Inadequate recording retention

• 
  Standard licenses: 180-day retention (insufficient for financial/healthcare regulations)
• 
  No automated retention policies based on call type
• 
  Limited metadata capture for audit trails

Critical gaps include:

• 
  No unified view of cross-channel interactions (chat/voice/video)
• 
  Inability to track agent actions during calls (e.g., holds, transfers)
• 
  Partial external participant logging

These limitations aren’t mere inconveniences. They represent quantifiable business risk. From a service provider perspective, this means either forcing the sale of a larger, unneeded contact centre solution or conforming to the Teams native offering.

As we’ll explore next, bridging this chasm requires moving beyond native capabilities to solutions that deliver true business intelligence—and opens the door to an entire new market for systems integrators and MSPs.

Microsoft Teams Native Call Reporting: What’s Included

Teams provides a selection of reports accessible via the Teams admin centre. These include:

• Teams usage report: Active users, channels, messages, and device types.
• User activity report: Messages posted, meetings organised/attended, and 1:1 call participation.
• PSTN usage reports: Detail call types, durations, countries, and basic call IDs.
• Device and app usage reports: Device types and app installations.

These reports help you understand usage patterns, support adoption, and inform training needs. However, they are largely limited to aggregate metrics, basic usage stats, and do not offer granular, actionable insights for operational management or customer experience improvement.

When looking at Teams Phone specifically, we start to see the true extent of the chasm.

Here’s what you do get and why it’s not enough for the majority of businesses.

The Gaps: Where Teams Falls Short

Think Teams reporting gives you the full picture? Think again. 

Before you settle for “good enough,” see how native Teams reporting compares to certified, third-party solutions.

Native vs. Third-Party Capabilities

Feature	Microsoft Teams Native	Certified Third-party Solutions
Real-time dashboards/analytics	Limited	Comprehensive
Custom KPIs and reports	Absent	Configurable
Cradle-to-grave call tracking	Absent	Supported
SLA and queue monitoring	Absent	Available
Omnichannel reporting	Call-only	Unified
Automated compliance recording	Limited	Automated
Compliance automation	Manual	Automated
Sentiment and journey analytics	Absent	Available
Scheduled and automated reports	Absent	Available
Integration with CRM/other data	Absent	Available

1. Real-Time Analytics and Dashboards

• Teams’ reporting is retrospective, with significant latency. There are no live dashboards, Teams queue monitoring, or call centre wallboards for supervisors to track agent status or service levels in real time.
• No immediate visibility into missed calls, call abandonment, or SLA breaches, making it difficult to react to issues as they happen.

2. Customisation and Flexibility

• Reports are fixed in scope; you can’t create custom KPIs or detailed call management reports, combine data sources (like CRM integration), or build tailored dashboards that reflect unique business processes.
• No scheduled or automated reporting for different stakeholder groups.

3. Deep Call Journey and Cradle-to-Grave Analytics

• Teams provides basic call logs but lacks cradle-to-grave visibility (tracking a call’s entire journey across transfers, queues, and agents).
• No ability to analyse multi-touch customer journeys, which is essential for customer service, sales, and compliance-driven industries.

4. Compliance and Auditability

• Call recording and retention are limited, with insufficient metadata and audit trails for regulated industries.
• No automated compliance features or advanced search/filtering for recordings.

5. Omnichannel and Advanced Metrics

• Teams reporting is restricted to voice calls and meetings. There’s no omnichannel visibility (e.g., chat, email, SMS) or unified analytics across all customer touchpoints.

What Is an Informal Contact centre?

An informal contact centre is a solution stack that upgrades Teams calling with three essential pillars:

These enhancements transform Teams from a basic communication tool into a powerful hub for customer engagement, compliance, and performance management.

Pillar 1

CRM Integration

Why it matters: Native Teams reporting doesn’t connect calls to customer records, sales opportunities, or support cases. By integrating your customers’ CRM, every interaction is automatically logged, categorised, and enriched with business context.

Customer benefits:

• Automatic activity tracking: No more manual note-taking or missed call outcomes. Calls, notes, and follow-ups are synced directly to customer profiles.
• Screen pops and contextual data: Agents and sales reps get instant access to customer history, open tickets, and account details as soon as a call comes in.
• Closed-loop reporting: Track the entire customer journey—from first call to closed deal or resolved issue.

Provider benefits:

• Recurring revenue & upsell: By offering CRM integration as part of your managed service, you create new upsell and cross-sell opportunities—like analytics, cybersecurity, or infrastructure add-ons—making your business a one-stop shop for clients’ evolving needs.
• Customer stickiness: Embedding CRM tools into your Teams offering increases client reliance on your services, boosting retention and long-term loyalty.
• Process automation & efficiency: Automating sales and service workflows for your clients not only streamlines their operations but also reduces your support burden, enabling you to serve more customers efficiently.

Example: A financial advisory firm uses CRM integration to reconstruct multi-touch client journeys, ensuring every compliance disclosure and follow-up is documented for audit purposes.

Pillar 2

Compliance & Reporting

Why it matters: Teams’ built-in analytics are limited to basic usage stats and delayed call logs. Informal contact centre analytics provide the real-time, customisable insights required to manage performance and customer experience.

Customer benefits:

• Custom dashboards: Build reports around actual KPIs—whether that’s first call resolution, average handle time, or customer sentiment.
• Real-time visibility: Spot SLA breaches, queue build-ups, or missed calls as they happen, not days later.
• Industry-specific metrics:
  • Technical support: Monitor SLA adherence, escalation rates, and resolution times.
  • Manufacturing/supply chain: Analyse vendor call patterns and field service response times.
  • Customer success: Surface expansion signals and churn risks from call trends.

Provider benefits:

• High-value consultancy: Providing actionable analytics transforms your role from IT support to strategic partner, enabling you to deliver business insights that drive smarter decisions for your clients.
• Differentiation in a crowded market: Advanced analytics and custom dashboards help you stand out from other MSPs by demonstrating unique value and operational excellence.
• Ongoing engagement: Regular analytics reviews and KPI optimisation create opportunities for ongoing consultancy, support contracts, and value-added service packages.

Example: A support centre leverages real-time dashboards to monitor queue lengths and agent availability, ensuring SLAs are met and customer wait times are minimised.

Pillar 3

Operational Visibility

Why it matters: Regulated industries and customer-centric organisations need more than Teams’ basic recording and retention. Intelligent call recording enables compliance, quality assurance, and actionable feedback.

Customer benefits:

• Compliance-grade retention: Set automated policies for different call types, meeting industry standards (e.g., six years for healthcare).
• AI-powered analysis: Surface trends, sentiment, and keywords across thousands of calls—no manual review required.
• Audit-ready trails: Every interaction is securely stored, indexed, and searchable for dispute resolution or regulatory audits.

Provider benefits:

• Compliance-as-a-service: Automated, AI-powered call recording allows you to offer compliance and audit-readiness as a managed service, reducing clients’ regulatory risk and administrative overhead.
• Operational efficiency: Intelligent call recording and sentiment analysis help you proactively identify and resolve client issues, improving SLAs and client satisfaction while reducing escalations.
• Strategic insights: The data generated from call recordings can be used to inform broader business decisions, giving you further opportunities to consult on product, marketing, or customer service strategies.

Example: A healthcare provider uses intelligent call recording to ensure every patient call is stored for the required retention period, with automated alerts for potential compliance risks.

The burning question now becomes: What’s the return on investing in an informal contact centre solution? 

In this section, we break down the financial and operational benefits, using real-world scenarios to illustrate the measurable gains achieved by bridging the Teams reporting chasm.

The Cost of “Good Enough” Reporting

Relying solely on Teams’ built-in analytics often leads to hidden costs:

• 
  Missed revenue opportunities due to untracked sales calls and incomplete customer journeys.
• 
  Increased compliance risk from inadequate call recording and audit trails.
• 
  Resource inefficiency as managers spend hours compiling and interpreting fragmented data.
• 
  Customer dissatisfaction from delayed responses and unresolved issues that go unnoticed in basic reports.

These inefficiencies add up—both in hard costs and lost business value.

Quantifying the ROI of an Informal Contact Centre

By enhancing Teams with CRM integration, advanced analytics, and intelligent call recording, organisations typically see:

• Reduced compliance costs: Automated retention and audit-ready trails minimise manual effort and regulatory risk.
• Improved operational efficiency: Real-time dashboards enable proactive management, reducing average call handling time and improving first contact resolution.
• Increased revenue: Better customer journey tracking and sales analytics lead to higher conversion rates and greater upsell opportunities.
• Enhanced customer satisfaction: Faster response times and personalised service, driven by unified data, boost NPS and retention.

How Real World Business are Already Plugging the Gap

Service providers, like Redcentric, are now maximising their Teams margins with an informal contact centre offering an alternative to both native Teams reporting and the expensive omnichannel overkill.

Total Cost of Ownership: Informal vs. Formal Contact Centre

Redcentric, and a host of other systems integrators and MSPs, now benefit from a middle ground solution in their saleable technology stack.

Rather than serving both ends of the spectrum (or chasm, if you will), Redcentric can now fulfil all potential client requests and meet any level of reporting requirements. 

As a service provider, it’s your prerogative to ensure an efficient implementation. That begins with getting requirements right at the very beginning and focusing on pushing project milestones to the next phase.

Below is an idea of a standard informal contact centre roll out timeline. Smaller businesses will naturally have a reduced timescale. Larger businesses, on the other hand, can spiral out of control without appropriate professional services and stakeholder management. 

Step 1: Audit the Current State

Begin with a thorough assessment of your clients’ existing Teams environment and reporting needs:

• Identify which teams and departments rely most on call data.
• Review current reporting workflows, pain points, and compliance requirements.
• Engage stakeholders from IT, compliance, customer service, and sales to gather a complete picture.

Step 2: Define Client Objectives and Success Criteria

Clarify what your clients want to achieve:

• 
  Which metrics are critical for business (e.g., SLA adherence, first call resolution, compliance auditability)?
• 
  What does success look like in terms of operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and regulatory readiness?
• 
  Set clear, measurable targets for adoption and outcomes.

Step 3: Select the Right Solution Partners

Evaluate certified Teams analytics and integration partners, like Akixi:

• 
  Compare feature sets, integration options, and support models.
• 
  Ensure solutions are Microsoft-certified and meet security and compliance needs.
• 
  Request demonstrations tailored to specific industries you frequently support.

Step 4: Plan and Execute Integration

Work with your chosen partner to:

• 
  Map out data flows between Teams, CRM, and analytics platforms.
• 
  Configure user roles, permissions, and dashboards according to business structure.
• 
  Pilot the solution with a small group to validate workflows and surface any issues.

Step 5: Train and Engage Teams

• 
  Deliver targeted training for supervisors, agents, and reporting users.
• 
  Provide clear documentation and quick-reference guides.
• 
  Help create an internal culture of data-driven decision-making by sharing early wins and insights.

Step 6: Monitor, Optimise, and Scale

• 
  Set up and encourage the use of real-time dashboards and custom reports to track adoption and performance.
• 
  Gather feedback from users to refine processes and dashboards.
• 
  Scale the solution to additional teams, departments, or sites as needed.

So, what can Akixi offer in terms of an informal contact centre solution?

Let’s see how it stacks up next to Microsoft’s out-of-the-box offering. This comparison reveals the stark difference in capabilities between the two solutions.

Feature Category	Specific Capability	Microsoft Teams Native	Akixi Certified Solutions
Real-time Analytics	Live dashboards	Absent	Real-time dashboards and wallboards
	Queue monitoring	Limited (basic Queues app)	Live call queue status and wait times
	Active call visibility	Manual check only	Real-time active calls monitoring
	Service level tracking	Not available	SLA tracking and response-time performance
Historical Reporting	Cradle-to-grave tracking	Basic call logs only	Complete call journey tracking
	Abandoned call analysis	Not available	Unreturned lost calls reports
	Call value estimation	Not available	Financial statistics with estimated call values
	Multi-site comparison	Not available	Group reports across multiple locations
Reporting Depth	Available KPIs	15 basic metrics	200+ KPIs and statistics
	Historical data retention	Limited (up to 90 days)	12 months data storage
	Custom reporting	Pre-set reports only	Fully customisable reports
	Scheduled reports	Manual access only	Automated report scheduling
CRM Integration	Available connectors	Limited API access	Pre-built connectors for 300+ CRMs

Now we understand that the chasm can be bridged, the informal contact centre becomes a must-have in vendor portfolios.