The Microsoft Teams phone system is leading the charge when it comes to simplifying communication and collaboration across the digital workplace. That’s right, you can now make and receive calls from any landline or mobile number, directly from Microsoft Teams on your desktop or mobile device. Call, meetings, chat – all in one app!
Modernise your workplace with a Microsoft Teams Phone system
A Microsoft Teams phone system connects your telecoms services to the Microsoft Teams app, providing the power to call people outside of your Microsoft 365 business domain and the flexibility to access your calls from any internet-enabled device.
In essence, a Microsoft Teams Phone System makes it easy for businesses to turn Teams into a powerful and flexible phone system by connecting it to a feature-rich resilient operator connect platform. It’ll help you save time, reduce costs, improve business performance and empower your team with a collaborative experience by facilitating calls, chat and meetings—all in one place.
All it requires is a Microsoft 365 Business Voice license or Teams Phone license and Operator Connect, and this will give you the ability to call externally from your Microsoft Teams phone app. The app will display your business phone number, provide call insights and deliver all the other amazing benefits you’d expect from a business phone system.
Can a Microsoft Teams phone replacement my traditional phone system?
Initially Microsoft Teams provided a service for video conferencing, it was thought to lack key telephony features which meant that other services were required to ensure clear communication within an organisation and with customers. The Microsoft Teams app has developed into powerful tool for any business, and can now also be integrated with cloud telephony to build a hosted phone solution capable of taking calls from outside your organisation. Using internet connectivity and call routing services, an Microsoft Teams phone system can give businesses the ability to make and receive calls from contacts outside your Microsoft 365 domain, using a range of devices.
Traditional phone lines are being switched off by 2025, a Microsoft Teams phone system is the perfect replacement for a traditional, in-house business phone system, which can be costly and difficult to maintain. Operator Connect and SIP2Teams integrate with Microsoft Teams and use the internet for voice calls, instead of legacy copper based telephone lines (see PSTN switch off for details). It’s cost-effective, reliable, scalable and packed with call management features and an abundance of business benefits.
What are the benefits of a Microsoft Teams phone system?
Flexibility
Unify your business communications and switch to a Microsoft 365 Teams Phone System. Adopt a cloud phone system that fully scales to the size of your business, and houses all your collaboration tools in one place. Let Focus Group help your business grow with an easy-to-use, cost effective and scalable solutions that allows your employees to work-anywhere.
Insight
The power is in your hands with the Microsoft Teams phone system. Your Teams phone has a wealth of integrations that allow for call, recording and contact analytics, offering unprecedented insight into how your call services are performing, Teams becomes not only a collaborative platform, but also a game-changing optimisation tools for building an ultra-responsive customer experience.
Collaboration
Working on a single platform means your teams can manage a huge portion of their daily work all in one place – whether that’s liaising with customers over the phone, holding video meetings with suppliers, syncing calendars, discussing projects with colleagues using the chat function or sharing files. It’s all possible on Microsoft Teams with an integrated phone system.
Advanced call control
A Microsoft Teams Phone System offers a comprehensive set of call management features that enhance communication and collaboration within your business and ensure customers satisfaction. Advanced call management features streamline communications, improve productivity, and enhance the overall calling experience, with a host of call routing capabilities, calls can be directed to the appropriate individuals or departments based on predefined rules and criteria.
Cost effective
Teams phone calling presents a cost effective solution to IP based calling. As a unified communications solution, the Microsoft Teams phone system is completely cloud based, removing the need for physical hardware, which means no maintenance fees, no physical purchases and low setup costs. Teams calling comes at a low costs per user, centralising all features into a single platform, including instant messaging, internal and external calling and video conferencing.
Work anywhere
Microsoft Teams is available on almost any device and can be used from anywhere as long as you have a stable internet connection. So why not take advantage of this with your phone system as well! The Microsoft Teams phone system integrates with your Microsoft Office 365 business accounts, allowing users to make and receive calls at any time from any location. This creates a fully hybrid solution that houses all the tools your employees could ever need in one unified solution.
Everything you need for a modern workplace
Microsoft Teams phone system integration
Integrating Microsoft Teams with Operator Connect will turn your Teams app into a fully functional unified communications platform, offering instant messaging, file sharing and a hosted phone system. Utilising a Microsoft Teams phone system will allow employees to seamlessly switch between chat, video conferencing, and traditional phone calls within the same application, streamlining communication and collaboration, reducing the need for multiple tools and enhancing productivity.
Additionally, the integration enables businesses to leverage advanced calling features such as call routing, voicemail, and call analytics. This enhances the overall calling experience and improves customer service, will a flexible and fully scalable solution that allows for easy management of phone numbers, extensions, and call routing rules, making it simpler to adapt to changing business needs. Furthermore, the Microsoft Teams phone system enables businesses to centralise all communications data and analytics, providing valuable insights for performance monitoring and decision-making.
The telecommunication experts at Focus Group will take care of everything for you, in no time at all. Before you know it, the integration of Microsoft Teams Operator Connect with your Microsoft 365 business domain will provide your business with the power of the Microsoft collaboration tools, together with connecting you and your teams to the outside world through external calling through your Microsoft Teams phone system.
Call recording for Microsoft Teams phone systems allows business to enhance their communication and collaboration capabilities by capturing every conversation both within and outside the organisation. The call recording add-on for Microsoft Teams phones stores and captures all audio, video and screen sharing without hardware or hassle. Whether it's for training purposes, quality assurance, or legal requirements, call recording ensures that critical information is accurately documented and easily accessible, to anyone who has the permissions to review them.
If you’re one of the many organisations who must record their calls for compliance or legal reasons, your Teams’ meetings and conversations are no exception. The range of features that Teams call recording has keeps you covered where network level recorders and Teams’ own inbuilt recording falls short. Call recording enhances your Teams phone, improving collaboration by allowing team members to review and analyse conversations, ensuring that important details are not missed and facilitating better decision-making. It also provides a valuable tool for dispute resolution or clarifying misunderstandings, as recorded calls can serve as objective evidence.
Operator Connect provides a quick and easy way to enable voice calling and a range of additional call management features for Microsoft Teams. It is a powerful platform with everything in one place for calls, chat, meeting and collaboration, offers an intuitive administration centre and is a fully managed, pure cloud solution. No hardware needed!
Microsoft Teams Direct Routing allows businesses to harness the power of SIP trunks to make and receive calls in Microsoft Teams. It enables integration with existing telephony infrastructure, allowing external calls to be routed through the Teams platform and facilitating seamless communication between Teams users and external phone systems.
If you’re looking to enable your team to make and receive external calls directly within Microsoft Teams, a flexible option to consider is a Microsoft Teams calling plan. As a subscription-based service, it provides users with a phone number, offers a range of call features and includes a package of call minutes for domestic and international calls.
Horizon for Microsoft Teams provides a highly capable feature-rich and cost effective business phone system, which also enables your business to take full advantage of your existing Microsoft infrastructure. Plus, the Horizon for Microsoft Teams integration delivers a VoIP-based platform that’s agile and future-ready, with no significant upfront investment.
Yes, Microsoft Teams can be quickly and easily transformed into a phone system. it enables key calling capabilities using a cloud-based call control system that provides an overall telephony solution for Microsoft Teams.
What licenses do I need for Teams calling?
You’ll need a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license, which includes Teams, together with a Microsoft Teams Phone Standard add on (included in the E5 license).
Can Teams replace desk phones?
Teams can handle both internal and external calls, reducing the requirement for a separate phone system with desk phones and other hardware. That said, some businesses may opt to maintain a hybrid approach to communication by integrating Teams with existing telephony set ups such as Horizon.
Can I call a landline using teams?
Yes, with Microsoft Teams Phone – you can call to landlines in both the UK and internationally.
How can Teams replace a phone system?
A Microsoft Teams phone system has the capability to replace a traditional phone system as it is a comprehensive communication solution which offers a wide range of calling features such as call routing, voicemail, auto-attendants and more. By integrating with Operator Connect, direct routing or calling plans, internal and external calls can be made via Microsoft Teams and it greatly enhances collaboration with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem.
How does the Microsoft Teams Phone work?
Microsoft Teams Phone enables full telephony and calling capabilities with a cloud-based call control system.
Do you need phone number for Microsoft Teams?
Yes, having a phone number is essential for enabling full calling capabilities within the Microsoft Teams phone system. The phone number allows users to make and receive external calls, participate in audio conferences and use other calling features by the Teams phone system. Phone number can be obtained by taking on a Microsoft Teams calling plan or by using your existing telephony infrastructure and phone numbers, by connecting it to Microsoft Teams through Direct Routing or Operator Connect.
