2024 has proven a big year for Microsoft in the contact center, launching two new offerings.
The first is a “Copilot-first” CCaaS platform: the Dynamics 365 Contact Center.
That solution has garnered significant media attention, with a forward-thinking vision for how to wrap CCaaS around any customer engagement CRM.
Yet, the second offering has created fewer headlines: the Queues App for Microsoft Teams.
First announced in March, the solution allows businesses to manage, monitor, and handle inbound and outbound customer calls from their central UCaaS platform.
Yet, it’s not all about customer calls. Leaders can leverage the app to manage their teams, prioritize call queues, and coach users.
These capabilities, and several others, are on display in the introductory video below.
While this does not offer the breadth of the Dynamics 365 Contact Center Platform, it may meet the contact center requirements of smaller businesses.
Yet, it’s more likely targeted at larger companies looking to expand their contact handling strategy beyond the formal customer service operation and put contact center capabilities in the hands of sales, marketing, and other customer-facing teams.
As contact centers consider how to combat high contact volumes and better leverage external expertise, the app has generated early interest.
Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, noted this on his YouTube channel:
I’ve spoken to some of their larger partners who mention they’re receiving a lot of inquiries about these products, but not many are actively exploring them yet.
Those queries may be from businesses coming to terms with all the contact center options Microsoft offers to determine the best fit.
How Does the Queues App Fit Into Microsoft’s Contact Center Portfolio?
Alongside Queues and its new Dynamics solution, Microsoft offers a “Digital Contact Center Platform” and a contact center certification program for Teams.
The latter currently includes integrations from 29 third-party contact center vendors. Each follows one of two integration models: Connect or Extend.
Interestingly, there is a third model: Power. However, Microsoft has stated on its website that it’s “Coming Soon” for three years now.
Perhaps this hints that Microsoft has reconsidered its approach to the Teams contact center – especially as AudioCodes claimed its solution qualified as a “power” offering two years ago.
If that is indeed the case, the Queues for Microsoft Teams app could hint at its path forward.
Nevertheless, that’s only a hint, as Microsoft has yet to give the solution a push worthy of its marketing might.
Indeed, Catharine Trebnick, Managing Director at Rosenblatt Securities, concurred with Kerravala about its limited initial market impact.
“I haven’t encountered much about it so far,” she said. “I’ve asked various channel partners and CEOs during earnings discussions, and none have brought it up significantly. The general response has been indifferent, with little noticeable impact so far.”
Queues Could Gain Momentum with Microsoft Bundling
Despite its small market impact, Queues will soon become a standard add-on with the Microsoft Teams advanced license, according to Kerravala. So, any customer with Teams Phone may access the solution.
As such, the app may gain more traction over time. After all, Microsoft has consistently demonstrated its bundling prowess.
Kerravala doubled down on this point. “Historically, people have adopted Microsoft products because they’re included with existing licenses, and this approach could work in this space for certain types of workers,” he said.
I’m guessing you might not be hearing much about it yet, but over the next year, that could change.
Some may disagree and argue – as Barak Eilam, CEO of NICE, did during a recent earnings call – that vendors can’t sell CX to the IT channel.
For now, that seems accurate. But, consider the customer experiences of tomorrow, which will become increasingly AI-driven – and, therefore, fall further into the remit of IT.
Also, previously, many industry analysts would have said that it’s impossible to sell telephony through the IT channel, but Microsoft proved otherwise.
Recognizing this, Kerravala summarized: “[Microsoft are] definitely the ones to keep an eye on moving forward.”
