Connect Everywhere Beyond Microsoft calling plans.

Remember using separate physical devices to make phone calls, send email or chat message

Well you can, but it can cost you more than you would expect. Don’t get me wrong. Using Microsoft Teams for calling is great if you need “good enough” telephony services, or just need to make a small number of PSTN calls. However, most organizations tend to add a third-party direct routing service to Microsoft Teams for external calling.

To figure out which kind of organization you are, we explain some of the constraints here. And if it turns out that any of these restrictions could be problematic for your business, then you just finish this chapter and contact an 8x8 salesperson or partner.

Global reach and calling plan flexibility.

Microsoft calling plans are limited to 16 countries. If your business operates in those countries, then you might be good to go. Monthly subscription plans are available for individual Teams users in a few ways, but unlimited calling plans are not available:

• Domestic only for in-country calls (120/240/3000 domestic minute US plans and 120/240/1200 domestic minute EU plans)
• Domestic and international, for in-country and international calls (600 international calling minutes)

Although Microsoft’s contracts include bundled minutes, unused minutes don't get carried over to the next month. Remember, a per-minute overage is assessed and charged, and can lead to “bill-shock” as Microsoft recommends “Automatic Charging” using a registered credit.

The 8x8 answer:

8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams gives you full public telephony replacement in 42 countries, unlimited calling to 47 countries and virtual numbers in over 120 countries. And you can mix and match calling plans to meet the needs of your Teams users - without overpaying.

Availability and reliability.

Service outages impacting cloud providers like Microsoft are fairly common, and can be highly disruptive to businesses that rely on the services. According to downdetector.com, Microsoft Teams experienced 42 outages in 2020 across several countries. If your business critical phone communications are running on Teams, a major service outage can be catastrophic for your business and also in violation of Microsoft 99.9% SLA uptime for online services (not Microsoft Teams). That’s more than a business day of downtime per year.

The 8x8 answer:

8x8 uses fully mirrored top-tier, state-of-the-art data centers across 35 geographically diverse locations running on global public cloud infrastructure. The inherent reliability of 8x8’s architecture ensures SLA guarantees in excess of 99.999% uptime. In the event of a significant disruption such as a natural disaster, failover between data centers for 8x8 communication services happens instantly. Active calls can disconnect, but new calls are generated immediately, ensuring that irrespective where employees work, their 8x8 communication service will always be available.

Ecosystem integration.

Microsoft has no native voice integration with the world’s #1 CRM system, Salesforce.com. Apps that are available offer just basic data sharing. Associating a Microsoft voice call with a Salesforce.com lead or contact requires manual intervention or bespoke application development.

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 call details recorded in Salesforce, and even make and receive calls directly from Salesforce from the same phone number.

If you're okay with an expensive calling plan for all of your Teams users, 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 perhaps Microsoft Teams is your best choice for a phone system. But if you want to break free of any of those limitations, we encourage you to take a closer look at 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams and reach out to our team with any questions.

Microsoft offers “good-enough” telephony service for Teams, which checks the boxes for some organizations, but not most. The three key limitations detailed in this chapter will help you understand some of the telephony gaps with Microsoft Teams.

Helpful Resources

Research: 8x8 Cloud Telephony Solution for Microsoft Teams: More Than Meets the Eye

Webcast: Fast Track to Microsoft Teams Voice Calling Success

Case Study: 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams

Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams can support global calling, lower costs, and make your enterprise’s team collaboration investment go further. So what are organizations doing to add PSTN calling to their Microsoft Teams environment?  Explore one case study in next week’s chapter.