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Microsoft Teams has quickly become a staple for businesses of all sizes, offering easy chat, video conferencing, file sharing, and collaboration capabilities. But did you know you can also integrate traditional phone systems right into Teams?

That’s right—Microsoft Teams is more than just a hub for team chats. With the right integrations, it can become your all-in-one communication solution, handling calls in and out of your organization as easily as any other phone system.

So, let’s dive into three key call features with MS Teams voice integrations and how they can make a real difference to your business.

Direct Routing for All Your Outbound and Inbound Callers

Let’s start with direct routing for MS Teams. If you’re not familiar with direct routing, it’s essentially a way to connect your existing phone service directly to Microsoft Teams, instead of relying on Microsoft’s prepackaged calling plan.

You get all the convenience and power of Teams while sticking with the phone setup you know and love. And this leads to all kinds of benefits, like:

• Cost Savings: With direct routing, you can often reduce your telecom costs. Instead of paying for separate services or paying for Microsoft’s calling plans, you can use a provider like FirstComm that fits your needs (and your budget) without losing all the incredible functionality of a Teams + UC solution.

• Greater Control: Direct routing gives you more control over your call quality, routing, and management. You can customize your phone system to fit your business needs, regardless of your presence in healthcare, education, or any other sector.

• Better Customization: Whether you’re a healthcare provider needing secure calls or a customer service team handling high call volumes, direct routing lets you adjust your setup to match your exact needs.

What does direct routing for MS Teams look like in the real world? Let’s say you’re a healthcare provider trying to improve communication between different departments. By using direct routing, you can make and receive calls directly through Microsoft Teams’ secure environment. This means your doctors, nurses, and administrative staff can easily manage calls and coordinate across multiple locations without switching between systems or devices.

Direct routing doesn’t just save you money; it saves you time and headaches. You get the benefit of keeping your existing infrastructure (and phone numbers) while integrating with a powerful app like Microsoft Teams.

Custom Call Management and Analytics for More Effective Conversations

Once you’ve got your calls running through MS Teams, it’s time to get organized. And Microsoft Teams integrations let you do it quickly and easily by giving you access to business call management tools. These management features give you the power to use typical call features with MS Teams, allowing you to route, monitor, and analyze calls like a professional with options like:

• Intelligent Call Routing: Don’t let your customers bounce around departments looking for help. Teams can automatically send them to the right person or team on the first try with a custom IVR menu or automatic call forwarding.

• Live Monitoring: Managers can join calls to assist or coach their team members without disrupting the flow. It’s like having a safety net during high-stakes conversations.

• Call Analytics: Numbers don’t lie. Analytics lets you dig into call data—response times, duration, and outcomes—to determine where your team shines and where they could improve.

What does this look like in the real world? Take a sales team, for example. They’re getting lots of incoming calls – even more than some call centers – but something’s not quite clicking. With Teams’ call analytics, the manager notices a trend: response times drop during lunch hours, causing some leads to lose interest. They adjust the schedule to cover peak times, and voila—more inbound calls are answered and more deals start closing. That’s the power of integrating voice capabilities with Microsoft Teams for SMBs.

Scalability That Gives You the Freedom to Grow at Any Time

Let’s face it: businesses don’t stay the same size forever. You might be running a small team today, but what about next year or the year after? One of the best things about scalable unified communication systems combined with MS Teams is that they grow with you. Need to add a dozen new users next month? No problem. Want to roll out new features in another country? Easy.

Why Scalability Matters:

• Start Small, Think Big: If you’re a startup, a voice integration platform allows you to start with the basics and add on as you grow. No need to pay for call features with MS Teams you don’t need yet.

• Seamless Growth: Expanding your business used to mean overhauling your phone system. Not anymore. Scalable unified communication systems from FirstComm let you scale effortlessly, whether you’re hiring new employees or launching in new markets.

• Remote Work Ready: Whether your team is in the office, working from home, or halfway around the world, MS Teams keeps everyone connected.

What does this look like in the real world? Let’s imagine a small e-commerce business. It begins with five employees but has big plans to grow. As they add new employees and open new locations, they can easily scale their communication system within Microsoft Teams, thanks to FirstComm’s solutions.

No need to set up new phone lines, replace old systems, or deal with complicated systems—just add new users and features within the app. It’s like plugging new tools into a power strip—no drama, just results.

No matter the size of your business, the scalability of Microsoft Teams integrations has all kinds of benefits.

• For SMBs: MS Teams is perfect for small businesses because it offers everything you need in one package. You get voice calling, messaging, meetings, and more without the need for expensive, separate tools. As your business grows, you can easily add more users and features to suit your evolving needs.

• For Enterprises: Larger companies benefit from Teams’ ability to integrate with complex IT infrastructures. You can connect to your legacy systems, create custom integrations, and even implement enterprise-grade security features to keep your business communications secure.

When you integrate with Microsoft Teams for SMBs, you make sure you’re not locked into a system that’s too basic for you or too complex to manage. It’s a perfect middle ground for both SMBs and enterprises alike.

Experience the Power of MS Teams Voice Integrations with FirstComm

To wrap it all up, integrating voice into MS Teams is more than just a way to make calls – it’s a way to transform the way your business communicates. And if you’re ready to take the next step, FirstComm is here to help.

We specialize in MS Teams integrations, and can bring all the voice features you love into Microsoft Teams quickly, easily, and effectively. Whether you’re looking to cut costs, streamline communication, or scale with ease, we’ve got the expertise to help you build a system that works for your business.

Don’t wait to unlock the full potential of your business communications—reach out to us today and let’s get started building the Teams phone system you’ve needed!