The Requirement
When lockdown was announced in March, companies around the UK had very little time to make the unprecedented switch from office-based to home working.
Long-established recruitment specialists, Cathedral Appointments, quickly mobilised their team – but like so many organisations, found their technology needed a thorough overhaul to adapt to vastly changed circumstances.
Cathedral Appointments were utilising an ageing Avaya IP Office telephone system that did not offer any remote working capabilities or significant functionality. Due to the pandemic, Cathedral Appointments required a phone system that provided the ability to make and receive calls from home whilst offering additional functionality such as video conferencing and instant messaging to complement their recruitment activities.
The Teams Phone Solution
Nexus performed the following to deliver this functionality in a very short period.
- Configured Microsoft Teams in Office 365
- Enabled Microsoft Teams with Phone System for external calling
- Configured each user with their own direct dialling number
- Implemented an Auto Attendant for inbound calls providing a customised greeting and out of hours calling options.
- Provided video-based training on how to use Microsoft Teams for external calling
- Provided number porting management to move their main telephone number from their current provider to Microsoft Teams
- Provided ongoing technical support and assistance
Benefits of Microsoft Teams Phone
Microsoft Teams has brought Intelligent Communications into the mainstream. By that, we mean bringing together your voice calls, instant messaging, video conferencing, calendaring and Office files.
Barry Byrne, Technical Solutions Consultant at Nexus, says:
“We are proud that we were able to deliver the work to Cathedral Appointments in two business days. However, the deployment time can depend on what the customer is looking for, i.e. level of features needed. In our opinion, Microsoft Teams offers an excellent opportunity for small to medium business to provide telephony services from home. Microsoft Teams is included with most Microsoft Office 365 subscriptions; most businesses will have an Office 365 subscription and therefore this makes applying telephone services a great value value–add. Additionally, since the start of the pandemic, Teams is Microsoft’s fastest-growing software product in their history. In April 2020, there were 75 million daily users globally, making it the most widely used unified communications tool.”
The Managing Director of Cathedral Appointments, Joanne Caine, said:
“Like most businesses, we had to leave the office very quickly when lockdown was announced and set up our staff to work safely from home. It soon became clear that some of our systems needed a rapid overhaul to help us meet these unprecedented challenges. By streamlining our communications and organisation systems in this way, we are future-proofing the business and helping our employees to work efficiently whether at home or in the office. We are very grateful to Nexus for completing the work so quickly and to such a high standard.”
