Microsoft Teams is the leading meetings, telephony, and conferencing platforms in the market, used by businesses around the world to enable communications between employees, teams, and clients. However, no single solution can do everything, which has led to a growing market of solutions that can work and integrate with Teams.
One major example is contact center capabilities. While Microsoft Teams is not a contact center solution, there are products and services out there that are designed to integrate Teams with their contact center platforms.
There are currently two different kinds of integration models: Extend and Connect. So, what are the differences, and what are the benefits of each? Let’s explore.
The Connect Model
First, there is the Connect integration model. This uses SBCs and Direct Routing to connect a contact center solution to Teams, essentially requiring agents to use a secondary platform and user interface outside of Teams for all their contact center calls and tasks. As the name suggests, it connects Teams to the contact center platform.
This is a more basic integration, connecting the contact center solution to Teams phone system infrastructure and enabling the contact center platform to handle the routing functionality on the backend. Users can use this connection to set up automated virtual assistants and skills-based routing queues, check agent availability, and transfer calls. Additionally, users still have access to important call features provided by their contact center solution (such as holding calls, transferring calls, and voicemail).
In short: Teams and the contact center solution are treated as two separate solutions with different interfaces.
The Connect model often requires new architecture for routing calls between the Teams environment and the connected contact center, which can often result in time and expenses adding up. However, for businesses that prefer to keep Teams and their contact center as two separate entities, it can still be a useful model.
The Extend Model
The Extend model, on the other hand, is a deeper and more comprehensive integration. This model is designed to create a unified, seamless experience for agents and customers within the Microsoft Teams environment.
As the name suggests, the Extend model treats the contact center solution as an extension of Teams. Contact center products integrate with the Teams client using the Teams client platform and Teams Graph APIs.
This provides agents with a more consistent Microsoft Teams experience, utilizing the Teams calling infrastructure and client platform. It allows organizations to design workflows and advanced routing configurations, measure the quality of their interactions, and access analytics and other contact center capabilities within Teams.
Extend integrations typically include a unified agent desktop, bringing all the contact center tools, data, and customer information into the Teams interface. Agents can manage interactions across channels within Teams, supporting omnichannel capabilities that span voice, chat, email, social media, and more.
Extend model integrations also typically leverage the contact center platform’s full routing capabilities, going beyond just voice interactions routing.
For a good example of an Extend model integration, we can look at Landis Contact Center for Teams. This solution is built directly into Microsoft Teams using native Microsoft APIs, providing Teams users with contact center features such as detailed reporting, queue management, and recording services. Supervisors and managers can gain more insight into agent performance, monitor activity in real-time, and easily view other key metrics.
Landis Contact Center allows agents to use the Teams tools, interface, and environment they’re used to, while still gaining access to a wide array of contact center features. This includes:
- Single sign-on with Microsoft credentials
- A persistent agent panel
- Call wrap-up tracking
- Detailed agent analytics
- Call history
- Wallboards
- Agent status tracking
- Active call and live queue statuses
- Call sentiment analysis
- Easy call configuration
- Multiple queue routing methods
- All without leaving the Teams environment
Contact centers built on the Extend model, such as Landis Contact Center, provide more comprehensive capabilities than Connect models, allowing agents to handle interactions across channels more easily. As they don’t have the same extensive setup requirements as Connect models, they’re frequently easier and faster to deploy (Landis, for instance, can often set up an entire contact center in under an hour).
The Extend model can also provide more in-depth analytics and insights, making it a preferred choice for organizations looking for more powerful contact center solutions within a Teams environment.
A Third Option?
While Microsoft Teams currently only uses Connect and Extend models for contact center integrations, a third model has been announced. The Power model will use an SDK to enable solution providers to create native Azure-based voice applications using the Teams calling infrastructure and client platform. This is intended to provide a one-app, one-screen contact center experience, connecting customers and agents over a modern, intelligent solution.
However, the Power model SDK is not yet available, and the Microsoft Teams website lists it as “coming soon,” with no estimation for when it will be released for partners and developers.
So, which model is right for your contact center? This will depend on your contact center solution of choice, as well as your organization’s familiarity with Microsoft Teams. If you want to simply integrate or connect your existing contact center solution to Microsoft Teams, then a Connect model may be the right choice. But if you want to transform Microsoft Teams into a contact center solution for your business, then Extend is the way to go.
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