3 Keys To A Successful Microsoft Teams Room Strategy

A Microsoft Teams rooms strategy might seem like more effort than it’s worth on the surface, but you’d be surprised how much impact it can make. With many businesses now mixing in-person and remote Teams meeting participation, planning and optimizing how it works just makes sense.

If you’ve ever been on the hot seat to figure out why an important Teams meeting isn’t working, you’ll understand why a Microsoft Teams meeting room strategy is crucial to getting the most from your investment into Teams. With your people communicating with one another, suppliers, and most importantly customers and VIPs via Teams, you should be taking it seriously.

The 3 Keys to Successful Microsoft Teams Meeting Rooms Strategy

Keeping it super simple, we’ll give you the 3 keys to making your Microsoft Teams meeting room strategy a success, so that you and your business can prosper. Let’s get into it.

1. Usage

There are three crucial criteria to keep in mind when it comes to how your rooms are used: Who, Where, and How. Let’s break them down really quickly.

Who is important because those using a Teams meeting room provide different value to your business – which can change on the fly. At the top of your list, you’re going to have VIP users and customers, and at the bottom are the potential suppliers vying for your business. This all impacts how much money you spend on kitting out different rooms to suit different people’s needs and expectations.

Where is important because knowing where you’re likely to have the most physical uses of a meeting room will help you invest your budget accordingly. For instance, it makes sense to have the majority of your rooms at your headquarters somewhere you’re likely to receive the most visitors and have the most staff members on site.

How is important because the way in which a room is used will be determined by what it’s used for. Perhaps you have a dedicated meeting room for speaking with remote clients, in which case utilizing the best microphones and audio setup available makes the most sense. However, if it’s just for internal use for things like morning stand-ups, you can choose to leave it basic just for operational needs.

2. Devices for Microsoft Teams Rooms

We quickly touched on devices already but to dive a little deeper, there’s actually a lot more to consider. Will the devices you use be certified or not? Certified devices bring health statistics into the Teams portal which makes managing them easier, but this is obviously more costly. Rather than combined microphone and speaker setups, consider using IP phones, as these can also be managed through Teams and still provide great audio quality.

No matter what your needs and budget are, there are devices on the market suitable for you, and with many trusted retailers offering an A to Z of brands, you’ll quickly be able to find what you need.

3. Service Quality for Microsoft Teams Rooms

Managing Teams meeting rooms through the Teams Portal can be a tedious process for IT staff. The biggest challenge they’re going to have is that they can manage the state of Teams meetings, but there aren’t any alert parameters to give them the heads-up if something is wrong. Microsoft does offer a managed service offering, but this can get expensive very quickly.

One alternative is using Martello Vantage DX, where you can display each one of your Teams meeting room devices on a map, monitor their status in real-time and be alerted of problems quickly, giving you the ability to troubleshoot and often prevent issues before meeting participants are even aware that something is amiss.

Bringing It All Together
A sound strategy starts with understanding and goals. If you want a better Teams experience through improved call quality, uptime, and ease of maintenance, that’s a great place to start. Pairing that with an understanding of your own business, along with the needs of your stakeholders, is the other side of getting strategy right. To cap it all off, using a solution like Martello Vantage DX gives you the oversight you need to make it all happen.

Want to deliver a better Microsoft Teams rooms experience? You need Martello.