Microsoft Teams is one of the world’s most popular platforms for productivity and collaboration. More than 320 million monthly users access this solution to share knowledge, engage in conferences, and align teams located all over the world.
On its own, Microsoft Teams is a powerful resource, constantly evolving with new features and tools. But to get the most value out of this ecosystem, most companies will need to expand, adding phone functionality, new productivity tools, or even contact center systems.
Fortunately, adding value to a flexible platform like Microsoft Teams doesn’t have to be complex for resellers, partners, and enterprise leaders. With the right technology, anyone can transform MS Teams into their ultimate resource for the future of work.
3 Effective Ways to Add Value to Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a feature-rich productivity and collaboration platform, combining chat-based messaging, file sharing, and conferencing tools. However, to become a central toolkit capable of enhancing employee and customer communications, and business performance, the solution often needs to be combined with additional technology.
While there are numerous ways to build on Microsoft Teams with apps, integrations, and partner support, the three best ways to add value to Teams include:
1. New Teams Calling and Productivity Applications
Adding business phone functionality to Microsoft Teams is one of the most popular ways to elevate the impact of the platform. Though Microsoft offers its own calling plans to businesses, they’re often limited in terms of geographic reach and functionality.
The preferred option for most companies is to combine Teams with their existing phone system, through Direct Routing and Operator Connect. With these solutions, businesses can take advantage of high-quality connections to their existing phone technologies. Plus, they’ll be able to leverage add-on applications that further boost team productivity and performance.
For instance, resellers and partners can offer companies the opportunity to add conversational IVR, compliant call recording, and AI-powered analytics into the mix. Enterprises can even combine their new phone solutions with state-of-the-art endpoints, phone systems, and meeting room kits.
The right strategy empowers companies to migrate from old-fashioned telephony solutions, into a cloud-based environment that reduces costs, and improves productivity.
2. Customer Engagement and Contact Center Solutions
As organizations look for ways to reduce costs, consolidate their technology stack, and improve collaboration between different business segments, many are beginning to combine tools like Microsoft Teams, with solutions for the contact center.
Aligning the unified communication and collaboration capabilities of Microsoft Teams with dedicated solutions for customer engagement and service unlocks a range of benefits. It can help boost customer satisfaction rates, by allowing staff to work together on complex problems.
Plus, it can empower businesses to combine their internal and external communication strategies with the latest tools to boost efficiency and performance. For instance, AudioCodes’ award-winning Voca CIC contact center for Microsoft Teams leverages both Azure Cloud Services and built-in conversational AI.
With a solution like this, companies can leverage the smooth and stable functionality of the Azure cloud, create conversational IVR flows with built-in AI to streamline conversations, and utilize powerful tools to track crucial contact center metrics.
3. Automation Technology for Operational Excellence
Alongside artificial intelligence, automation is becoming a critical technology for every business. The more effectively companies can automate tasks like recording meetings, troubleshooting common issues, and user onboarding, the more time and money they can save.
Adding automation capabilities into Microsoft Teams allows enterprises to streamline crucial processes, empower their teams, and keep costs and disruptions low. Additionally, offering access to automation capabilities allows resellers and partners to delight their customers, with a solution that helps them unlock the most value from their resources.
Advanced automation-focused management tools can even help to keep compliance, security, and performance issues to a minimum. They can assist with detecting common problems in the workplace, and implementing fixes without the need for human input.
Plus, they empower companies to provide employees with an excellent user experience in the world of hybrid work. From self-service portals, companies can onboard, manage, and monitor everything from meeting room devices to user calling policies in one place.
Extending the Value of Microsoft Teams with AudioCodes
In the past, extending the functionality and value of Microsoft Teams with the three methods above might have meant working with multiple vendors and partners to access different solutions. Fortunately, industry leaders like AudioCodes are simplifying the process.
AudioCodes “Live Platform” for Microsoft Teams provides access to a comprehensive calling and contact center solution for Microsoft Teams. Empowering partners, service providers, and enterprise users alike, the service delivery platform combines a range of certified solutions for Teams.
In this toolkit, companies can access state-of-the-art AI and Azure-based systems for calling in one environment, complemented by advanced onboarding automation tools and management solutions. It can empower companies to:
- Consolidate calling and contact center for Microsoft Teams: The Live Platform allows organizations to access both Teams Phone (Direct Routing) solutions and contact center services in one straightforward platform, for fast onboarding and streamlined operations.
- Simplify deployment, onboarding and management: With built-in service automation and management tools, companies can enhance onboarding experiences, and easily manage voice environments from a single, intuitive interface.
- Enhance user, agent and customer experience: The AudioCodes Live Platform leverages Azure Cloud and AI services to enhance every experience, providing access to call recording, meeting and interaction analytics, IVR systems, and more.
Boost the ROI of Your Microsoft Teams Toolkit
Drawing more value from the already incredible ecosystem offered by Microsoft Teams doesn’t have to be complicated. With an intuitive solution like AudioCodes’ Live Platform, service providers and enterprises can access dedicated, powerful solutions for all of their communication needs.
They can reduce operational and training costs, simplify the technology stack, and transform Microsoft Teams into the ideal central location for collaboration and communication.
Plus, with AudioCodes, every user can expect end-to-end support, enterprise-grade security, and access to an ever-evolving feature set.
