(Editor’s note: This is the second in a four-part blog series on 8x8 for Microsoft Teams.)

Today, hundreds of thousands of users around the globe rely on 8x8 for real-time customer communications within Microsoft Teams. If you’re currently evaluating Microsoft Teams Phone providers and you haven’t yet heard of 8x8 for Microsoft Teams, this series provides an informative overview.

What is 8x8 for Microsoft Teams

The first post of this series details the 8x8 for Microsoft Teams offering, which includes:

But taking a closer look at the above, why does this make 8x8 for Microsoft Teams one of the best Microsoft Teams customer communications solutions on the market?

The four fundamental benefits of the 8x8 solution

1. Trusted: 8x8 is the leading Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provider for Microsoft Teams Phone, and it is selected more frequently by trusted communications partners. 8x8 has a long track record of innovation with more than 300 patents, and it continues to refine and evolve with the market to improve customer experiences.

8x8 stands out as the only 11-time UCaaS Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader with an eight-time Gartner CCaaS Magic Quadrant-recognized Microsoft Teams certified contact center solution. For these reasons and more, organizations can trust that they are working with a proven unified communications leader with a commitment to reducing the burden on IT and enabling superior customer experiences.

8x8’s Direct-Routing-as-a-Service approach minimizes the training and deployment overhead by seamlessly integrating into Microsoft Teams. This prevents IT from needing to manage and support yet another application, and the end user from having to learn and manage multiple apps. This has contributed to 8x8’s position as a proven industry leader.

2. Integrated: 8x8’s truly integrated, single-vendor UCaaS and CCaaS platform comprises our Experience Communications as a Service (XCaaS) offering and differentiates 8x8 as a solution provider. In addition, our CPaaS capabilities enable organizations to conduct business how they need it, with more than 50 integrations with the most popular business applications, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Zendesk, ServiceNow, and more.

8x8’s patented Global Reach technology also enables organizations to conduct business where they need it. Global reach means that customers can enable employees almost anywhere with full PSTN replacement and phone numbers since the 8x8 global footprint covers the countries that generate over 86% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This complete, turnkey solution complements existing Microsoft 365 investments by adding additional value and can improve the customer experience.

3. Reliable: 8x8 has an industry-leading, 99.999% SLA that is financially backed for uptime, and is the only UCaaS vendor to provide this platform-wide.

The proprietary 8x8 eXperience Communications Platform™ is designed from the ground up and delivered from top-tier, redundant, geographically diverse, state-of-the-art cloud locations and regions to ensure the highest possible uptime. This high availability is achieved by providing four levels of redundancy across:

  • Infrastructure
  • Platform
  • Data
  • Geographic regions

Our customers tell us that voice is their most mission-critical workload, so 8x8's proven reliability can help customers maintain business continuity and deliver on the promise of communications that work when they need it.

4. Cost efficient: 8x8 adapts its technology to each organization’s unique profile with purpose-built solutions designed for each persona across the business. From the front desk to the back office to the contact center, organizations can create seamless customer experiences by using the right-size solution that brings together disparate functions into a fully integrated platform.

This includes packages and capabilities, such as unlimited calling plans, front desk console, barge/monitor/whisper, artificial intelligence for sentiment analysis, advanced analytics, SMS/MMS/eFax, compliance recordings, a “no phone left behind” approach that extends the useful life of existing hardware investments, and more.

The breadth of the 8x8 for Microsoft Teams offering allows organizations to:

  • Consolidate vendors
  • Lower the total cost of ownership (TCO)
  • Increase their return on investment (ROI)
  • Help Microsoft customers optimize their digital spend to do more with less

Learn more about what to look for when considering Microsoft Teams calling options in this guest post from Metrigy President and Principal Analyst, Irwin Lazar.