Many businesses are still in what seems like a lockdown limbo. Our offices remain closed, and our colleagues and teams are working hard from home, with the tools they have. Last year, we expected that following December lockdowns across the UK, that we would be able to start the year fresh and start investing in our modern workplaces once again. Whilst things haven’t quite gone to plan, we wanted to take a look at technologies you can implement now, that will support your business if you choose to return to the office.

Microsoft Business Voice (or Teams Calling) allows your organisation to utilise a phone system that integrates seamlessly into your Microsoft Teams environment. We have noticed an increase in demand for this type of service and have worked to help companies utilise this feature within their modern workplace. This system allows staff within the organisation to make and receive calls from any Microsoft Teams device without the need for the standard desk phone, making it ideal for both remote and office workers. Below we explore several features of Business Voice that make it an ideal solution for use in the modern workplace.

Auto Attendant

The Microsoft Business Voice Auto Attendant helps route your calls to the appropriate call queue or person within your organisation. This can be configured in a multitude of ways, allowing organisations to record their own messages or use the inbuilt Microsoft attendant; simply type the message you want to be heard by your callers and let the auto-attendant do the rest.

Callers can use the dial pad on their phone to be routed accordingly or use their voice thanks to Microsoft’s AI voice recognition.

Call Queues

Once your caller has been routed to the correct call queue, your staff can begin to answer these calls through Microsoft Teams. All call queues can be configured in their own unique way to ensure your staff can deal with calls as efficiently and effectively as possible.

Business Voice is designed to assist all Teams and Departments in your organisation. ThinkShare understands that your Teams and Departments have different needs and can configure Business Voice accordingly. Configuration options can include: how the call is passed to members of the team in the call queue, how many calls are held in a call queue at one time, and how long a user is kept in a call queue. Routing options can include:

  • Attendant Routing – The first call in the queue rings all agents in the queue that are available
  • Serial Routing – The call is passed from agent to agent in the order specified in the call queue
  • Round robin – Each call agent will receive the same number of calls from the call queue
  • Longest idle – The call we directed to the agent whose presence state has been set to Available the longest

Presence based routing also allows staff to deal with calls more efficiently. If a staff member has a meeting in their calendar or has set their status to away whilst on lunch, calls will instead be routed to another staff member in the queue who’s presence is set to Available.

Microsoft Teams devices

Calls can be answered from a range of Microsoft Teams devices including mobiles, laptops, and Teams compatible desk phones. This makes it easy for your organisation to deal with callers from anywhere in the modern workplace.

Common Phones can be configured in communal areas such as receptions, hubs, cafeterias, and other shared facilities. These phones are shared and allow your staff to make and receive calls from the communal areas.

Out of Office

Microsoft’s Out of Office function allows calls to be routed in an alternative method than in your regular business hours. This can range from a simple voicemail that can be accessed from a shared mailbox or give limited routing options specific to Out of Office call queues, the configuration can be tailored to your business needs.

Phone Numbers

Your organisation’s phone numbers can be easily managed via the Microsoft Teams Admin centre. Current organisation phone numbers can be easily ported over and assigned to the necessary attendant, queue, or person.

New numbers can be ordered and used in minutes so new employees, attendants, and queues can be up and running within Microsoft Business Voice in no time. Numbers can be ordered for multiple locations so your offices can have a phone number appropriate to their region.

We have written several articles on the benefits of Teams Calling that you can read them here, or check out our infographic to understand the benefits to both your business and your people. If you are interested in learning more about the value Microsoft Business Voice could add to your modern workplace, you can contact us here.