MS Office 365 is already in the news because of its Phone System’s features and capability. It’s been speculated that Office 365’s phone system is very much likely to replace traditional phone systems for business purposes.
Microsoft Office 365’s phone system is a calling system that gives a user PBX or Private Branch Exchange capabilities without expensive equipment. If you have an on-premise PBX system, you can replace it with office 365 as it offers multiple useful features. On top of that the system allows you to reply, transfer, or hold calls in one click. Office 365’s Phone System provides group conversations that let you have collaborative work sessions with instant messages, all at the same time. The same advantage can be applied to video calls as well. That was a general idea of how the Phone System inside Office 365 works. Let’s see some more useful functions it delivers.
Key features and functions of Phone System
1. Auto attendants
Auto attendants benefit you by creating a menu system for your company or organization and letting any caller whether internal or external move through the system and transfer the calls to users or other departments.
2. Call forwarding
You can forward calls without glitches and missing the connection. The phone system allows forward calls with simultaneous ringing settings. You can even tweak the settings to forward calls to voicemail.
3. Call queues
Typically, when you call a customer service centre, you will hear a customised greeting from the company. Now, you can do it too by setting up call queue greetings when any customers call your company. These greetings automatically put the calls on hold and transfer the calls to available agents.
4. Voicemail
Just like any other phone systems, you get voicemail enabled in office 365 as well. For your comfort, cloud-based voicemail is automatically set up and provisioned for users after you assign a phone system license and a number to the user.
5. Device switching
When your job requires frequent call transfers from one device to another, device switching can be very handy and productive. Office’s 365 phone system allows you to play your call on another device within a few clicks.
6. Call history
Keep track of each & every incoming, outgoing, and missed call easily with Office 365’s phone system. And not just calls, now you can also record and store IMs and scheduled meetings as well.
7. Video call monitor
Just like Skype, you can video call someone and multitask, for example, send an important message to another person. While you are multitasking, you can see the speaker’s name and video stream in a small floating window.
8. Caller ID
Caller ID is a useful feature for anyone whether it’s for business or personal use. You can now enjoy Caller ID settings within your company calls. The calls inside your company display a caller ID filled with information, letting you know from whom you are getting the call.
Connect to the PSTN
Office 365 does not let your customers’ calls go to the PSTN or Public Switched Telephone Network. This removes long-distance costs from the calls that happen between your organization and the callers from different countries of the world.
For calls outside your organization, the phone system can be connected to the PSTN in two ways:
1. Purchasing a Microsoft Calling Plan
You can use Microsoft calling plans for both domestic and international. Microsoft calling plan is a cloud-based solution with Microsoft being your PSTN carrier.
2. Using Direct Routing
If you use Microsoft Teams, you can connect your on-premises telephony infrastructure to the Phone System by using Direct Routing. Use your existing telephony infrastructure for on-premises PSTN connectivity.
Comments