One app, so many ways to collaborate
Learn how Microsoft 365 Business Voice adds calling to chats, meetings and more within Microsoft Teams for an all-in-one communications system that any employee can use from anywhere on any device.
The COVID-19 pandemic has relegated millions of workers across Canada and throughout the world to their homes, creating unprecedented demand for remote work solutions. With plenty of options out there to choose from, the question that many small- and mid-sized businesses now face is, How do I choose the best communications tool for my workforce so we can continue to collaborate effectively?
Before adding yet another tool to a list of proprietary communications tools your business probably already uses, imagine how much more efficient and productive collaboration would be if all your communications needs were met by a single system, not only in the workplace, but for everyone from anywhere on any device.
Well, if your business is already using Microsoft 365, then Microsoft 365 Business Voice is the solution you’re looking for, and here’s why:
Consolidate all your communication and collaboration needs in one place
An optional feature of Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams features online chat and meeting capabilities in addition to integrating with Outlook for seamless emailing and scheduling. On top of that, Teams makes it easy to create, edit and share Microsoft 365 files—such as Word, PowerPoint and Excel files—in real time during online meetings. The one communication feature Teams didn’t include was calling.
Business Voice changes that, not just because it adds voice to the roster of communication methods available in Teams, but because it increases the agility possible in any online meeting. For one thing, every employee gets a single phone number that applies to all of their devices—from their smartphone to their laptop to their desk phone—practically ensuring everyone’s reachability. But once you’ve started a voice conference, you can seamlessly switch to video, share your screen, share files, and message or call another contact to join you all in a series of simple clicks within one intuitive environment.
Get all the features you expect from a phone system—and a lot more
Of course, Business Voice isn’t just a new feature that adds phone calls to Teams; it’s in fact a comprehensive, cloud-based phone system that comes with a long list of calling features and administrative capabilities, many of which are driven by artificial intelligence (AI).
So, in addition to the features you’d expect, such as call forwarding, parking, blocking and holding, setting up local and toll-free numbers, and sending your voicemails to your email—and so much more—there’s a host of other useful features that only AI can enable. These include being able to set up multi-level auto attendants and call queues, as well as voicemail transcription and real-time captioning in meetings—after all, if you want a conversation transcribed, why run a recording of it through a completely separate app after the fact when you can have it done while the conversation’s happening?
Collaborate remotely and securely
Business Voice is delivered from Microsoft’s trusted cloud, providing security along with built-in redundancy and active load balancing for reliable uptime that keeps your business running smoothly. Plus, having a single collaboration app makes it easier to demonstrate compliance with industry regulations around protecting customer data.
Remote work is by no means a new phenomenon. But for businesses that have gone from dabbling with work-from-home policies to working entirely from home literally overnight, solutions like Microsoft 365 and Business Voice not only make that transformation easier, they demonstrate how valuable remote work can be in good times and bad.