Direct Routing Powers Connect Call Centre Integration

Mida Solutions explains how the Connect call centre integration approach is transforming the capabilities of Teams contact centres

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Direct Routing Powers Connect Call Centre Integration
Unified CommunicationsInsights

Published: May 24, 2022

George Malim

While Microsoft Teams counts more than 145 million daily active users wordwide, its own calling plans for companies in search of telephony within Teams seem not to be embraced with the same enthusiasm by companies.  

Now, around 70% of organisations using Teams for UCaaS, or planning to do so in the near future, say they’ll probably opt for direct routing. 

Among the advantages of Microsoft Teams’ Connect contact centre integration approach, which uses Direct Routing, probably the most remarkable is that it allows customers to use an existing contact centre solution and integrate it with another communication platforms or telephony systems offered by the solution vendor. This means that alternatives such as Cisco phone system, Skype for business and others can be used in a relatively simple and quick way. For companies that use multiple communications and telephony systems and who want to gather these into a single solution for multiple contact centre departments, this is a compelling benefit. 

The consistency that is achieved is a benefit but using direct routing to route incoming calls has a large impact in simplifying call centre operations. The connected contact centre uses the same advanced functionalities across all the communication platforms, providing users with these same contact centre functionalities regardless of the system they use. 

Another important aspect is that agents can route contact centre calls to any employee within the company, using the Microsoft Teams client. When an external call is routed via SIP trunk to the SBC and then to the contact centre, it is served by a contact centre agent (associated with a Phone System Licence) who can route the call to any Teams user, no matter what kind of licence is associated with that user. This means there is no need to purchase Microsoft E5 or Phone System licences for all the employees. 

With the Connect approach call handling differs according to the contact centre integration. When a third party client is used, the contact centre software routes the incoming call to an available agent in the standalone contact centre client using voice, video, chat or screen sharing that the solution offers. From the user-perspective this option does not differ substantially from non-Teams call handling.  

In contrast, with Teams client, the contact centre software routes the incoming call to Teams– the agent receives a normal Teams call and manages it via the standard Teams UX. As an option, the solution provider might deliver additional data and functionalities, available through a dedicated Teams app such as the operator’s dashboard. From the user perspective, this option does not differ greatly from a standard Teams call, making it very easy and straightforward for employees to manage incoming contact centre calls. 

“The Mida C 3 Cloud Contact Center actually allows both options, so incoming calls can be managed in our standalone contact centre, or they can be managed by agents using Teams-native options or our Attendant Console App for MS Teams,” explains Marco Cortese, co-founder at Mida Solutions. “What is perhaps not immediate and deserves clarification is the fact that the Mida approach does not simply replace the PBX with Teams. This integration via Direct Routing allows enterprises to obtain advanced features and additional integration for their Teams contact centre. 

Users are able to make use of the integrations that already exist between Mida contact centre and the main CRM applications on the market, such as Salesforce and Dynamics. They can also change the logic behind call routing in the contact centre as required and IVR in Teams. In addition, any data related to the conversations that passes through the session border controller can be collected for KPI analysis and delivered in different formats, including as Power BI reports. 

These data can then be used to provide contact centre supervisors with real-time and historical advanced reports on operators’ activities and the performance of the services they manage. Finally, agents are provided with basic real-time and historical reports on their performance. 

If you want to book a consultation to discuss how you can implement your new contact centre in Microsoft Teams via a connected contact centre, you can contact Mida Solutions.   

 

 

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