If your small business is using Microsoft Teams for customer service, you’re in good company. Most of the SMBs I speak to started there, too. And why wouldn’t they? It's already part of your Microsoft 365 subscription, it’s easy to deploy, familiar to your team, and feels “good enough” when you’re just getting started. But as your business grows, so do your customers’ expectations. That’s where the cracks begin to show. You start missing calls. Your agents repeat themselves. You can’t track performance. Before you know it, the solution that streamlines internal communication quickly becomes a bottleneck that keeps your customers at arm’s length.
From two-man teams to full-blown contact centres, I’ve spent over a decade helping businesses scale their customer service operations. This includes seeing the tipping points from miles away that signal when Teams is enough — and when it’s time to move on.
In this article, I’ll break down the difference between Microsoft Teams and a dedicated CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service) platform. I’ll help you understand where each fits, what to look out for, and how to know whether your business is ready to make the switch.
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In most cases, Microsoft Teams is the best low-hassle choice for small companies. It's already installed, everybody is used to it, and it doesn’t require a new vendor conversation. This is the go-to option for non-techie business owners or office managers juggling multiple roles. The simplicity it offers is gold.
Teams isn’t just a platform to host meetings either. I’ve seen businesses use it in all kinds of clever and creative ways: forwarding shared lines to mobile phones, voicemail drops for out-of-hours support and using group chats for organising enquiries. I even had a property services client with one call queue going to four mobiles, which worked nicely at the time.
This tool gives you a quick fix. It’s safe, it's simple, and it integrates beautifully into the Microsoft stack. If you're a small team of about three to five, dealing with low volumes, supporting one product, or working from a single location, this approach can absolutely work — for a while.
For companies not yet treating customer service as a differentiator, it’s an obvious choice. Teams is not necessarily a long-term solution because here's the thing: most businesses don’t stay small forever (especially SMBs). Moreover, as its name suggests, Teams was designed to streamline team collaboration, not to be a customer service platform – that’s where things start to shift.
As your business grows and you acquire new customers, your challenges evolve. One of the first things to take care of is diversifying your support channels, which Teams simply wasn’t built for.
Customer expectations are higher than ever, and if you can’t deliver, your competitors are just one click away. Let’s say you open a second office or expand to new channels, Teams can’t unify any of that. Tickets fall between the cracks, agents repeat the same questions, and managers can’t improve what they can’t measure. All while leadership is none the wiser. No one knows who’s waiting, what they need, or how long they've been on hold.
No matter the topic, something my colleagues always stress is the fact that you can’t manage what you can’t see. You have no visibility of the missed calls, delays, or repeated enquiries. So you assume everything is fine until what felt like a “free” solution becomes very costly – in churn, bad reviews, and burnt-out agents. And at that point, the damage has already been silently done.
A Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform is purpose-built for control, scale, and visibility – all crucial for delivering excellent customer experiences. This solution allows your team to provide proactive support instead of reactive responses.
Apart from streamlining CX initiatives, CCaaS solutions make SMBs competitive. Even small teams benefit: I’ve seen teams of just five deliver enterprise-level service using CCaaS. Because let’s face it, small teams have to do more with less.
To showcase what CCaaS can really do, let me give you two quick examples of previous customers who moved from Teams to CCaaS:
They were using Teams to handle calls. No reporting, no call context, no way to track missed calls.
After switching to a CCaaS platform:
They added WhatsApp and live chat on top of Teams and a shared mailbox. It went from coping to chaos fast.
With CCaaS:
I know all of this is quite enticing, and at this point, you might be asking, “Is my business ready to make the switch?”. This is something customers ask me a lot, and in all honesty, not every business is ready – nor do they need to make the switch right away.
If that’s you, Teams might still be enough – for now. But most growing businesses hit a tipping point sooner than they think.
On the flipside, if any of the following apply, you’re likely ready, and we should have a chat:
The longer you wait, the harder it gets. Migration becomes more painful, and the damage builds in silence. But more importantly, your customers won’t wait, and your competition with better CX will win them over.
Asking whether their business is ready for a CCaaS solution is just one of the many questions I’m constantly asked – here are a few more:
Not necessarily. It’s about scaling intelligently. Start with voice. Add CRM integration. Then bring in digital channels or automation as you grow. You don’t need everything on Day One.
That’s a risk with any tool. But that’s why a phased approach is best. Use what you need now. Expand as needed. Think of it as building for the business you’re becoming — not the one you were last year.
There’s a learning curve — but it’s not painful. With the right deployment partner (like Babble), onboarding is guided and phased. You don’t go it alone.
Whether Microsoft Teams is still the right fit or you’re starting to feel the friction, know that you have options. You’re not behind or alone – you’re simply at a decision point, which is a good place to be.
If you’re reading this, chances are you’re already sensing the strain. Calls are being missed, agents are stretched thin, customers expect more — and your current setup isn’t keeping up. The risk isn’t just operational: your brand, team, and customer loyalty are on the line.
I’m here to help SMBs like yours get ahead of that curve. After 12+ years in the CX and contact centre space, I’ve seen what works, what breaks, and what grows with your business. My goal isn’t to pitch a product. It’s to guide you toward the right setup — whether that’s Teams for now, or CCaaS when you’re ready.
If you’re ready to explore your options — or just need a quick setup check, book a 15-minute chat with me.
I’ll ask the right questions, give you clear insights, and help you make the right move for your business. Because when customer experience is under pressure, the real question isn’t: “Can we afford to upgrade?” It’s: “Can we afford not to?”