8×8 Vs Microsoft Teams – Which Tool Is Better for Your Business?
As the onset of the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted the traditional ways of running a business, the work from home culture has become commonplace. However, remote working has its own set of challenges that include maintaining efficiency in communication with clients, vendors, and employees. Today, phone calls, video calls, and virtual meetings are crucial components for conducting a business. The client applications such as Microsoft Teams and 8×8 make working from home much easier by providing powerful tools for communication and collaboration. In this article, we will try to analyze how they compare against each other.
How Does Microsoft Teams Support Remote Working?
Microsoft Teams is designed to streamline business communication with messaging, Voice-over-IP (VoIP) calling, video calling, and screen sharing capabilities. It also allows users to share, open, and edit various types of files. Microsoft Teams users can additionally subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Business Voice add-on that makes it possible to make, receive, and transfer calls from and to landline and mobile numbers. As Teams is tightly connected with Microsoft Office 365 tools and provides integrations for third-party applications, it creates a suitable environment for increasing team productivity and performance.
How Does 8×8 Fit as a Collaboration Tool?
8×8 is a platform for enterprise communication that primarily facilitates calls, meetings, chats, file sharing, and collaboration. It allows users to place and manage calls, chat with business contacts, and conduct meetings with internal and external participants. 8×8 provides calls with phone numbers in more than 120 countries. It also provides unlimited calling plans and full PSTN replacement in some specific countries. The 8×8 products integrate with various business tools including Microsoft Teams and Salesforce. Higher plans also provide features for auto-dialing, quality management, analytics, speech analytics, and customer relationship management (CRM).
Why Do Businesses Rely on Microsoft Teams for Communication?
Microsoft Teams solves various business communication and collaboration needs of SMBs and enterprises. It packs sophisticated tools powered by text, video, and VoIP capabilities for easy and efficient communication. With a simple and intuitive user interface, Teams helps users switch between a call and text messaging with optimum ease. The multifaceted collaboration platform integrates with various sales and business management tools, enabling users to perform crucial business tasks without leaving the app.
Microsoft Teams forms a complete package with Microsoft Office 365 applications and is an integral part of Microsoft 365/Office 365 Business and Enterprise plans. The Office 365 Enterprise E5 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5 plans come with Teams and the robust features of IP-PBX, which puts it in the same line of phone-system based enterprise communication tools like 8×8. Moreover, users can add a Microsoft Phone System with calling plans to their Microsoft 365/Office 365 plans and enjoy the advanced calling capabilities with Teams. Businesses that heavily rely on Microsoft Office 365 applications and licenses can reap the maximum benefits from the platform. By providing add-ons for third-party applications such as Salesforce, Teams also lets your sales teams manage customer data right within the Teams app.
8×8 vs Microsoft Teams – How to Choose?
Both Microsoft Teams and 8×8 enable internet-based communication to simplify team collaboration and workflow management. While Teams emphasizes ease of information sharing and management, most 8×8 capabilities revolve around cloud-based telephony. Teams favors Microsoft-centric environments and provides third-party integrations for business management and growth. On the other hand, 8×8 boasts of a powerful phone system and provides various native and external add-ons including the one dedicated to uniting the collaboration features of Teams with a high-quality calling system.
Your decision of choosing either of the services will highly depend on your current requirements, infrastructure and licenses, and your staff’s familiarity with Microsoft Office 365 apps. You may also find that 8×8 products are highly-priced and provide you advanced features that your business doesn’t need right away.
Apps4Rent Provides You Tools to Improve Your Team’s Performance and Productivity
Whether Microsoft Teams or 8×8 will be a more profitable investment for your business will depend on your organization’s business goals and dependency on Microsoft Office 365 tools. A one-to-one discussion with one of the Microsoft certified professionals at Apps4Rent can bring more clarity about the Teams app, its features, and the long-term benefits for your specific business. As a Tier-1 Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider, we offer our expertise in Microsoft 365/Office 365 deployment for intelligent solutions like Teams, SharePoint, Power BI, and more. Our representatives are available 24/7 via phone, chat, and email to assist you. Contact us today.
