Microsoft Teams: the latest update - Fall 2023
Microsoft Ignite is approaching (November 14-17 - official site) and many of the updates on new Microsoft Teams features will be shared during the event, but some new features on Teams have already been revealed, and here are the point-by-point highlights for more and more high-performance team collaboration.
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New Microsoft Teams app for Windows and Mac
The new Teams 2.1 started to be operational on early users in March 2023 and available to all from September 2023 for 300 million active users (here are more details). The new app is designed to be faster and less impactful on system resources.
New features included in the new version of Teams include custom line-of-business apps, third-party apps, meeting rooms, 7x7 video, call queues, PSTN calling, and contextual search in chats and channels.
Net of the internal policies managed by the IT manager, the user will be able to switch from the old Teams to the new one. The changes will be both in terms of experience and action, the goal for Microsoft is that by the beginning of 2024, the majority of users have definitively chosen the new version.
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Teams Town Halls
Live event and webinar management from Teams will be much more professional. Microsoft Teams Live Events, which will remain active until September 2024, will be retired and replaced by Teams Town Halls. For Teams Premium License participants up to 10k or 20k (Premium License), 15 simultaneous events, and up to 30h duration per event.
From 2024, the ability to stream out to third-party platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Meta Workplace, etc.
Other new features available in the new platform: Green Room, Q&A, and On-demand recording.
In addition, the management of event invitations has been optimized, with the ability to add speaker bios, have custom templates, and manage registration data via specific forms.
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Live translated transcript
With this feature, available only to Teams Premium users, you can record and transcription in 30 different languages of a meeting.
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Collaborative notes in Teams mobile
This new function allows the ability for participants to create notes, and collaborate on an agenda, which automatically syncs with Microsoft Planner and Microsoft To Do.
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New Channels experience
The latest updates include a new conversation view, an improved search experience, and a simplified information panel.
It’s possible to create up to 1,000 channels within a team, in order to manage the space and team related to a specific workgroup without running out of space.
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Portrait blur
You can now blur the background in two modes, with the existing standard blur and portrait blurring, record the screen, and record audio-only clips when sending a video message in a chat.
Stay tuned to read through our article the future Microsoft Teams updates. Meanwhile, discover how our UC solutions can help you improve your communications within Microsoft Teams.
8 things you may not know... about Mida's Compliance Recorder!
We have spoken several times about our Compliance Recorder, delving into its security and reliability features, not to mention its extreme flexibility both in the development environment and in its adaptability to hybrid environments.
When choosing a specific product like this, a company's IT manager may have a few more doubts to clarify, to understand if the product's features can help him with his business needs.
Let's look together at the topics that may be of most interest to explore further.
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Does your company have a need to collect conversations from multiple sources?
Mida Compliance Recorder is a modular and multi-source recording system that can collect conversations from different sources/technologies like Teams, Zoom, Legacy PBX, Cisco, Radio, Tetra, Analog phones, and WhatsApp (via CC) and stores them in the same repository, setting retention policies and respecting all local and global law/privacy requirements.
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Is it possible to keep the recordings encrypted?
Yes, there is a special advanced license that allows you to manage encryption with an algorithm with a double AES 256bit key.
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What media are supported for recordings?
The supported media types are: call recording, SMS recording, internal and external communications, and WhatsApp recording. Video/screen sharing/meeting/chat recordings are planned in the roadmap.
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To record calls in Microsoft Teams, is the company required to use Session Border Control (SBC)?
The answer is no, Microsoft Teams voice and video conversations are recorded without an SBC being required.
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Is it possible to transcribe the recordings?
Yes, Mida uses external modules available on the market (APIs such as Microsoft Cognitive or speech-to-text products)
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Is sentiment analysis possible?
Yes, Mida is compatible with tools and modules available on the market. A native Mida module is in the roadmap.
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What kind of high-availability models are supported?
Fault tolerance based on active-active component redundancy, geo-redundancy (server distributed in multiple locations), hypervisor-supported high availability (VMware, Azure, ...)
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Is the reporting compatible with Power BI?
Yes, with one of the following solutions: Microsoft Power BI integration segregated per tenant and Analytics platform integration via ODBC segregated per tenant
Do you want to know more about our video and audio compliance recorder?
We will be happy to explain to you in detail the advantages you can have from these new implementations, contact us here to book your free slot with one of our experts!
Why UC solutions are the right investment for finance companies
The financial sector is facing an important challenge: being able to reconcile the need for advanced technologies with the privacy and compliance regulations required of its services due to the sensitivity of the data processed.
Unified Communications systems are certainly among the IT solutions involved because they are the basis of customer relationships and are necessary for the secure archiving of conversations.
But let's see in detail what the needs of these companies are and how the right technological choices can make a difference, making them competitive in the market.
- Increase in operational efficiency
In environments such as banks and financial institutions, where branches are diverse and on-site and remote teams alternate, it is essential that communication between employees, customers, and partners is fluid.
This means adopting technological solutions that encourage internal and external collaboration and choosing systems that help manage customer data effectively, possibly aggregating them with business intelligence tools.
It is essential for a bank to manage every activity with the highest professionalism, regardless of the location of the team and the company infrastructure.
- Improving the customer experience
Banks and finance companies have an increasingly demanding customer base: personalization in communication is necessary. Customers, in fact, want to live an experience in which they feel at the center of attention and their needs are followed in every detail.
Furthermore, communications in the financial sector must be rapid: often the customer may need to manage an urgency in the financial sector.
In Mida's Cloud Contact Center, thanks to integration with the CRM, customer data and history are available to offer an excellent customer experience. Furthermore, integration with instant messaging such as WhatsApp allows for increasingly rapid service management.
- Ensure the security of recordings and voice communications
The financial sector handles a lot of sensitive information that needs to be protected, the services offered must be impeccable, without compromising privacy in any way.
There is also the need to securely archive conversations, which according to MiFID II regulations must be kept for a minimum period of 5 years on a secure, tamper-proof medium.
Once again, an investment in UC makes a difference. The Mida Compliance Recorder is the perfect Unified Communications product for this need: it guarantees compliance with the GDPR and MiFID II and also adapts to internal security protocols, the anti-tamper and file encryption features make it completely reliable and tamper-proof.
Do you want to know how our Unified Communications solutions could make a difference for your company?
Contact us and we will be happy to give you more information about it.
The benefits of UC solutions for small businesses
Small and medium-sized enterprises are key players in the economies of many Countries.
In recent decades they have been exceptionally determined to undertake the road to digital innovation, long since taken by enterprises. This has also been possible thanks to processes and tools designed in a gradually simpler and more accessible way even for less structured businesses.
In Unified Communications, the application of Software as a Service logic, which has long been known in the field of IT, has also enabled SMBs to adopt tools for managing and monitoring communications with their customers.
The growth trend for these products is increasingly positive, with an estimated market value in 2022 of $113.48 billion, and the forecast is for a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.4 percent from 2023 to 2030. It is not only large enterprises that will drive this trend but also smaller companies that, with less complex internal structures and streamlined approval processes, can speed up the adoption phase of UC solutions. In addition, even many SMBs today operate in a scenario where part of their employees works remotely or in hybrid mode, thus sometimes making it necessary to remodel the previous UC tools in use.
Why, then, should a small business invest in Unified Communications?
Here are 4 of the main benefits that could drive change:
- To improve collaboration and internal communication
Even in a small business, there can be silos and difficulties in the shared management of information and documents. UC solutions can simplify collaboration sharing among employees, regardless of where they work.
- To intelligently integrate business data
Small businesses need to manage inbound communications and link them to the CRM/database that actually contains all their customer information. At the same time, the limited number of available resources does not always allow for systematic updating of the inbound information flow. Unified Communications solutions such as those from Mida for the Teams environment make this more agile because they allow systematic synchronization between the information employees receive from customers and the CRM.
- To innovate at an affordable cost
With a UC as a service product suite, there are no licensing costs to purchase. In addition, the system is flexible and the number of users can grow with the business, thanks to the pay-as-you-grow principle. In addition, software upgrades and maintenance are handled by the solution provider, which is a great advantage for the company.
- To improve the customer experience
Thanks to the integration with CRM, keeping track of the history and the changed or new needs of each customer who contacts the corporate contact center is very easy. In real-time during the call with the customer, the operator can add notes or comments, as well as involve other colleagues in follow-up or upsell activities.
In addition, conversation/communication recording and advanced reporting systems can indicate how and where services can be improved, going so far as to indicate, for example, areas for improvement in agent training or cost of services.
Microsoft Teams: the latest updates
Microsoft's Teams platform is constantly evolving: several updates in the last months that include the use of avatars during meetings, facilitated use of Power Point within the platform, and new chat and channel search experience. Let us now go into detail to see what the enhancements and new features are:
User Experience: what's new?
- New chat and channel search experience: the search part for chats and channels improve, with a new panel opening next to the chat/channel so it can be kept visible while searching
- Zoom in/out options: it will be possible to zoom in on a shared screen sharing during a call or chat
- Show/hide previews in your Microsoft Teams chat list now available
- New features for Microsoft Premium users: users will have the ability to have a recap of the meeting through "recap tabs" in teams made through AI, which will provide meeting highlights.
New functionalities
- Present a local File From the PowerPoint app to PowerPoint Live in Teams: sharing a live PowerPoint presentation (saved only locally) is now improved, thanks to the new access point to the button "Present in Teams" button in the PowerPoint for Windows app
- Avatars for Microsoft Teams: for those who prefer not to be framed during calls, but want a more realistic representation of an old photograph, Teams gives the option of creating an avatar that represents them in a non-static way. Microsoft has expanded availability of avatars to more M365 license types.
- Cloud IntelliFrame: a new way of experiencing online meetings, seeing in an improved way the people present in Teams meetings, to improve collaboration in hybrid meetings
- Whiteboard App in Teams: a new way to manage notes and information, sharing them or working on them independently, all directly within Teams.
Do you want to continue to keep up to date with news from the Teams world and the Unified Communications industry? Sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss the latest news!
Welcome Microsoft 1°Cloud Region in Italy
That's all anyone has been talking about here in recent weeks, particularly since late May, when Microsoft made public the opening of a new Microsoft Data Center Region in Italy.
Let's get a better understanding of what it is and the implications for Italian companies (and others).
What is the new Microsoft Cloud Region in Italy?
The new cloud region, which will consist of three data centers and will be based in Milan.
The new Lombardy region will join Microsoft's existing network of over 60 regions worldwide and is expected to be one of the largest in Europe, where the company already has 17 others.
Microsoft is actually the latest among the large public cloud service providers to add a region in Italy. Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud and Oracle, in fact, already have their cloud regions in Milan.
The initiative is part of the "Ambizione Italia" program that Microsoft launched in 2018. "Ambizione Italia Cloud Region Partner Alliance" is the project launched in March 2022 that currently brings together a roster of 17 partners committed to the digital development of Italy and at the forefront of Microsoft's new Italian Cloud Region.
4wardPRO, Agic Group, Computer Gross, CoreView, Deda Next, Dylog Italia, Esprinet, Expert.AI, Insight, NTT Data, Porini, Proge Software, SoftJam, SoftwareOne, Studio Informatica, TD Synnex, and ToolsGroup are the companies aiming to start digital transformation processes in a capillary way on companies present throughout the Country. These 17 partners join the founding partners, bringing the total to 31 partners within the project.
Back in 2020, Microsoft said it would invest about 1.5 billion euros over the five-year period 2020-2025 in activities aimed at improving cloud infrastructure, and training on digital skills.
In fact, according to what a joint study by Microsoft and IDC reported, in the next four years, the Microsoft ecosystem in Italy and its customers could produce, in the Italian economy a turnover of about 126 billion euros (more than 20 coming from Lombardy alone) and 237,000 new jobs.
"The Microsoft Partner ecosystem in Italy counts more than 14,000 realities and 400,000 professionals, a real chain of innovation rooted in the territory and with vertical competencies to accompany companies of any size and from any Industry towards transformation scenarios capable of supporting their growth. With this additional Alliance, we intend to give new impetus to the country's digital transition by focusing on Cloud Computing. Accenture, Avanade, Cluster Reply, Engineering, Kyndryl, TeamSystem, and Var Group are the founding partners, but in the coming months the initiative will welcome the contribution of many other players," commented Fabio Santini, Director of Global Partner Solutions Division.
What are the benefits for businesses?
With the new region, Microsoft partners will be able to add locally hosted, low-latency cloud services to their offerings, enabling fast and secure access to data and facilitating sharing scenarios that meet the needs of any industry.
As new businesses are added, they will be the first to take advantage of the Microsoft Cloud, offering their customers certified and reliable solutions to support them in their digital transformation. Access to local cloud services introduces maximum guarantees of data sovereignty, cybersecurity and compliance.
Companies, SMEs and public administrations will be able to access their data and Cloud services on a local basis. This effectively enables the cloud to all those realities that until now have been unable or unwilling to access the cloud for security reasons and/or because it was expressly forbidden by current privacy regulations.
Enterprises will be able to start leveraging the new region using Microsoft Azure or Microsoft 365 already in the coming weeks. Later on, Microsoft will also add other services such as Dynamics 365 and Power Platform.
Accenture, Avanade, Cluster Reply, Engineering, Kyndryl, TeamSystem and Var Group will work together with Microsoft to define a common strategy and market initiatives and programs to reach Italian organizations of all sizes and sectors, helping them to reap the benefits of digital.
The start-up phase of the project also includes a very concrete aspect: a shared plan of training and dedicated resources for companies, aimed at promoting the spread of a digital culture functional to the growth of the country. In this scenario, the consultancy contribution of ICT professionals plays a fundamental role. For this reason, the employees of the alliance partners will be involved in an extensive training and certification program with the aim of fostering their upskilling and professional certification in order to transform them into recognized consultants, capable of guiding the innovation choices of Italian companies and accompanying them on their path towards the Cloud, also contributing to projects in line with the six missions of the PNRR.
"Our goal is to help Italian organizations reap the benefits of digital to grow. We work to provide the technology platforms and secure cloud services to support their innovation, including our upcoming first Cloud Region in Italy. In this mission, we are supported by an extensive network of partners in the territory who closely follow public and private enterprises. We are proud to extend our initiative 'Ambizione Italia Cloud Region Partner Alliance' to 17 new partners who join the 14 founding partners: together we provide technologies, resources and skills to support businesses and Public Administration, to accelerate the path of digital transformation, creating innovation in the country," commented Vincenzo Esposito, CEO of Microsoft Italia.
How can we help you?
Mida has been supporting companies, SMEs and public administrations from all over the world for years in the process of migrating their UC to the cloud.
Especially in the field of recording, compliance is a crucial aspect, and we know that sometimes the lack of a national Microsoft Cloud Region has acted as a deterrent for realities that were looking for a secure and compliant system to record business conversations.
As an ISV vertically focused on the world of Unified Communications for almost 20 years, we also have active partnerships and collaborations with several of the Microsoft partners involved in the "Ambizione Italia Cloud Region Partner Alliance" project.
Contact us to find out how we can facilitate the migration of your UC system to the cloud!
Which UC challenges are our partners facing at the moment?
What are the main challenges our partners in the UC ecosystem are facing?
In this article, we are going to analyze the feedback we have from our partners and the actions we plan to take over the next 12 months to adapt our products accordingly.
Recently, our IT Sales and Business Development Manager, Dimitri Pagnin, was interviewed by UC Today to have his say on this topic and our roadmap for 2023.
As per the biggest challenges partners are facing right now, we can summarize them in the following points:
- Move UC from legacy system to the Cloud
To cope with the great UC transition from legacy systems to the cloud, companies are considering moving to cloud-based technologies such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. But are they really ready to face the pitfalls of such a substantial transition with zero impact?
As an ISV that has been involved in UC software for almost 20 years, Mida is aware of the difficulties associated with this challenge and offers its partners a training program to make this journey smoother and, if necessary, gradual.
Thanks to its long experience and collaboration with system integrators and service providers, Mida is able to provide proactive collaboration to its partners, foreseeing any criticalities in the customer's cloud migration process, being able to support them also in a gradual transition. Some of our major partners are system integrators vertically focused on other types of software. It is in this scenario that Mida's experience in telecommunications and UC plays a key role in the migration from traditional telephony to the cloud.
- Adopt UC solutions as-a-service
The purchase of software as a service is now a common trend in many companies. The world's leading software can be purchased in this modality, just think of Microsoft world, Google, Zoom.
Over the years, system integrators and service providers have also appreciated the advantages of the aaS model, which guarantees easier and faster go-to-market. In the transition from legacy systems to cloud UC, it is therefore normal that both look for as-a-service solutions to facilitate the move to the cloud. Mida's business choice in this regard was to maintain the on-premise deployment approach and to complement it with the as-a-service one. This dual choice makes the difference because it allows our partners to have different solutions in their portfolios that meet specific business needs.
What’s Mida’s product roadmap for the next 12 months?
The purpose of the product roadmap in 2023 will be to enhance some existing features in our products and to add new ones.
Part of the roadmap will be devoted to enhancing Mida Compliance Recorder for Microsoft Teams. As of now, it is already a modular recorder that is flexible enough to capture conversations from different sources and collect them into a single system with a single playback station. Just recently, we also integrated video recording for Teams into the product, and recording of Teams chats is also in the roadmap.
Moreover, we will enhance Mida products also for other environments, in order to provide both audio, video and chat recording.
But there are updates regarding also Mida C3 Cloud Contact Center, which has been recently enhanced with WhatsApp integration: it will have also an advanced CRM integration, and barge-in and listen-in functionalities.
Speech-to-text will be integrated both in the recorder and contact center, to satisfy the increasing demand for sentiment analysis and Artificial Intelligence features.
Lastly, Mida's entire portfolio will be available in SaaS mode, which, as we also noted above, is so popular among companies around the world.
Listen to Dimitri Pagnin full interview watching UC Today Video.
Do not hesitate to contact us at marketing@midasolutions.com if you have any questions. We will be glad to talk with you.
Compliance Recorder for Microsoft Teams: 3 must-have features to bear in mind
More and more companies globally are realizing the enormous potential of a compliance recorder for recording and storing business communications.
The choice of recording software for your company is crucial, but if the software concerned is to be implemented on the Microsoft Teams platform, then there are even more aspects to consider.
But what are the main features a recorder for the Microsoft Teams ecosystem must have?
Recording conversations, or part of conversations, is almost mandatory for some sectors, such as finance and healthcare, but it can also prove useful for other sectors. For example, it can be useful for legal purposes or for training purposes, to improve services and customer experience.
Let’s analyze which are - in our opinion- the must-have features of a recorder for Microsoft Teams:
- COMPLIANCE - The main concerns when it comes to recording systems are related to the issue of privacy and the protection of personal data of the persons involved in the recording. The recorder must be compliant with the latest security and privacy regulations (e.g. GDPR and MiFID II) and, if possible, offer a level of flexibility that can also accommodate internal policies. This implies that, for example, the recording files must be stored in the same Country where the conversions took place (the Country of the caller), for a specific period of time, and then be deleted within a time frame defined by the company.
- MULTI-SOURCE RECORDING- When moving UC from legacy systems to Teams, it is likely that one does not want to transfer all communication services to Teams, but wants to keep some services on a traditional PBX, such as Cisco, Avaya or Alcatel. Companies expect a single solution to register all these different sources, but not all vendors of registration solutions for Teams provide this multi-source approach.
- CENTRALIZED STORAGE - Companies are looking for a recorder that allows them to collect conversations and related metadata in the same place, regardless of the technologies involved. This is because - in the case of multi-source recordings - it is incredibly useful for them to have a single repository from which to access files. In addition, there are other features such as automatic file backup, compression (especially useful in the case where not only audio but also video is recorded), and encryption that can be considered pluses, and for some companies fundamental.
“Nowadays, it is inconceivable that customers are forced to move from one application to another to find recordings. They should be available in a unique system to enable managers to streamline their activities.” says Mauro Franchin, our CTO & Founder, “We are proud that our compliance recorder for Microsoft Teams ensures this key aspect and offers all the must-have features sought by companies worldwide.”
Would you like to adopt a Microsoft Teams-certified compliance recording software with these features?
Visit this page and get in touch for any additional questions, or to ask for a customized quote.
Mida and Bludis’s first webinar to discover the new partnership
Last week Mida and Bludis unveiled their new business agreement to propose to Italian companies our forward-future UC solutions to boost their corporate communications. To start off with a bang there is another joint news: our first webinar is approaching.
To introduce to the Italian market this new partnership, our new official distributor, Bludis, has just announced that this webinar is going to take place on the 27th of April.
Together with Bludis, Esprinet Group’s Italian information technology vendor, we aim to help these enterprises gradually move their UC to the Cloud from legacy systems. They can rely on advanced UC features suitable for different environments, such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom, which are available with a pay-per-use and perpetual license.
Bludis has expanded its portfolio with this professional UC proposition that perfectly fits the specific businesses’ needs regardless of the company size.
Mida Speaker: Marco Cortese, President of Mida Solutions
Here is a brief summary of what to expect from this webinar:
- Mida UC suite Microsoft Teams - including compliance recorder, attendant console, and contact center
- Mida UC suite for Zoom - including compliance recorder, attendant console
- Mida Unified Communication Professional Suite
- Mida Contact Center
- Mida Cloud & UCaaS
- Mida On-Prem Solutions
SIGN UP FOR THE WEBINAR
27th of Aprile at 11.00 am CEST
The webinar will be in the Italian language
It will be a great opportunity to seize, register now by filling out this form.
Streamline agents’ workflow within Microsoft Teams: what you should know
If you are considering enhancing your company's Unified Communication, leveraging the Microsoft Teams platform in combination with third-party UC solutions could be a winning choice for your customer service.
Choosing the right UC system for customer service is not an easy task. Several pivotal points closely related to the perception of service must be taken into account. Nowadays, people are looking for a smooth customer service experience to solve their questions as quickly as possible. How to take your company's communication to the next level? Given this scenario, is Microsoft Teams the best choice?
Regardless of whether you are a service provider, a system integrator, or a company, you should consider Microsoft Teams-certified third-party UC solutions as tools for managing business conversations. Using a single ecosystem to manage customer service can revolutionize the work of your agents.
Microsoft Teams is the thread that weaves together all the tools you need to seamlessly manage your company's communications with your customers. By integrating third-party UC platforms with Teams, agents can increase their productivity by streamlining their journey. They do not have to switch from one application to another and, as a result, they save time and are more efficient.
What should you expect from a UC suite for Microsoft Teams?
As mentioned, it is essential for a company to streamline agent tasks in order to efficiently manage daily conversations for optimal service. Only a well-integrated all-in-one UC system can guarantee this. By choosing Microsoft Teams and integrated third-party UC applications, such as Mida's, agents can count on:
- Customized IVR menus - Your new telephony system will ensure easy and intuitive customization of the service. Goodbye to tedious waiting times thanks to personalized messages that provide valuable information to callers.
- Advanced call distribution algorithms - Conversations should be routed to the most appropriate agent, and identified according to the routing algorithm chosen for the service. This helps to improve service quality, as it increases the number of requests resolved at the first customer service interaction.
- Compliance Recorder - The integration of Microsoft Teams with a recording application can allow conversations from different sources to be stored in a single repository for a specific period of time, in compliance with the latest security and privacy regulations and business requirements.
- WhatsApp and email integrations - A multi-channel customer experience can be ensured in Microsoft Teams thanks to these valuable third-party integrations. In the same user interface, the agent can manage conversations from different channels.
- CRM integration - Companies can provide a more personalized service by relying on CRM integration. Having CRM data at hand makes all the difference. It helps agents to know the customer's background and to support them immediately.
- PowerBI and other BI tools integration - You should choose UC applications that are also integrated with BI solutions. This allows companies to easily integrate UC KPIs and advanced insights with any other business data. These analyses are useful for understanding service weaknesses and discovering how to improve them.
UC Today listed Mida Solutions’ UC products among the 2023 top third-party applications for Microsoft Teams, both with the contact center and compliance recorder.
Choose Microsoft Teams-certified UC solutions now as a hallmark of efficient customer service. Certification guarantees reliability and a high level of quality to embrace this technology as a complete support ecosystem. This will help increase your workforce, whether your agents are in the office or at home.
Would you like to know more about this UC suite? Visit this page!