Front pagesponsored · Heedify
CX AI4h · 13:31 GMT · 3 min read
Why Voice AI on Microsoft Teams Is Harder Than It Looks
Many organizations now use Microsoft Teams as a central employee workspace, making it an increasingly important part of their customer service technology strategy. Heedify’s Mefteh Werghemmi explains why Voice AI must hand customers to human agents with full context intact
Many organizations now use Microsoft Teams as a central employee workspace, making it an increasingly important part of their customer service technology strategy.
As Voice AI takes on more customer interactions, disconnected tools can create friction when agents need to access information or continue a conversation.
To ensure frontline workers have the right context for accurate, consistent experiences, CX and IT leaders should prioritize approaches that align with established employee workflows and preserve context from the first automated exchange through resolution.
Mefteh Werghemmi, CEO & Co-founder ofHeedify, discussed with CX Today why the technology is incapable of resolving every interaction.
“There will always be an edge case that needs to be escalated to a human.”
Microsoft Teams Is More Than Telephony
Microsoft Teams has become a central part of the employee experience, bringing collaboration and availability information into one environment.
With Voice AI becoming more complex than adding a virtual receptionist, organizations need to consider how it fits into employees’ existing workflows.
“Teams is not just a telephone platform,” Werghemmi acknowledged.
When an AI system cannot resolve a customer’s request, transferring to a human agent should feel like a natural continuation.
If the technology operates separately from Teams, employees will have to switch between interfaces or manually search for customer information.
“Your user experience must be mapped to your collaboration tool,” he explained.
With the UX being a critical part of deployment, Voice AI must account for how employees communicate, access information, and manage their responsibilities within Teams.
To eliminate disconnect, organizations must design escalation processes around familiar interfaces and ensure the right information reaches the right person at the right time.
“When Voice AI hands a customer over, it must transfer the relevant context in a format that fits the employee’s workflow.”
Organizations can develop these capabilities internally, but doing so requires technical expertise for ongoing maintenance and appropriate governance as business requirements change.
For regulated organizations particularly, these requirements can be more demanding, as data, decision-making, and handoffs must align with internal controls and sector-specific obligations.
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