The collaboration solution of choice
It is no secret that Microsoft Teams is the fastest growing collaboration solution world-wide. Approximately 500,000+ organizations and 91 of the Fortune 100 companies use Microsoft Teams today. The daily active Teams users skyrocketed during the pandemic from 32 million in March 2020 to 145 million in Apr 2021. The availability of leading collaboration features coupled with the fact that Microsoft Teams is built on Office 365 has made it the collaboration solution of choice.
The obvious choice for a telephony solution
Businesses use Microsoft Teams for internal communication and collaboration such as video conferencing, file sharing, meeting, chat etc. But like most businesses, if you are looking to connect with customers and partners outside of your organization, you need Microsoft Teams Direct Routing.
Direct Routing is the service inside of Microsoft Teams that allows businesses to connect external phone lines and use Microsoft Teams as an office phone system from anywhere. If you are looking to add traditional business communication features to your Microsoft Suite of Office 365 and Teams, then Microsoft Teams Direct Routing seems to be an obvious choice. According to Gartner,
- By 2022, 90% of large organizations using Microsoft Teams will use a third-party network service provider for PSTN connectivity, up from less than 10% in 2019 and
- By 2022, all global telecom providers will support Microsoft’s Direct Routing interface to provide direct PSTN connectivity to Microsoft Teams users, up from less than 15% in 2019
Top 3 Microsoft Teams Direct Routing Features that Businesses Need
The rapid adoption of Teams Direct Routing (1B+ one-to-one calls are made each month using Microsoft Teams Direct routing) and the rise in remote and hybrid working has resulted in an overwhelming number of options to pursue this type of service. As one of the first few providers of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing, here are the top 3 features that most businesses need to support their future of work:
- Native Integration with leading collaboration platforms: Businesses need a Microsoft Teams Direct Routing solution that is natively integrated because it delivers a consistent Teams-end user experience everywhere, on every device, without the use of 3rd party bots or browser. Having a completely unified collaboration & voice experience helps enhance employee’s productivity and business efficiency. Additionally, seamless integration with leading collaboration platforms ensures the availability of the latest and greatest collaboration features.
- Traditional telephony features and hybrid deployments: Most organizations have some users that only need telephony features and others (e.g. sales and support) that need both Teams and telephony features. Meaning, organizations need to look for a direct routing solution provider that supports hybrid deployments i.e., the supports both Teams and non-Teams users. It allows an organization to tailor their configuration to integrate traditional business communications needs such as non-Teams seats for common area, service and retail locations, integration with on-site SIP devices such as handsets and ATA based devices, CRM integrations and options etc. into Teams.
- Supports 99.999% reliability: Businesses need a voice platform that can deliver high availability, network uptime of 99.999% and business continuity features. This will ensure that in an unlikely event such as a power outage, natural disaster or Teams outage, businesses can stay connected. This maintains customer experience and allows employees to stay productive.
Evolve IP has been delivering Microsoft Teams Direct Routing since it was first available and quite simply, we’re the experts. Our solution is a native integration between the Microsoft Cloud, and Evolve IP’s Global Voice Cloud, and that means it works everywhere, on every device without 3rd party bots or browser concerns. If you would like a free consultation on how we can help, please contact us here.
