6 Ways to Integrate your Call Center Software with Microsoft Teams Phone

Your company is in the market for a new phone system and you’re looking into Microsoft Teams Phone, but not sure how to integrate your call center software with Microsoft Teams Phone System.

In this video, I will show you 6 ways to integrate your call center software with Microsoft Teams Phone System.

Want my recommendations on which is better for your company? Ask me today.

About Me

Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

So your company is in the market for teams phone system and your company also needs call center software because typical scenario is that right now you might have an on prem phone system like a Cisco Unified call manager. And that phone system has an integrated call center software called Cisco Finesse. That is part of the same system. Or maybe you have a ShoreTel phone system that has a call center platform that’s attached to it and that on prem system is end of life. And so you’re needing to switch phone systems and your switching to Microsoft teams phone system. But if you’ve watched my other videos, which I’m sure you have, you’ll know that teams phone system does not have call center software. So you’re having to get a third party call center software that integrates with Microsoft teams phone. But what does that mean?

Well, I can tell you from my perspective, I’m a broker for all the major cloud center, cloud call center, software service providers and all the cloud PBX service providers and teams operator, connect providers and all that stuff. So I sit on a lot of demos and I hear the sales pitch of a lot of cloud call center service providers who say, Hey, we integrate with Microsoft teams or Microsoft teams phone. But what I found through sitting through those demos is when someone says they integrate with Microsoft teams, not all of those integrations are equal. So what I want to do is make a video on the different ways companies can integrate with Microsoft teams so that, you know, hey, if we want a call center software that integrates with teams, what is the possibilities?

My Recommendations

What are the possibilities and which ones are most important to us? So you can quantify that a little bit better. And I’m going to tell you that there are six different ways that cloud call center software vendors can integrate with Microsoft teams. And I’m going to tell you what those ways are in this video.

But first, really quick, if you’d like my recommendation, it’ll help you take a big shortcut. I will give you I’ll help you make a lot better decision in a fraction of the time. If you just reach out, call me (714.593.0011) or send me an email. I will tell you which cloud call center vendors, your company should be quoting and why. More information on that at the end of the video.

 And don’t forget to take a look at our web site Aerocominc.com. You can actually browse cloud call center vendors and browse them by feature, read reviews on them, read all types of information on them like features, stuff like that. You can watch videos on them, all kinds of cool stuff. Go take a look at the website and don’t forget to hit the like button. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell and more than anything else, leave a comment. I want to hear what your opinion is. I make these videos because I want to reach out and contact me. But I’d also like to know your opinion on Hey, how can I make the videos better? So leave a comment down below and let me know what you liked or what videos you’d like me to do moving forward.

6 Ways to integrate with Teams

So when a cloud call center software vendor says We integrate with Microsoft teams, what does that mean? Well, in my opinion, there are six different ways cloud call center vendors integrate with Microsoft teams. So what that means to you is listen to these six ways and see which of these integrations is most important to you and make those top your list there. There are some that have all six. There’s other vendors that do one or two or three, but if you know which integrations are the most important to your company, then you’ll know how to eliminate service providers off of potential list.

1. Embed the call center app within Teams

Okay. So the first integration that providers can offer is to embed the software directly into Microsoft teams. What that means is on the left hand side menu bar, there’s going to be an icon for your cloud call center software. And if you click on that icon, the full cloud center software features and the whole thing is running embedded inside Microsoft teams. So think about it like it’s embedding a web browser inside teams and their cloud call center software can be run through a web browser. So that’s how they’re doing it. So all the whole control, all the features can be run from directly inside teams. So this is great if your call center agents are wanting to live and work inside Microsoft teams all the time. Now, a lot of times your call center agents want to live and work within your CRM or your ERP software. So this isn’t really important to some to a lot of companies. But for some companies they say, Hey, we want everybody buddy in our company, including our call center agents, to live inside teams. If so, that first integration, this is important to you.

2. Integrate “Presence”

The second integration a cloud call center software can provide is presence integration. So what that means is that your cloud call center agents can see the presence of Microsoft teams phone system users, meaning that if somebody is on the phone with teams phone system, say they have an operator connect setup. And if you want to watch my other videos and operator connect, you can see, you know what that is. So if somebody in your organization say somebody in accounting who doesn’t have the cloud call center software, they just have Microsoft teams phone system, they’re on the phone. Well, the person, your call center agent who’s sitting in the call center software can see that they’re on the phone. That’s presence, integration, and then vice versa. So the person in accounting who doesn’t have call center software, they only have teams phone system can see the presence of call center agents to see if they are on the phone. So that’s presence, integration. So that’s obviously important. If you guys are transferring calls a lot back and forth and you’re you want to be able to see if people are on the phone regardless of if they’re a call center agent or if they’re just a microsoft teams phone user.

3. Federate/Integrate IM/Chat

The third integration and this one is kind of rare, but some service providers offer this is the ability to federate the chat, like the instant messaging feature from your cloud call center software and Microsoft teams phone or Microsoft teams. Even So, in your cloud call center, software has instant messaging as a feature, and so does Microsoft teams. Well, obviously those are two separate platforms, but some service providers offer the ability to federate those two chat platforms so that your agents and phone system users don’t have to keep switching apps if they want to. Just instant message back and forth. Now, some companies are like, Hey, we just use teams for chat, that’s it and we want to turn it off in the call center software, That’s a great option. But again, some companies just want to be able to federate those two chat features.

4. Sync company directory

The fourth integration is the ability to automatically sync your team company directory with your cloud call center software so that if your cloud call center agents want to transfer a call to somebody who is just on their regular teams phone system, they can pull up a company directory and it’s real time up to date with the company directory sitting in Microsoft teams.

5. Click- to-Dial for Call Transferring

The fifth integration is click to dial calling within the call center software platform. So if you have one of your agents wants to make a call to somebody in who’s sitting in your Microsoft teams platform, they can click to dial that person and do an internal call with that person that’s in your company, but not on the call center software platform.

6. Dedicated SIP Trunk

And finally, the last integration available to integrate call center software with Microsoft teams is the ability to have a direct SIP trunk connected between your cloud call center software and your Microsoft teams phone system. And the benefit of that is that you don’t have to pay for outbound phone calls when you’re transferring calls in between the two platforms. So without that direct SIP connection, if you’re transferring calls between the two platforms you’re actually making. In an outbound call. So you’re going to be charged for that. But with that direct ship connection, that makes it a free call in between the two platforms.

Which Teams Phone calling plan providers are the best?

So I hope that was helpful. And if you’d like my recommendation on the best cloud call center vendors, your company should be coding that integrate with Microsoft teams or the best teams phone service providers to, quote, reach out and contact me. This is what I help customers with every single day. Reach out call me (714.593.0011) or send me an email. It’s the reason why I do these videos. So it’s a nice thank you. If you got some benefit from watching this video, just contact me and ask me for a quote. I’m a broker for all of the major vendors in this marketplace. I represent all of them and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years. So I know the marketplace inside and out and based on your companies requirements, I can quickly match you up with the best service providers your company should be quoting based on, you know, service quality uptime, who’s got the best reputation for that kind of stuff, Who’s got the best customer service, who’s got the best pricing, who’s got the best features, all that good stuff. And I can match up with those vendors really quickly. I can introduce you to the best sales reps to be working with those vendors. I can also make sure you’re getting the best pricing available with your vendor of choice. And the nice thing is the service providers pay me my broker fee so your company doesn’t have to pay me anything. So there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least reach out and see what I might have to say. So reach out. Give me a call. Send me an email. I’d love to help you. I love this stuff. Obviously, I talk about it all day long.

Browse the best Teams Phone calling plan providers

And don’t forget to go to our website. Aerocominc.com to do some searching. As I mentioned earlier in the video and as always, please hit the like button. Subscribe to the channel. Ring the bell and leave me a comment. Tell me what you liked about the video and what you’d like to see moving forward, what kind of videos you’d like to see, what questions you have. Thanks for watching and have a great day.