2020 was a challenging year from a communication and collaboration standpoint as IT and telecoms managers had to move fast to transition end-users from the office to working from home.
Microsoft Teams is fast becoming the default platform for organizations world-wide to support their internal video conferencing and communication needs. However, the majority of Microsoft users do not deploy Teams in isolation. Many companies require multiple UC solutions in order to meet the needs of all their end-users, specifically for those with external communication requirements (communicating and collaborating with people from outside their own company).
As enterprises shape sustainable remote-ready strategies, they’re pairing the software stack down to tried and tested solutions that offer the exact combination of features they need to be productive and effective.
Telecoms and IT managers are shifting their focus from supporting a working from home environment to a hybrid working environment as end users start to work from the office as well as from home. The majority of MS Teams deployments do not have the ability to dial out to external parties such as customers, suppliers and partners. As well as consolidating their UCaaS environment to one single vendor, IT are also tasked with unifying their end user’s internal and external calling experience.
Bringing the best services together, to craft a bespoke solution
As Sion Lewis, VP & Managing Director, EMEA at LogMeIn, explained: The gap in MS Teams services for external calling was highlighted during the pandemic as end users relied on their personal mobiles and landlines to make calls as they worked from home. “ A disjointed calling experience made it challenging to maintain the same level of professionalism that end-users had when using their desk phones in the office” Lewis noted, as well as simply making it harder to reach people, it was clear that end-users needed a more unified calling experience.
With the new hybrid world, it is key to have the same calling experience whether users are in the office or working from home.
“GoToConnect bridges the external communications gap for MS Teams with external calling as well as full contact centre capabilities. We’re also best of breed when it comes to webinars for online events, which really sets us apart from other UCaaS vendors as IT move towards UC vendor consolidation”
Making Teams even better
“GoToConnect offers 99.99% availability with video conferencing capability. We offer MS Teams users a reliable and redundant back-up solution when MS experiences an outage – which has been a regular occurrence in the recent months’.
“When we integrate GoToConnect with Microsoft Teams, it’s one interface for the end-user. We also have seamless integration with Microsoft Outlook and third-party apps like Salesforce, Google Zendesk. Internal and external communication should be fluid and easy,” Lewis continued. “Integrating GoToConnect provides a native calling experience within MS Teams, but with enhanced functionality from faxing to advanced IVR functions to contact center capabilities with advanced analytics.”
As Lewis pointed out, “Although end user usability is crucial, it’s just as important to us that our solution is easy to implement and manage. The telecoms and IT team are under massive pressure now, more than ever – having to do more with less. LogMeIn was founded on the premise that we make it easier for IT professionals. We do this by making sure that our customers are looked after, before, during and after the sale. We have out-of-the-box integration with an award winning Visual Call Flow Editor that is easy to set up, reducing complexity when managing call traffic.”
“We offer enterprise level onboarding with 24/7 customer support. We embrace organisations big and small, so customers of all sizes matter to us which is reflected in our in-house sales and customer support. Gartner’s Critical Capability report for UCaaS worldwide (2020) highlighted that 95% of our customers are self-activated and no additional services are needed. What sets us apart from other vendors in the UCaaS space is that all of our costs are upfront. One of our core values is to ‘be real’ so it’s important to us that there are no surprises after the sale’.
“We also offer true ’work from anywhere’ capability, aiding IT departments looking to consolidate vendors. Our portfolio spans across UCaaS to Security and Remote Support. With our GoToConnect bundles, customers get our award-winning products Last Pass and GoToAssist included. Last Pass offers Password Management, Multifactor Authentication and Single Sign-On capability while GoToAssist, provides IT with everything they need to deliver Remote Support to end-users…
As the way we work is constantly evolving, it is important that end users have consistency across in-office and remote working from communication and collaboration to security and remote support. GoToConnect helps IT take the first step with our MS Teams integration with a unified platform approach on the journey to hybrid working.”
Click here to find out more about how GoToConnect integrates with MS Teams.
