Effective communication with telephony and PBX in Microsoft Teams

To run an effective business today, it’s not enough to have the latest technology or the most popular systems. To create a flexible workplace, you need to build your company around smart ways of working and methods that enable efficient collaboration – both internally and externally. One of the most popular tools to accomplish this is Microsoft Teams. But many businesses aren’t using Teams to its full potential. In this guide, we’ll go through the importance of collaboration in today’s organisations, and recommend how you can set up all of your communications in Teams – from PBX and telephony to video conferences and CRM.

For many businesses, Teams isn’t just another IT system where you gather your files in a smart folder structure or have video meetings with your colleagues. Rather, the usage of Teams underpins almost every task you perform. From internal chat to calendar management, Teams is used throughout the workday. It’s a hub for all the tools and systems your organisation needs to run your daily business without friction. Given how extensively it’s used, it makes sense to ensure you’re getting the absolute most out of the platform. And the best way to do that is by integrating it into your other tools.

It’s been said before and we’ll say it again: Work is no longer a physical place, but a task. Today, we work at any time from anywhere, and we want to seize the opportunities that enable this modern way of working. Teams has the unique advantage of being one tool that gathers all other systems under one roof – from CRM systems to chatbot and regular telephony. Teams can be integrated with over 300 applications, and that number is constantly growing. When it comes to communication though, there’s no better choice than integrating Teams into your telephony and PBX platform.

Whether you work from your computer or have to attend a telephone meeting while you’re out and about – a smart telephony system is key to effective communication for almost every business.  But if you’re already using Teams in your business, adding another system for communication might feel like it’s adding unnecessary complexity. However, the key is to use telephony which can integrate with Teams. With Telavox’s solution, you can access your PBX directly in Teams, and make and transfer calls in one single interface, without ever having to leave the hub.

• Two-way Presence Sync. Your availability is synchronised on each platform. In a meeting? Automatically opt out of support queues. On a call? Your Microsoft Teams status updates accordingly.
• Your contacts. Collected. All of your contacts are imported from Outlook. That way, you can call them directly to their phone or fixed number – regardless if they use Teams or not.
• Caller ID. You decide which number to show when you make an outbound call: your fixed office number, your mobile number or the PBX number.
• Get notified of new calls. Answer a call directly in Teams or transfer calls to your fixed or mobile number.
• Complete control of the PBX. Manage profiles directly in Teams, access the incoming calls list, recordings, and voicemails. All your PBX stats are visible in Teams.

With telephony and PBX in one place, you’ll simplify both the internal communication, as well as for the departments that have daily contact with clients. Your customer service or support won’t have to navigate in different systems to look for answers to questions or take calls. Instead, they can do all their work directly in Teams, where your contacts are gathered in one place. By connecting your telephony and CRM, it’s easy to pull up someone’s contact card while you’re in the call. By doing so, you can see what you or your colleagues have talked about previously with that person. Since Teams offers integrations with so many different tools beside telephony and PBX, you can easily access your mail, analytics tools and more in one and the same place – all while you’re in a call. Switching between browser tabs and app windows will be a distant memory when all your communication is managed directly in Teams.

With your telephony and PBX in Teams, you can also take advantage of analytical tools to get a complete overview of your performance. This enables you to easily get stats from the telephone system to analyse data on important metrics like call length and queue times. Getting an understanding of how Teams is used, and how your telephony supports that can enable you to be proactive in your business decisions. That might mean identifying key times when you need to increase the number of support reps available, or using Teams’ internal communication tools to react quickly when you notice trends or patterns in your call behaviour.

When you integrate your telephony and PBX with Teams, you’ll improve the possibilities of having more efficient meetings with clients and colleagues. To not have to deal with an array of systems, interfaces, user-profiles and logins are just a few great things about Teams. Here are four other stellar advantages! With constant access to the same environment and direct contact with everyone you need, you’ll minimise the obstacles for effective communication. It’s collaboration!

At Telavox, we continually strive to develop the integration of our telephony and PBX solution with Teams. Thanks to a dedicated Business Development Manager that has solely worked with Teams integrations, we have thorough knowledge and understanding of the demands of the market and what our clients need. We’re constantly improving our integrations to ensure everything works as seamlessly as possible and improves your every day working habits. For more information about the integration, contact us.