations. Third-party telephony providers can usually offer:
The RingCentral for Microsoft Teams integration enables you to bring reliable, enterprise-grade telephony into your Teams experience, without the need for a Teams phone licence. It offers benefits such as advanced calling features, a gold-standard uptime guarantee, coverage in 46 countries, and robust analytics that provides complete visibility into all your voice communications in Teams. RingCentral has been developing cloud telephony technology for 20+ years and has been recognised as a worldwide Gartner UCaaS Magic Quadrant Leader for eight years running.
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