Name: Understanding Microsoft Teams Phone PSTN Choices and Costs
Start: 2023-11-28T16:00:00Z
End: 2023-11-28T16:00:48.000Z
Location: BrightTALK
Rating: 4.8

Metrigy is an innovative research and strategic advisory firm that analyzes enterprise success metrics to advise companies on their technology transformation strategies.

Founded by Robin Gareiss and Irwin Lazar, both renowned technology analysts and content developers, Metrigy focuses on some of the coolest and most interesting technologies:

Digital transformation and digital workplace,
Unified Communications & Collaboration (UCC),
Customer Experience (CX) and contact center,
Artificial intelligence and analytics.

Far too many CX leaders view customer service as an either/or decision when it comes to AI—either fully automate with virtual agents or rely entirely on live agents. But in reality, AI shines best with a “both/and” approach, blending human expertise with advanced technology.

This blend, known as ""human-centric AI,"" drives impressive improvements in business metrics by allowing humans and machines to collaborate effectively to solve customer issues. For instance, AI can suggest upsell opportunities to service agents, resulting in a 35% boost in revenue from the contact center. It also provides context that enables agents to personalize interactions, leading to higher customer satisfaction and increased referrals.

While AI-powered virtual agents now handle 22% of customer interactions autonomously, the role of humans remains critical. It’s their guidance and expertise that keep virtual agents on track and continuously improving.

Join Cresta and Metrigy for an engaging webinar, packed with research insights, practical advice, and digestible tech updates. You’ll learn:

- What types of AI are best suited for human-centric AI?
- Where are companies seeing success? 
- Do customers want humans, AI, or both? What should CX leaders do to ensure success with this approach?
- How does human-centric AI affect staffing, compensation, and management?

Humans Still Matter (a lot) in CX, but AI Makes Them Better

Metrigy recently published our annual study on workplace collaboration and employee engagement, based on data gathered from ~400 end-user organizations. In this webinar we'll share the characteristics of successful organizations in meeting the need for hybrid and flexible work. Attendees will learn:
- Key trends in hybrid work
- How successful companies are optimizing their application and device strategies
- How workspaces are evolving (and will continue to evolve)
- How successful companies are leveraging generative AI to improve collaboration and how they are measuring ROI

Optimizing Employee Engagement

What's the state of adoption for key worksplace collaboration products and services? In this episode, Diane Myers, senior research director and principal analyst responsible for Metrigy's market forecasting and vendor rankings, shares top learnings from our 2024 global buyer-side research study. Technologies covered: UCaaS, meetings, conferencing cameras, IP desk phones

MetriSight Ep.72 - Top Takeaways from Metrigy's Workplace Collaboration MetriCast

The future of customer service lies in AI-driven solutions, where Generative and Conversational AI are not just tools but strategic enablers of transformation. Dive into the latest innovations in AI that are positioning organizations for a future-ready, AI-first workforce. Get inspired by global brands like Toyota and Lufthansa that are already delivering exceptional CX to their customers via AI Agents, and gain actionable insights to lead your organization into the next era of customer service excellence.

During this must-attend virtual event series, join a related session where Metrigy CEO Robin Gareiss explains the real-world data, analyzing issues with customer service, technologies, and operational practices that will close the gaps and accelerate alignments between what customers want and what businesses are delivering.

AI Agents: Shaping an AI-First GenAI-Powered Customer Service Workforce

In today's interconnected market, great experiences with one brand raise the customer expectations for all brands--a concept known as expectation transfer. The resulting shift in consumer standards presents a tremendous opportunity for brands to stand out by consistently delivering exceptional customer interactions. NICE CXone customers are already embracing this potential, using purpose-built AI to exceed rising expectations and create consistently positive experiences.

Join us to learn how leading brands are leveraging AI to capture new value, drive business success, and achieve lasting differentiation in the evolving customer experience landscape.

Also during this must-attend virtual event series, join a related session where Metrigy CEO Robin Gareiss explains the real-world data, analyzing issues with customer service, technologies, and operational practices that will close the gaps and accelerate alignments between what customers want and what businesses are delivering.

AI in Action: Stay Ahead of Rising CX Expectation

Businesses all over the world are trying to embrace the latest AI-powered technologies to make their customer experience top-notch. But is all the effort and expense actually working?

Ask consumers, and most respond with a resounding no! Yet, case studies abound that document impressive customer satisfaction improvements with the use of advanced technologies.This has many scratching their heads and wondering: How do I build a customer service strategy that drives efficiencies for the business and delivers stellar customer experience? 

During this must-attend virtual event series, Metrigy CEO Robin Gareiss will explain the real-world data, analyzing issues with customer service, technologies, and operational practices that will close the gaps and accelerate alignments between what customers want and what businesses are delivering. 

In addition, the series includes thought-provoking sessions from leading AI and CX providers. Andy Traba, NICE's VP or product marketing, and Alan Ranger, Cognigy's VP of marketing, will share their takes on customer service, what needs to change, and innovative ways they can help.

CX Is Declining Despite AI Investments: Why? And How to Fix it

In this episode, Jonathan Rosenberg, Five9's CTO and head of AI, and Metrigy's Robin Gareiss discuss the huge changes coming to customer experience in the next several years, driven largely by generative AI and contextual data.

MetriSight Ep.71 - CX Vision: 3 Pillars that Will Impact the Future

Successfully migrating Cisco Unified Communications Manager to Webex Calling requires a proactive approach for PSTN access management and dialplan transition. Key requirements include ensuring reliability and performance of voice traffic as well as maintaining support for local site survivability to ensure resilience. Service providers certified for Cloud Connect for Webex Calling offer a seamless way for organizations to take advantage of the benefits of cloud calling while minimizing risk.
In this webinar we’ll share insights and best practices for migration of Cisco on-premises, and cloud-hosted calling to the cloud and deliver practical guidance to ensure success.

Migrating Your Cisco CUCM to the Cloud

Connected workspace applications and platforms enable organizations to create a single location from which employees can accomplish, communicate about/collaborate on, discover important information for, and manage their work. In this webinar, Metrigy’s Beth Schultz, VP of research and principal analyst, will share insights from recently published research on connected workspaces and collaborative work management. You’ll learn:
- Defining characteristics of a connected workspace, from core capabilities to AI/generative AI advancements
- How connected workspace apps/platforms can address organizational and technology pain points
- Characteristics of successful implementations
- Which vendors play in this space, and how they differentiate themselves

Connected Workspace: Getting Work Done, Collaboratively

In this episode, Metrigy's Diane Myers talks with Greg Zweig, senior director of solutions marketing at Ribbon, about what Microsoft's decision to shutter its Azure for Operators business means for service providers using Metaswitch solutions. They'll discuss near-term steps operators can take to enusre their voice networks remain operational, as well as what they should be thinking of longer term.

MetriSight Ep.69 - Repercussions of Microsoft Closing its Azure for Operators Business

Metrigy's Irwin Lazar takes us inside the MetriStar program and shares which providers have earned Top Provider Awards, based on customer sentiment scores and customer business success, and award highlights.

MetriSight Ep.68 - Workplace Collaboration MetriStars 2024: Overview & Winners

Metrigy has published its second-annual ranking of CCaaS providers, based on market share, financials, market share momentum, product mix, customer sentiment, and customer business success. In this episode, discover why NICE gets the No. 1 spot--again--and find out which other vendors made the cut.

MetriSight Ep.67 - Inside Metrigy's CCaaS MetriRank 2024

In this episode we talk with Mark Ewing, Product Management Director for Google Meet, Rooms, and Voice about Google's vision and plans for hybrid meetings. We'll get Mark's take on how Google is evolving their meeting device partnerships and portfolio to meet the need for equitable meetings for both in-office and remote participants and how Mark sees AI impacting meeting experiences going forward.

MetriSight Ep.66 - Chatting about Google Meet

As companies increasingly adopt generative AI they do so with growing risk of misues, hallucinations, poisoning, and the need to ensure compliance for AI generated content. In this webinar we'll share insights into what companies are doing today (or not doing) to address generative AI security and compliance issues and provide guidance for adoption. Attendees will learn:
- The state of generative AI adoption
- Key security and compliance issues
- The state of generative AI security 
- The role of third-party tools in ensuring security and compliance
- How to successfully craft a gen AI security and compliance strategy

Tackling GenAI Security and Compliance Issues

Gaining competitive advantage requires careful focus and action. Foremost, you have to know the baseline and topline is for any business measurement. That’s where benchmarking comes in, but many companies either don’t do it—or they don’t do it properly. 

Benchmarking has become a vital practice for successful companies in their adoption and application of customer-facing technologies. By evaluating what successful companies are doing, they can adjust their own strategies to continually raise the bar for a better customer experience.

During this webinar, we’ll discuss the benefits of benchmarking and how to avoid the pitfalls. We’ll also show a real-world tool to help you benchmark your CX strategy against those demonstrating the highest measurable improvements. We will address these questions:

- How and why can you get benefits from benchmarking?
- What are the “gotchas” when evaluating your performance compared to other companies?
- How do you know if a web-based benchmarking tool is solid?
- What can you learn from 8x8’s benchmarking tool that you may not know today?

Why Contact Center Benchmarking Matters: Benefits and Pitfalls of Comparisons

Whitney Meer, an applied AI expert with NICE, explains why knowledge management is really all about AI management today, requirements for doing it well, AI trends to watch, and more.

MetriSight Ep.65 - What to Know About Knowledge Management in an AI World

In this episode, Metrigy's Irwin Lazar walks us through what's going well, and not so well, in collaboration and contact center security today, and shares tips for how to get it right. Based on Metrigy's recently published Workplace Collaboration and Contact Center Security and Compliance: 2024-25 study.

MetriSight Ep.64 - Getting Your Security House in Order

John Hurley, head of product marketing for Notion, explains the company's approach to collaborative work management... and shares why, as an entrepreneur at heart, he finds personal value in Notion.

MetriSight Ep.63 - What's in a Connected Workspace?

Metrigy recently conducted a study of Microsoft Teams Phone users to understand how they are connecting Teams Phone to the PSTN, and the costs of various options. In this informative webinar we'll share the benefits and limitations of Calling Plan, Direct Routing, and Operator Connect and share insights into the various costs associated with each option.

Understanding Microsoft Teams Phone PSTN Choices and Costs

Microsoft Teams

Calling

Direct Routing

Collaboration

Collaboration Tools

Collaborative Business

Unified communications improve collaboration and increase productivity among employees through technologies such as VoIP, instant messaging and social media. Join this community to learn how to benefit from the full value of unified communications and collaboration technologies.

Collaboration and UC

Practicing business intelligence allows your company to transform raw data into sets of insights for targeted business growth. The business intelligence and analytics community on BrightTALK is made up of thousands of data scientists, database administrators, business analysts and other data professionals. Find relevant webinars and videos on business analytics, business intelligence, data analysis and more presented by recognized thought leaders. Join the conversation by participating in live webinars and round table discussions.

Business Intelligence and Analytics

As an IT professional, many of the problems you face are multifaceted, complex and don’t lend themselves to simple solutions. The information technology community features useful and free information technology resources. Join to browse thousands of videos and webinars on ITIL best practices, IT security strategy and more presented by leading CTOs, CIOs and other technology experts.

Information Technology

Get powerful insights on how to best serve today's customers. If you want to create a successful customer experience today, you will have to appeal to the need for “alone together” time. Millennials, Gen X, Boomers or Silent Generation all look for shared but individual experiences.

Customer Experience

The sales community on BrightTALK brings together thousands of engaged sales professionals. Learn about careers in IT sales and marketing, sales techniques and selling strategies. Join the discussion by participating in on-demand and live sales webinars and summits with leaders in the sales industry.

Sales

Get powerful emerging technology insights from influential experts. Connect with thought leaders and colleagues to get the most up-to-date knowledge on technologies like 3D printing, pervasive robotics, natural interfaces, connected everything and cognitive systems.

Emerging Technologies

The research and development community on BrightTALK brings together leading professionals in healthcare, technology and manufacturing to present on current topics in their fields. From big data in healthcare to online forensics training and medical research practices, the community is an exceptional resource for those looking to expand their knowledge. Be part of the conversation by joining the community and participating in interactive live webinars.

Research and Development

Get powerful insights to run your business. CEOs, CFOs, CMOs, COOs, CTOs and CIOs are among the leaders in this community who connect with peers and experts to grow their businesses.

CxO Strategy

In the business management community, commercial experts will be sharing webinars and videos on an array of subjects. From sales and marketing, to finance, productivity and growth, this content will help you stay up-to-date with the current economic environment and provide timely management insight to drive business growth.

Understanding Microsoft Teams Phone PSTN Choices and Costs

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