Bulldoze Remote Work Silos with Microsoft Teams as Your Phone System

Everyone on your staff can send an emoji in a Teams chat. It’s useful for bonding or introducing a bit of humor. But it won’t replace productivity lost to work-from-home silos. For that, you need Microsoft Teams as a phone system to fully harness affordable communication and collaboration opportunities. Adding a calling plan to Teams is a crucial step in elevating the platform from a basic chat app to a suite of collaboration tools your company draws on to finish projects and serve your clients. (Oh, and it could save you money over your traditional solution too.)

Your Phone Solution Should Do More Than Make Calls 

Microsoft Teams centralizes all your communications in one platform. Within Teams you can: 

• Securely chat with colleagues and external partners 
• Screenshare on calls
• Conduct audio and video meetings
• Join conference calls
• Host a webinar

Re-creating this outside of Teams requires multiple applications and login credentials. It increases IT friction for your employees. Don’t make it harder for people to work together. Empower them to work when and how they want. 

Turn Teams into a Turbocharged Collaboration Tool

When you pair Teams’ communication capabilities with its other features, you’ll elevate it from a platform where you chat and make calls to a tool that keeps the business on track. 

Finally use the other apps in your Microsoft 365 subscription 

After setting up Phone System, fully integrate the cloud services and apps in your Microsoft 365 subscription with Teams. When you do, you’ll give your company ways to re-create collaborative in-person sessions, virtually. One way you can do this is through SharePoint.

Eliminate email chains with SharePoint

Connect channels in Teams to a corresponding SharePoint site and stop sending endless emails about proposals or other documents you’re working on. The files you add to Teams will appear in SharePoint and vice versa. No one will be dependent on emailing attachments to access a document. Changes one person makes to a document will automatically appear for everyone. You can either ask questions in the document or in the chat for the Teams channel.

Show your team how to use Teams

But telling someone they can use SharePoint instead of emailing documents won’t alter ingrained work habits. Showing people how to do it and explaining why you’re making a change is the only way you’ll achieve wide-spread adoption. We can help. Through remotely delivered training, we’ll walk your team through how to effectively use Teams to communicate and collaborate. Or, we can create a communication plan for adoption and change management for you to use with employees, like we did for our client Schneider Downs. 

Microsoft Teams Phone System Is a Cloud-Based, Enterprise-Grade Solution

Transferring the features of your Private Branch Exchange (PBX) to the cloud decreases the chance you’ll miss out on business opportunities, because Microsoft guarantees 99.9% uptime for Phone System. Plus, through the Teams app, you’ll be able to connect effortlessly from your: 

• Mobile device
• Computer
• Tablet
• Headset 
• Desktop IP phone

Scalable calling plans designed for distributed workforces

If you’ve called a colleague from a Teams chat, you have some experience using Microsoft Teams as a phone. A calling plan extends the simplicity of this feature to external partners and anyone who isn’t on the platform. There are domestic and international calling plans with different tiers based on how many minutes you’ll use each month. Toll-free numbers are available for every state.

Take advantage of free internal calling

Your free internal calling won’t disappear when you add a calling plan. You’ll still be able to call colleagues from the chat, wherever they’re located, for free. 

Set up direct routing for external calls 

Using direct routing, you can establish public switched telephone network (PTSN) connection on Teams and use it to make external calls on any device with the Teams app. Teams can also be integrated with other third-party telephony providers and voice applications, for more flexibility. 

Don’t skip this step

On top of your plan, you’ll want to set up communications credits. This will stop your phone from being disconnected if you go through all the minutes in your plan. 

Get all the business phone services you’re expecting

Phone System offers a new kind of calling plan with all the traditional features you expect from a high-quality communication solution. Below is a sampling of what’s possible. You can get the full list here. 

• Busy on Busy 
• Call Escalation 
• Call Park 
• Call Quality Dashboard 
• Caller ID Masking
• Calling Transfers and Handling 
• Cloud Auto Attendants
• Cloud Call Queues
• Cloud Voicemail with Transcription Voicemail 
• Custom Contact Groups 
• Do Not Disturb and Breakthrough
• Dynamic Emergency Calling Support for requirements such as e911
• Extension Dialing
• Hold Music
• Number Porting for Calling Plans 
• Out-of-Office Support
• Simultaneous Ringing 

Don’t Get Bogged Down in Convoluted Licensing Options 

Using Microsoft Teams as your business phone solution streamlines communication for end users. Your reward is a licensing headache. You can’t simply sign up for a calling plan. You’ll first need a Phone System license. Then you’ll choose your calling plan and assign who has access. If you’re looking to customize your solution beyond what’s available through Phone System, you’ll need to sort through your add-on licensing options. 

Partnering with the right IT provider makes switching easy

Having a Microsoft expert set up Teams phone for you will remove the hassle of sorting through options and then assigning licensing to end users. We’ll work with you to identify the right plan, which add-ons you need and set your team up to make and receive phone calls. Using our deep knowledge of Microsoft products and licensing, we’ll share: 

• Which business phone system makes the most sense for your company 
• Where you can save money by bundling services
• What integrations are available in Teams to boost your workforce’s productivity 
• How to more effectively work and communicate using familiar applications

What else can you achieve? Let’s find out

Adding and using Microsoft 365 apps in Teams is just the beginning. Microsoft is pushing forward with enhancements powered by artificial intelligence, like transcription services. Hundreds of third-party app integrations exist, and more are being added every day. Staying up to date requires constant attention. You shouldn’t miss out on innovations just because you already have a full-time job. Stay current and be a leader in your industry with our Managed Microsoft Teams services. We’ll help you leverage the latest releases, securely use the platform and seamlessly collaborate across devices. Call us today and see what you can accomplish with Teams.