Open Forum

Oisin Glynn, an 8x8 solution architect and MS Teams expert, shares insights he has gleaned from customer conversations.

He says many organizations today are frustrated because of the accelerated pace of change and a dizzying number of telecom choices available to them. Additionally, more IT leaders are coming to the telephony decision table, sometimes complicating matters when conflicting priorities arise.

Direct Routing Versus Operator Connect

If you are looking for a Teams telephony solution, the most popular paths are via a direct routing solution or Microsoft's Operator Connect. There are private cloud approaches and other means, but that is a focus for another day.

There are many direct routing flavors too and all the carriers participating in Operator Connect have different pros and cons as well. So what to do? I asked Glynn.

"As with most projects, it starts with the business need. There are many questions you must answer including how much capacity your internal team has to manage the system, what countries you will need to call, what business integrations you need, and more."

He says it is important to understand the differences between direct routing and Operator Connect. "The biggest mistake you can make is to focus exclusively on dial tone," Glynn commented. "In 2022, a phone call is not just speaking with a customer. It is a platform for employee training and understanding customer intent to predict their future behavior. Additionally, many calls today are not likely made with traditional handsets. They often feature a monitor that displays useful information to make the experience better for both parties."

His advice is to consider the broader ecosystem of telephony services ranging from screen pops, business app integrations, analytics, and other features users crave. You may not need every feature from the jump, but you should be able to see a logical roadmap where you can add or subtract features as your needs evolve without a lot of hassle.

Typically, Glynn says, Operator Connect gets you a dial tone. If you want additional advanced services, you must procure those separately and mesh them together. Contrast that with an intelligent direct routing service such as 8x8 Voice for Teams that is part of an open platform. That gives you a variety of tightly integrated services that you can turn on or off. An integrated platform enables you more flexibility to mix and match services for contact center and office employees.

With businesses more commonly integrating UCaaS and CCaaS, one must make sure their selected telephony solution supports apps like Conversation IQ, that provide transcription, sentiment analysis, and other services for all employees whether at home, in the office, or in the contact center.

When considering Operator Connect or a direct routing solution, consider whether you prefer a single vendor all-in-one approach, or do you want to take a multi-vendor approach where you add components piecemeal.... Read the full post here.