Integrate Rainbow Office with Teams for advanced telephony

Jean-Marc Burgart

outubro 10, 2022

Improve user experiences and maximise investments with enterprise-grade telephony from Rainbow Office with Teams integration.

With the move toward multi-channel communications (including video calls, instant messaging, email and audio and video conferencing services), many predicted a waning of the traditional telephone. It was suggested that the device and the features would soon become a thing of the past — a relic of sorts. However, despite the undeniable rise of new communications services — most of which are available from the cloud — business telephony has never been more in demand.

Recent studies report that 77% of users believe a phone call is the most effective way to get a response quickly¹, while 76% of people surveyed believe that colleagues who use a phone call to communicate are more connected to each other². In addition, telephony is often the only way to communicate quickly with your customers and suppliers.

And so, telephony services that offer enterprise-grade features (as opposed to basic services that individuals might be satisfied with) are more crucial than ever. As well, the integration of services with business applications, as part of a multi-channel customer strategy, is an important piece of a broader digital transformation.

While many companies have chosen to use the internal communications tools provided as part of the Microsoft® suite, many are not ready to entrust it with their telephony.

The figures speak for themselves. Only 11% of Microsoft Office 365 customers have an E5 license (which includes a phone system), and 88% of those using Microsoft Teams for messaging and meetings, with a separate UCaaS provider for calling, plan to maintain those calling services³. This means most companies use two separate systems, which generates extra work, a distorted user experience and often, additional costs.

It begs the question —why is Microsoft Teams phone services adoption so low, despite the massive rollout of other services in its Office 365 suite? Well perhaps the answer lies in some of the challenges it presents, including:

• Additional work for IS/IT and digital transformation teams: Microsoft Teams is not natively integrated with the business application used by the company.
• A degraded user experience: The incoming call management features (such as advanced routing and automated greeting) do not meet enterprise-grade expectations.
• Additional costs: The Microsoft licence allows internal communications but does not generally include an external call package. A subscription fee must be added (approximately 15€ per user, per month for the Microsoft Teams Phone licence including a telephone package). This is contingent on the service being available in the countries in which your company operates.

Presenting, Rainbow Office powered by RingCentral

Many companies that have already encountered these challenges are opting for a "best of breed" solution that complements Microsoft Teams services. Rainbow Office, a recognised, world-leading cloud telephony solution⁴, provides the enterprise-grade telephony companies need. This solution, delivered at a very competitive price, without disrupting the user experience, with easy integration into the application ecosystem, make it an easy choice for your digital transformation strategy.

What this means for users

Understanding how any new technology impacts its users is essential. The study cited above indicates that 75% of IT administrators consider constant application switching to be a major challenge, resulting in up to 1 hour of lost time per day. Streamlining communications interfaces improves call handling and reduces frustration. Additionally, employees get to work in an environment they know and have mastered and can provide the level of service your customers expect.

From an integration perspective, Rainbow Office offers two options, both of which ensure that users initiate calls from the Microsoft Teams interface. These include:

• Direct Routing: Rainbow Office runs in the background of Microsoft Teams, handling calls seamlessly for users
• Embedded dialler: Launches the Rainbow Office application (then visible to users)

Your Business Partner/Reseller can help you select the best solution based on your needs and your Microsoft services already in use. Rainbow Office integration with Teams optimises your financial investment and delivers more features to users.

Visit our Rainbow Office page to discover how you can bring enterprise-grade telephony into your Microsoft Teams environment.

1 https://www.windsor-telecom.co.uk/resource/blog/18-powerful-statistics/
2 https://www.ringcentral.com/au/en/blog/voice-communication/
3 Microsoft Teams & Telephony Why Businesses Prefer UCaaS Providers, Metrigy report, 2022
4 https://www.uctoday.com/collaboration/gartner-ucaas-magic-quadrant-2021-revealed/