The big three is all anybody in the industry is talking about these days.

Depending on their size, service providers are looking to carry a portfolio of all three communication / collaboration services. But, with the pressure on call minutes, the need to add value has become a priority with at least three or more capabilities wrapped tightly around the supplied PSTN connectivity.

Three important areas service providers look to add value with are:

• Call analytics
• CRM Integration
• Lite contact center

Another theme was hybrid integration between either legacy estate and the UCaaS or inter-UCaaS hybrid services. Akixi is already focused on a number of hybrid use cases; focusing mainly on a mixed Cisco/Microsoft estate. I suspect this will be a very fertile area of the market in the coming months.

As we expected, the show was dominated by announcements around CX and AI. Microsoft profiling Teams Queues – a limited engagement solution (or, dare I say it, a lite contact center), was topic of conversation for a lot of people.

Arriving in Mid-2024, the solution allows users, who have the Teams premium license, to log in/out of call queues and handle relatively simple customer engagements over the phone. It will be interesting to see how the large, certified contact center community, react to this announcement. Especially those who have used the extend and power models. I would expect they will point to the fact that this functionality is tied to a Teams premium license, which pushes the cost to deploy with PSTN connectivity to well over £20 per user, per month.

Akixi can easily integrate with Teams Queues, providing highly accurate call analytics and reports that deliver the key information a business will require from its Teams phone system. Our experience in providing reporting for thousands of businesses using UCaaS based engagement platforms will provide service providers another key differentiator when adding value to their Teams Direct Routing or Operator Connect services.

Now back in rainy England, with vitamin D topped up, another Enterprise Connect behind us we focus on the matter in hand of rolling out the Akixi Teams business. Learn more about our Microsoft Teams offering below.