Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: Don't buy a calling plan

August 16, 2023 Minh Le

If your company has more than 25 users, don’t buy a calling plan.

In this video, I’m going to explain 5 reasons not to buy a calling plan from Microsoft.

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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

Your company is in the market for a new phone system and Microsoft teams phone. It’s something that you’re looking at. Well, I can tell you right now, if your company has more than 25 phone system users, my recommendation is that you do not buy a microsoft teams calling plan. I’m going to tell you why I think that in a second.

Contact me for my recommendations

But first, really quick, if you’d like my recommendations on the best operator connect service providers or dial tone service providers or direct routing as a service service providers to quote for the dial tone for your Microsoft teams phone system, reach out, contact me, send me an email, give me a call (714.593.0011), help you make a lot better decision in a fraction of the time. Don’t search around out there. Just contact me. I’m a broker for all the major service providers. That’s my job. That’s why I do the videos. So give me try more information on that At the end of the video. Also got a nice giveaway for you guys. So I’ve got these cool new era Aerocom hats and new era if you guys aren’t familiar with it. That’s the number one brand for baseball hats out there. It’s that it’s the highest quality. So we’ve got this cool new era hats. I’m going to give away one of them to someone who I feel is the best comment on this YouTube video. So leave a comment. All you have to do is leave a comment on this video down below in the comment section of this YouTube video, and I’m going to pick one of them to give out this free hat within a month after the video is released. So get yourself one of these hats. They’re really nice. They’re really cool. Just a nice giveaway there.

Don’t buy Microsoft’s calling plan yet

Okay. So your company is looking to get Microsoft teams phone system and you’ve probably seen a lot of information out there on pricing. Maybe you’ve watched some of my videos on calling plans and all that good stuff. Well, my recommendation is that if your company has more than like 25 or so phone system users do not buy a calling plan from Microsoft. So look back on my other videos in terms of what that is and all the different options out there. But I’m going to give you five reasons why getting a calling plan from Microsoft is a bad idea.

1) Unlimited, Live 24/7

Number one, if you get your calling plan from a third party, like an operator connect service provider or a direct routing, as a service service provider, you’re going to get unlimited live 24 seven customer support. So that’s not something you would get if you get a calling plan directly from Microsoft.

2) Installation Support

Number two. Similarly, if you get your calling plans from a third party like an operator, connect service provider or direct routing, as a service service provider, you’re going to get a bunch of help with the installation. So they’re going to give you a project manager that’s going to help you install the whole thing program you’re auto attending, get your call group set up, get your on hold music, set up all that cool stuff like analog devices, all that stuff set up. And there they’re going to do it and they help you report phone numbers. That’s again, something you will not get from Microsoft. Microsoft’s not going to give you a project manager to manage the whole thing and do all that for you. So that’s something you can get if you don’t go with the calling plans.

3) Same or Lower Pricing

The third reason why you don’t want to get a calling plan directly from Microsoft is that it’s not going to save you any money. It’s going to be the same cost as if you went to a third party, like I mentioned earlier, and got all these extra benefits.

4) More Features

The fourth reason why you don’t want to buy a calling plan from Microsoft directly is you’re going to get more features from a third party. So if you go with an operator, connect provider or direct routing as a service service provider, they can offer you features that Microsoft teams does not have. Inherently, they can add these bolt on features, like, for instance, they can give you SMSs, you can send and receive text messages and images from your business phone number. That’s something Microsoft Teams does not have inherently, but they can add that on. If you use them for dial tone, they can give you better call reporting like customized reports. They can they can actually give you better call. Recording options like record all calls all the time. That’s something teams doesn’t have inherently. They can give you things like a an operator or a reception soft console that teams normally wouldn’t have and you can’t get if you go with just calling plans from teams. So more features available there. It’s a definitely a reason why you want to get away from a calling plan.

5) Analog Device Support

And number five, if you go with a calling plan directly from Microsoft, you have no way of integrating your analog devices like fax machines, like overhead paging systems, like door buzzer, stuff like that. But if you go with a third party, they’ll integrate all those things into your Microsoft teams phone environment. So just another reason why you don’t want to go with a calling plan.

Microsoft Teams Phone Systems: Don't buy a calling plan

25+ Users

Those are the five reasons. Now, the reason why I say if you have 25 or more users, you shouldn’t go with a calling plan. Is most operator connect service providers or most direct routing. As a service. Service providers have a minimum requirement o f around 25 phone system users. That’s kind of the minimum entry point for them. Anything smaller and we’ll just kind of turn the business away. So unfortunately, if you have less employees, your options are much more limited In terms of dial tone. You might have to go directly to Microsoft to get that calling plan. But good news, if you have more employees, you have 25, 25,100, anything like that. Avoid getting the calling plan directly from Microsoft for the cloud dial tone. All right.

Confused? Reach out contact me

I hope that helped everybody. Again, if you’d like my recommendation on the best operator, connect service providers for your company to quote, there’s dozens of them out there, so make sure you reach out and contact me. Don’t search the Internet for hours trying to figure out which ones are best. It’s way too hard. You’ll never figure it out. The devil is in the details on that stuff. I’m a broker for all the major service providers, and I’ve been doing this for 20 years. So if you reach out and contact me, by email or give me a call (714.593.0011) I’m going to ask you the most important questions that are going to help really narrow down your options to the providers that have a niche for your type of company, that has your type of requirements, your type of call flow, your type of call volume. And I’m going to get you in front of the best companies to quote right away. So that’s going to save you a ton of time and it’s going to help you make a lot better decision in the long run, which is going to be better, better for your company. And the nice thing is, on top of all that, I don’t charge you a dime for my broker services. The service providers themselves pay me my broker fee, so there’s absolutely no excuse not to at least reach out to me, see what I have to say. I love to help you. It’s the reason why I do these videos. So reach out to me. Send me an email or give me a call. I’m happy to help. Also, don’t forget about our cool promotion.