Most people are still unaware that Microsoft provides domestic and international calling plans for businesses through Office 365's Microsoft Teams. What's the benefit of moving your business's phone to Microsoft? How much does it cost? Let's dig into it below!
It adds cloud-based telephony to Teams, for an all-in-one communication solution that brings together calling, chat, meetings, and collaboration. You can use Business Voice to make phone calls from anywhere, on any device—including computers, smart phones, desk phones, and meeting rooms. It uses Microsoft’s trusted cloud to deliver reliable, high-quality audio with intelligent and AI-powered capabilities. You can easily manage the solution in the same admin console as the rest of your Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services.
Microsoft 365 Business Voice combines essential telephony components into a single package for $20 per user, per month. It includes a phone system, audio conferencing, and domestic calling plan. Business Voice can be added onto any Office 365 or Microsoft 365 subscription that includes Teams1 . There is also an option for businesses to bring their own third-party calling plan.
Business Voice has all the same features of Microsoft’s industry-leading Enterprise Voice solution. We then made Business Voice easy for small and medium businesses to buy, set up, and use.
You need to be on one of the following licenses to have a calling plan:
The comparison table below is pretty small, so you can download the calling plan pricing table here.
Being on one of the above licenses gives you the rights to purchase a calling plan, but does not give you a calling plan. Some plans require additional purchases, such as, audio-conferencing and phone system features. Some plans include those features.
The table above makes it a little easier to understand whether you need to make any additional purchase.
Calling in (dialing in) to meetings is very useful for users who are on the road and can't attend a meeting using the Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams app on their laptops or mobile devices. You only need to set up Audio Conferencing for people who plan to schedule or lead meetings. Meeting attendees who dial in don't need any licenses assigned to them or other setup.
This license is included with Office 365 E5, G5, A5, and E5 NP, as well as with Microsoft 365 Business Voice, E5, G5, A5, and E5 NP at no extra cost.
Phone System is the Microsoft technology for enabling call control and PBX capabilities in the Office 365 cloud with Skype for Business Online and Microsoft Teams. Phone System allows you to replace your existing PBX system with a set of features delivered from Office 365 and tightly integrated into your organization's cloud experience.
A Phone System license is a prerequisite to having a calling plan. The Phone System in Office 365 license is:
Calls to other Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams users are free, but if you want your users to be able to call regular phones, then you need to buy a Calling Plan. The calling plan is not included in any of the Office 365 or Microsoft 365 licenses, the calling plan is an add-on for everyone.
For Microsoft 365 Business: Domestic plan is included with Microsoft 365 Business Voice and note that calls to Canada are included at no extra cost with a U.S. Domestic calling plan.
Speech-to-text voicemail integrated with Exchange Online: The voicemail service is fully integrated with Exchange Online, giving you the option to listen to your voicemails from Outlook or read them with a hi-fidelity speech to text conversion.
Minimum to zero capital equipment expense: The Microsoft phone service is built in the cloud; it’s is a virtual phone system and does not require having any on-premises equipment requiring maintenance or support. All you need to get going is Skype for Business or Microsoft Teams running on your PC with a decent headset, which you most likely already have.
Microsoft has been working with reputable third-party manufacturers like Yealink, Crestron, Poly and Jabra just to name a few to deliver great experiences with headsets, speakerphones, desk phones, cameras, room systems and conference phones. Here is a list of Teams devices.
You can use auto attendants to create an interactive voice response menu system that will let external and internal callers pick options to reach a department or a specific user within your organization. Call queues can also be created to assign a pool of users (agents) to pick up calls. Call queues will look for the next available agent and route the call according to rules you have defined.
One concern I hear a lot is "I already have phone numbers for my business, I want to keep the same phone numbers". We understand. Not to worry. We have processed countless number porting orders working with the Microsoft Phone System Support Team, and typically we have less than 30 minutes of downtime when we complete the porting order, which of course, we handle for you.
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