What is Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams Phone System?

What is Operator Connect, for Microsoft Teams Phone System?

You may have heard this term on the Internet, or maybe you saw it inside your Office (or Microsoft), 365 Admin Center… but what does it mean? How is it different than a regular calling plan? Is it different than Direct Routing as a Service?

Watch the video below, to see Mike Smith briefly explain Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams Phone System, and compare and contrast it to Direct Routing and Calling Plans.

If you work for a mid-size company (i.e. approx. 100-5,000 employees), you might want to take the shortcut and just click the link below to ask Mike for his recommendations, based on your organization’s specific requirements.

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 and in 2011, he was honored 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 LinkedIn, Twitter or SpiceWorks.

Transcript

So, your company is looking for a new phone system and Microsoft Teams Phone System is definitely an option that you’re considering, and you’ve heard the term Operator Connect and you want to know what is it?

Well, you’re not alone. I’ve definitely had that question a bunch of times from our existing customers and perspective customers, they’re asking what is Operator Connect? So I thought I’d make a quick video and explain what it is and give you a little bit of background on whether or not your company should use it.

A Shortcut

But before we get started, just a quick note, if you’re a midsize company like around a hundred to 5,000 employees, and you’re looking for a new phone system, you can watch the video and get some information that’s great, but definitely just reach out and contact me via email or phone (714-593-0011). I can help you answer a lot of questions. I can introduce you to the right vendors you should be quoting for your phone system.

And this is just what I do. I’m a broker for all the major cloud PBX service providers. So reach out and contact me, watch the video, do everything, but definitely reach out and I can help you.

So more on that at the end of the video but in the meantime, what is Operator Connect?

What is Direct Routing as a Service?

Well, if you don’t know what direct routing as a service is, make sure you pause this video for a second and go back to one of my other videos that talks about direct routing as a service for the Microsoft Teams Phone System. And once you understand that it’ll be easier for you to understand what Operator Connect is.

So Operator Connect is just the next evolution of direct routing as a service.

So with the Microsoft Teams Phone System, you need to have

• the Microsoft office license
• and you know that and you also need to have the phone system feature added.
• You might or might not need the conferencing feature added,
• but you definitely also need something called a calling plan for each individual user, and what that is, that’s your dial tone.

Well, instead of getting the calling plan directly from Microsoft, a very popular option in the last few years has been to get that calling plan from a direct routing as a service provider, because you get better customer service it’s around the same cost, and it’s just a better option for you overall, and you get a lot of benefits in terms of the quoting process and getting to see it in action and the installation process. You get a lot of help up there too, and all-in-all, it’s the same or less money than going to Microsoft direct then hey, why not?

The Difference between Operator Connect and Direct Routing

So most businesses have been doing direct routing as a service while Operator Connect is very similar to direct routing as a service, except that you have access to all the phone numbers within your Microsoft admin center.

So you can assign DID’s and users and all that stuff within the Microsoft Teams admin center, as opposed to direct routing as a service where you have to go to that third party provider’s website or their web portal in order to manage your company’s phone numbers because they’re handling the dial tone. Now, you can get the dial tone from that third party but actually manage all the phone numbers within the Microsoft admin center. So you never have to leave the admin center and yet you still get the advantage of using a third party company for the dial tone and getting better customer service from them and all that stuff.

So similar to direct routing as a service, your dial tone is coming from that third party telecom service provider and your customer service for that dial tone is also coming from your third party telecom service provider and that’s working in conjunction with your existing Microsoft licensing.

How do you buy Operator Connect?

So it’s just kind of the next evolution, but not every service provider is an official partner for Operator Connect. There’s only a handful of companies that are official Operator Connect options for you, but don’t just rush out and pick one of those randomly.

Actually, if you want to pick an Operator Connect company, reach out and contact me on email or phone (714-593-0011), I’ll ask you a few questions and I’ll tell you whether or not certain companies are a better fit than others for you, depending on things like where’s your company located? And what are your calling patterns? And things like that. So if you want to know some information on which Operator Connect partner you should use, I’m going to do another video on it as well, but you can also reach out and contact me, especially if you’re a midsize company.

Is Operator Connect Better than Direct Routing as a Service?

There’s a lot of things to think about there. But one little word of wisdom here, Operator Connect isn’t the go-to and best thing in the world. Because of that, there also are some downsides.

So, with Operator Connect service providers, you’re not going to get some of the things that some of the other third-party VoIP companies (that are doing direct routing as a service), can provide, such as: more redundancy, more features, analog devices, things like that. So there are some things to consider.

Operator Connect is not the answer for every single company. You definitely want to look at your options in between direct routing as a service and Operator Connect.

So I hope that was helpful.

More questions?

If you want to know which Operator Connect partners your company should quote, or if you want to know if your company should use Operator Connect or a direct routing service provider, or just another cloud PBX option that’s not Microsoft Teams, maybe you just want to integrate with Microsoft teams… If that’s the case, reach out, contact me, via email or phone (714-593-0011).

I’m happy to help. I’m a broker for all the major service providers that do cloud PBX. And I can ask you a few questions and let you know, hey, if I were you, these are the three to five service providers I would quote for my organization, and why, and I can also introduce you to the right people to talk to, with those companies.

And the good news is that my company won’t charge you a thing to do all that. The service providers actually pay us our broker fees. So there’s absolutely no excuse if you’re a mid-size company, not to reach out to me for help. That’s what I’m here for. I’m a broker for all this stuff, and I’d love to talk to you.

So if you found that the video was helpful, don’t forget to hit the like button down below and I’ll catch you on the next one.

Want Mike’s recommendations for your mid-size company? Click below, to ask him today.