Microsoft has confirmed the general availability of Teams Phone extensibility for the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center.
In a nutshell, Teams Phone extensibility “extends” the Dynamics 365 Contact Center to share the same voice platform as Microsoft Teams.
As such, it removes the need for a separate telephony system. That simplifies deployments of the CCaaS platform for companies already leveraging Teams and streamlines the billing process.
Christopher Ehlo, the Tech Lead at Sveriges Lärare, echoed these benefits, with his company being an early adopter.
As quoted in a Microsoft blog announcing the move, Ehlo said:
By consolidating our telephony on one platform with Teams Phone and Dynamics 365 Contact Center, we’re reducing complexity and improving operational efficiency.
Ehlo also explained how the single phone system and familiar management tools helped lighten the administrative load.
Additionally, Teams Phone Extensibility aids contact centers that wish to empower contact center agents to send customer calls to subject matter experts (SMEs) across the business, who use Teams. That capability is often referred to as “swarming”.
More businesses are leveraging this functionality. As they do so, Microsoft claims that the lines separating CCaaS and UCaaS are “vanishing fast”.
As this trend accelerates, the tech giant suggests that moves like this to converge the two technologies are “essential for modern service delivery”.
It’s also a sign of how Microsoft can leverage its leading UCaaS platform to differentiate the Dynamics 365 Contact Center. That said, it has offered select competitors the opportunity to deploy Teams Phone Extensibility for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center.
Nevertheless, speaking to CX Today in April, when news of Teams Phone extensibility for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center first broke, Finbarr Begley, Senior Research Analyst at Cavell, suggested the move could also “open a door” to broader adoption of Microsoft’s CCaaS product.
“What platform do I, as the customer, use? That’s a big question right now because of the rapid rate of change and the R&D spend from people like NiCE and Amazon,” said Begley.
“The fact that Microsoft is turning around and adding these capabilities, along with their AI expertise … is going to bring them back into the conversation.”
CCaaS and UCaaS Unification Is Happening… Slowly
With the likes of Microsoft, Cisco, and Zoom pushing for CCaaS and UCaaS on one platform, more businesses are selecting unified solutions. That’s in the midmarket, at least. Enterprises have been slower at jumping on the bandwagon.
Indeed, Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, revealed that he “hasn’t seen much momentum” behind it in this segment. However, he added:
I believe enterprises will eventually move in this direction.
The aforementioned swarming capability is a massive reason why, especially as contacts coming into customer service become increasingly complex with the rise of AI. Tapping that expert knowledge will become increasingly important.
As these contacts spread across the business, companies will also want to keep all conversations related to one case on the same platform to avoid journey blind spots and have that intelligence trickle into a single data record.
Additionally, with one communications platform, service teams can do less toggling and more easily share insights with adjacent departments.
Nevertheless, convergence is not limited to CCaaS and UCaaS.
Genesys, for example, has built integrations with Salesforce and ServiceNow that blur the lines between contact center and CRM.
NICE has also formed partnerships with both vendors and recently snapped up Cognigy to close the gap between CCaaS and conversational AI, too.
Microsoft may consider similar moves as it builds out its contact center story.
Yet, with a broader portfolio that also includes Power BI, Power Automate, and the wider Dynamics 365 ecosystem, there are lots of exciting moves it could take in the name of convergence.
