Can't I just do this with Microsoft?
Can't I just do this with Microsoft?
Kind of. I guess. With lots of limitations and issues. We know, that doesn’t sound like a rousing endorsement. And it isn’t. If Microsoft had a great solution, we wouldn’t have bothered building the 8x8 Voice for MS Teams integration in the first place. Microsoft provides a just-good-enough solution to check the box for some organizations, but not most.
To figure out which kind of organization you are, we’ve detailed some of the key limitations here. And if it turns out that any of these limitations are a problem for you, then you will want to read past this chapter or contact an 8x8 salesperson or partner.
Global Reach and Calling Plan Flexibility
Microsoft calling plans are limited to 10 countries. If your business is limited to operating within those countries, then you might be good to go. In addition, Microsoft forces you to have the same calling plan with limited minutes for all of your employees. That means if you have one employee that requires the most expensive calling plan, then you will have to pay for that plan for ALL of your employees.
The 8x8 answer
8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams gives you full public telephony access in 38 countries, unlimited calling to 47 countries and virtual numbers in over 120 countries. And you can mix and match calling plans to meet the specific needs of your employees without overpaying.
Availability and Reliability
Business-class phone service is just not a priority for Microsoft. Sorry to disappoint. It just isn’t. Microsoft only commits to 99.9% uptime. Sounds good, doesn’t it? That’s more than a business day of downtime per year. Service level agreements are only targets. As downdetector.com shows, Microsoft Teams had 41 outages during the first half of 2020.
The 8x8 Answer
During the same six month period, 8x8 maintained 99.9986% uptime with only one brief outage. In other words, the 8x8 network is 41 times more reliable.
Ecosystem Integration
Microsoft has no native voice integration with the world’s #1 CRM system, Salesforce.com. It is barely integrated for basic data sharing. To associate a Microsoft voice call with a Salesforce.com lead or contact, you must do so manually.
The 8x8 Answer
If you use 8x8 Voice for Teams, you can also use our Salesforce integration to make and receive calls from Teams, automatically have those calls registered in Salesforce, and even make and receive calls directly from Salesforce from the same phone number.
The bottom line?
If you're okay with a single calling plan for all of your employees, if call uptime is not critical, and if you don’t care about integrating voice services with your CRM system, or other non-Microsoft applications, then maybe you can settle for Microsoft Teams alone. But if you want to break free of any of those limitations, we encourage you to take a closer look at 8x8 Voice for Teams and reach out to our team with any questions.