Approved Contact, the company behind the Text bot for Microsoft Teams, was founded in 2015. Its ultimate objective is to enable cross-system collaboration and communication, breaking down interoperability and environment barriers. Approved Contact has a range of products for enterprise communication, including public appointment scheduling solutions, texting integrations, and tools for Microsoft, Cisco, Zoom, and HCL Software systems. The integration facilitates third-party messaging capabilities in Teams, working with your SMS/MMS carrier.
The Approved Contact integration for Teams was launched as part of its Office 365 bundle in 2019, which received an essential upgrade in 2020. The company collaborated with Microsoft closely to redesign the UX in line with Teams, providing users with an almost native texting experience.
Apart from Teams, Approved Contact’s products are available in app marketplaces across Cisco, Zoom, and others.
Inside the Text App for Microsoft Teams
The Text bot for Microsoft Teams is called Syniverse, designed to give you maximum flexibility when interacting with customers via Teams. Carrier-based text (SMS or MMS) continues to be a dominant channel for customer communication across industries. It helps in gathering feedback, registering complaints, and generally making your organisation available across the broadest cross-section of your audience. In locations where connectivity might be patchy or in the case of non-internet-based customer service use cases, SMS capabilities are vital.
The Text app brings an astonishingly native-looking SMS experience into your Microsoft Teams environment. As Approved Contact is a recognised Microsoft integration partner (the recipient of the Top Startup award in the Microsoft ecosystem), the app functions seamlessly and fits into the rest of your Microsoft Teams workflow. You can get started by installing it from the Teams store. Here is a quick review of its key features:
- Reply to SMS text from Teams – This is the flagship feature offered by the Text app. It leverages the Syniverse SMS Connector to deliver inbound text into the Teams interface via the Text bot. There is a phone number assigned to the SMS Connector. When someone sends an SMS to that number, it is relayed to the Text bot on Microsoft Teams. The bot delivers the message to you, ready for you to reply. The reply is converted into an SMS/MMS message that is delivered back to the originating number via the Syniverse Communication Gateway. Importantly, the message sent via Teams supports replies, which means that the sender can continue the conversation.
- Perform common tasks through text-based automation – Native texting capabilities in Teams can help to automate a wide variety of tasks. Everyday use cases include texting to schedule video interviews, texting to open tickets, texting to set up a sales call/visit, and many more. In such scenarios, the bot interacts with the relevant business applications, using SMS as a trigger for automation workflows.
- Connect enterprise apps with text messaging – As mentioned, the Text app from Approved Contact effectively sets up connections between Teams and the rest of your business landscape. This is because the app enables a secure gateway between Teams and external systems, which can be leveraged in a variety of ways.
- Lease an approved text number – One of the key features of the Text app experience is the use of a leased phone number. You can lease one or more SMS-enabled numbers from Approved Contact, and each number will be linked to a separate communication gateway.
- Expand the reach of Teams to non-Teams users – This is among the top highlights of integrating Text with Microsoft Teams. Even if the user doesn’t have access to Microsoft Teams at the moment, cannot access the cloud, or doesn’t have the required connectivity, they can stay connected with Teams through traditional carrier-based messages. This opens up Teams communication to a much wider audience, including partners who might be using other platforms and customers using their mobile phones.
Why the Text App by Approved Contact Makes a Difference
Text by Approved Contact offers a simple solution to a crucial problem: how do you keep up with SMS-based communication requirements without leaving the Teams app? Typically, Teams users would have to use either a contact centre platform or a CPaaS API, which are more complex and cost-intensive. The text app provides a smarter, purpose-built alternative that does not disrupt the rest of your Teams’ experience.
What We Think
An app like Text has massive potential as the barriers between different ecosystems break down, and users expect last-mile connectivity on every device.
You can get started by downloading the app here.
