“Facts are stubborn things,” wrote the second American president, John Adams. So, how’s this for a fact? In 2022, Microsoft Teams had 270 million Microsoft Teams users. According to the research firm Statista, Teams usage skyrocketed during the COVID pandemic, more than tripling from 75 million to 270 million users between 2020 and 2022. That’s no small feat.
Today, Teams is unrivalled primarily due to the permanent shift in our post-Covid era of hybrid and remote work. Indeed, it exerts a gravitational force unlike no other. Today, many companies are adding their contact centre functionality to the Teams platform. And many understand that they can’t do it alone.
Partner with a Certified MS Teams Expert
Sometimes you need to bring in outside expertise, especially if your contact centre is a critical business function. For peace of mind, choose an experienced Microsoft Gold partner. Consider firms like Resonate, a ‘certified’ Teams solution provider. With more than 500,000 Teams users, it has proven experience- and deep technical knowledge – of cloud migration strategies.
Establish Your Features First
Contact centre vendors offer different solutions, each with expertise for specific contact centre requirement.
Omnichannel communications: Customers expect omnichannel access, which means that companies need to track contextual discussions from one stage of the customer journey to the next with text, video, and voice.
Advanced and skills-based routing: Routing customers to the right agent significantly improves customer satisfaction. Advanced routing is essential, and most customers also require routing based on an agent’s skills
Analytics: Analytics provides in-depth insights that drives actionable decisions to create a better contact centre ecosystem – improved customer journeys and agent performance.
Recording: Compliance requirements demand that recording capabilities collect and store data securely, be this voice only, or across all channels of communication – screen, call, test, video.
Attendant Console: An attendant console transfers customers professionally and efficiently and simplifies the customer journey.
Without Help, It’s Not Easy
Deciding which is the right Teams contact Centre for your organisation and moving to the new environment comes with challenges. So, an experienced partner, like Resonate, who works with multiple Teams contact centre vendors, can help manage the tricky details – like, determining the best vendor from a cost and feature perspective, setting up or migrating phone numbers, call handling, and using the features available in Microsoft Teams Phone, and from your selected vendor
A knowledgeable partner can also use the Power Platform to build automation or integrations with the CRM or analytics. It’s all intended to improve agent effectiveness.
Ensure Flexibility and Agility
Teams offers tremendous power with the scalability and flexibility of the cloud. The Teams environment makes it easy to add new users and access features as the needs dictate while keeping costs low with a “pay-as-you-grow” plan. Support is crucial from a skilled partner who knows the complex and changing details and can help sort them out. This frees the IT team to handle strategic technology design tasks and manage other pressing technology issues.
Look for Innovators. They’ll Keep You Ahead
The innovators who harness Microsoft Teams know how to leverage its functionality and tools. And they apply it based on your unique situation.
Seek out Microsoft-certified partners who have experience working with multiple vendors. Make sure they understand how to add – or extend – the core Teams Contact Centre vendor functionality with the Power Platform and who can implement AI to enhance your team’s efficiency.
Choose a Certified Teams Partner
Microsoft Teams is here to stay. Its rapid adoption by 270 million users makes it today’s default platform for hundreds of companies worldwide. The consequences are profound because the demand on IT teams to provide better and better Teams experience is more significant than ever.
Resonate can help. The company offers innovative thinking and products to transform your business with Microsoft Teams. Get in touch to learn more.
