Microsoft Teams Phone System: Why use Teams Handsets?

Why does your company need to use the fancy Teams Handsets for Microsoft Teams Phone System?

In the video below, Mike Smith explains the benefits of using the (more expensive) Teams handsets vs. just using a standard IP phone from Poly or Yealink. There are some little gotchas that most people might not know.

Want Mike’s personal recommendations for the best Operator Connect or Direct Routing options for Teams, for your mid-size company? Click the button below to ask him today.

About Mike

Mike Smith is the Founder and President of AeroCom and has been helping companies with telecom and cloud services since 1999. He has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in Orange County, CA., under 40 years old. You can also hear him as the host of the popular Information Technology podcast, ITsmiths with Mike Smith. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

Transcript

Your company is looking into Microsoft Teams Phone System.

Well, very common these days, I get a lot of folks reaching out to me about Microsoft Teams Phone System, especially a lot of companies got used to Teams during the pandemic, and they want to add Phone System to that. And that’s totally normal. It’s happening a lot these days.

Well, a big thing that comes along with that is what do we do for desk phones or handsets or phones? Whatever you want to call them. What do we do for the hardware for the phones?

Obviously, a lot of folks are going to be using the softphone, the Teams app, and then a lot of folks are going to be using the mobile app, the mobile application on their mobile phone for Teams. That’s great, but there’s still usually a lot of people within the company who want a desk phone.

Well, what desk phone should you be purchasing? Should you get one of those fancy Microsoft Teams phones? They’re pretty expensive, but they’re pretty cool. Or should you just use one of the Polycom phones or Yealink phones that are just normal IP PBX phones that make them receive calls? Great question. And I want to address that in this video.

Fast Recommendations

But before I get too deep into it, just a quick plug. If you want my recommendation on the best direct routing as a service providers to quote for Microsoft Teams Phone System for your dial tone, or maybe operator connect providers to quote, don’t research it on the internet. You’ll probably end up with the wrong companies. You definitely don’t want to use Microsoft Direct for the dial tone. That’s not as good in terms of support and installation help, things like that. Especially if you’re a medium size company, there’s a lot of options out there. So if you’re a medium size company, you want to know which vendors to quote, reach out, contact me by email or phone (714.593.0011). More information on that at the end of the video. Also, if you like the video, don’t forget to hit the like button, and subscribe to the channel.

Regular Desk Handsets

All right. So if your company is looking into Microsoft Teams Phone System, you want to know which phones, which handsets you should be looking at, or what are the differences. Well, you have a couple different options.

The first option is you could just use a Polycom phone, like a Polycom VVX model phone, or a Yealink phone that isn’t necessarily a Microsoft Teams phone. And a lot of those phones will actually work with Microsoft Teams. You can make and receive calls on those phones, which is nice. You don’t have to get the big fancy phone. You can just get a normal phone, and it costs a lot less. Those phones are usually about a $100 to $150 per phone. And some service are giving them out for free, which is nice. As opposed to the Teams phones are more like $250 or something like that. So they’re a lot more expensive.

What’s wrong with regular IP phones?

So it’s great you can just get those phones, but the one caveat to that is that it’ll only make and receive outside phone calls. So if you want to make an outside phone call, it’s great. You can just pick up the phone and dial. It’ll work through your Microsoft Teams Phone System features. And if an incoming calls coming into you from outside of your organization, the phone will ring. You can pick it up, answer the phone. That works great it, but the one thing it won’t do are some of the Teams specific features.

And the biggest one with that, to me, is Teams to Teams calls. That handset is not going to ring if somebody makes a Teams to Teams call to you. Your desktop Teams app is going to ring, or your mobile Teams is going to ring, but your desk phone is not going to ring if you’re just using one of those Polycom VVX phones, or just a normal Yealink phone, or normal IP phone. It’s not going to ring for that, which makes sense because a Teams to Teams call is really a software thing within Microsoft Teams.

Teams Handsets

And in order for that to ring your desk phone, you have to have one of those fancy Microsoft Teams phones. So that would be the reason why you’d maybe want to get the Microsoft Teams phone and pay more money if your company’s doing a lot of Teams to Teams calling, and you want the desk phone to ring.

Also, with that Microsoft Teams desk phone, there’s also a lot of other features in it. It really emulates the Teams softphone.

So if you think about it, it’s like, okay, well, at what point, maybe you just want to tell your users, “Hey, just use a softphone. We’re not going to buy the desk phones because it’s really expensive, and it’s just really emulating what you have on the softphone already.”

But if it’s a big time executive, they get what they want. So if they want on desk phone, they get a desk phone, but you may want to get them the fancy Teams phone if they’re going to be getting a lot of Teams to Teams calls because that’s something you’re going to hear from them, is, “Hey, I’m getting Teams to Teams calls, and my phone’s not ringing on my desk.”

Want my personal opinion?

So I hope that helps a little bit. If so, don’t forget to hit the like button down below and subscribe it to the channel. And again, if you want my recommendation on the best dial tone providers that you should be quoting for Microsoft Teams Phone System, don’t get it through Microsoft Direct. Either get it through a direct routing as a service provider or an operator connect provider. Which ones should you quote for that? Contact me. Shoot me an email. Give me call (714.593.0011). I’m happy to help. I’ll ask you a few questions. Based on your company’s requirements, there’s definitely a small handful of vendors that you want to quote specifically for your midsize organization. And I’m happy to give you those recommendations. And I’ll also introduce you to the right people within those companies, and oversee the quoting process to make sure that you get the best pricing possible with the vendor of your choice. And the nice thing is all of those companies pay me my broker fees, so you don’t have to pay me anything. So there’s no excuse not to at least reach out to me and ask me my opinion.

All right, well, I’ll catch you on the next video and don’t forget to hit the like button down below, and subscribe to the channel.