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Let me start this article by immediately sending a huge elephant out of the room: there will be no Microsoft Teams bashing in this article.
Microsoft Teams is a perfectly fine software tool that enables internal communication for companies. I have experience with using it myself and it got the job done.
However, I have a firm belief that there is no one-size-fits-all software solution for anything. It’s just not possible.
And you probably believe the same thing, because if you didn’t, you most likely would not have ended up on this page in the first place. Right?
When you take a look at popular software reviewing websites such as G2 and Capterra, you find some recurring reasons for businesses to look for alternatives to Microsoft Teams:
Considering the fact that Microsoft Teams isn’t the best fit for each and every business, I will be introducing you to the best alternative to Microsoft Teams. I will do so by answering the following questions:
- What is Microsoft Teams?
- When should you look for a Microsoft Teams alternative?
- What is the best Microsoft Teams alternative in 2020?
So, without any further ado: let’s get started.
TL;DR
Microsoft Teams is a great tool for internal communication. If you don’t mind taking some time to get used to its many features, I would totally recommend it.
However, if you are looking for a tool that combines the ability to handle all of your communication, why not try Trengo?
Trengo is an omnichannel inbox that makes it possible for teams to collaborate on all of their communication channels; email, phone, SMS, WhatsApp, Telegram, live chat, and so on. In one click you can easily switch to your team chat. This makes Trengo a more complete and efficient tool for all of your team’s communication efforts.
Everything you need to know about Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams features
A couple of years ago, Microsoft was contemplating whether they should acquire Slack. Instead, they decided to start their own version of Slack, called Microsoft Teams. It is designed to work well within its 365 Office environment.
With Microsoft Teams, users can chat, have meetings, and share documents. During this years’ Covid-19 outbreak, many businesses started using the tool to keep their team communication going while everybody was working from home. In the tool, you can chat within teams or send private messages to specific colleagues.
With Microsoft App Directory, you can also add other external software to Teams, such as Trello, Asana, and Zoom.ai. This makes it a pretty complete tool and a serious competitor for Slack.
Microsoft Teams reviews on Capterra and G2
Let’s have a look at how Microsoft Team users view the communication tool.
On Capterra, Microsoft Teams is rated with 4.4 out of 5 stars.
On G2, Microsoft Teams receives a 4.2 out of 5 stars rating.
Not bad at all, especially with the high number of ratings that they have received.
When should you look for a Microsoft Teams alternative?
As you can see, there is no Microsoft Teams bashing here from me. The tool simply gets the job done and is one of G2’s Top 50 Remote Tools for a good reason.
However, there are a couple of reasons that make a lot of businesses look for a Microsoft Teams alternative.
User-friendliness Microsoft Teams
A recent review on G2 shows that not everybody is as happy with Microsoft Teams. This particular user - and others on the G2 platform - is not too enthusiastic about the user-friendliness of Microsoft Teams.
Productivity and efficiency are increasingly important factors for a lot of modern professionals. This definitely also counts for communication. You want your team members to perform as few steps as possible. More and more, we tend to get tangled up in performing manual tasks in way too many software tools.
It eats away at our time and at the opportunity to do meaningful tasks.
And if you have to go from your Outlook inbox to another tool and do a lot of manual work to communicate with your co-workers, you are not practicing the most efficient way of working.
Another reviewer is rather positive about Microsoft Teams in general but also goes on to complain about the complexity of the product. To him, Microsoft Teams offers too many features which makes it confusing for his colleagues:
“How to get rid of Microsoft Teams”
Notice the quotation marks in the above header; these are not my words.
Before writing this article, as always, I do a little keyword research to find out what readers are most interested in concerning the topic I am writing about. This time, I found a lot of variations on one question:
“How do I get rid of Microsoft teams?”
As it turns out, Microsoft Teams is one of those software solutions that are difficult to delete when you have decided to stop using it. And just as with tools that automatically open on starting your computer, or tools that pop up out of nowhere all the time, this seems to be a big frustration for many.
Why Trengo is the best Microsoft Teams alternative in 2020
As I said earlier in this article, most companies simply want an efficient tool that combines all of their communication into one overview. Whether that is internal or external, and regardless of which communication channels they want to use.
Trengo is a next-generation inbox for teams in which you receive all of your external communication in one clear overview. Email, phone, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, live chat, you name it. You can easily collaborate on all of these channels, communicate with your team members right inside of the inbox, assign messages to teams, and so on.
This means that if you want your business to be available on all of the new important channels such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, you won’t have to use all their different platforms. You can run all of those channels in one inbox.
If you want to switch to team chat, you can do so with one simple click. This makes Trengo an all-in-one communication solution for companies.
User-friendliness Trengo
Trengo was designed with big attention to detail when it comes to ease of use.
A lot of software developing companies tend to get tangled up in adding as many features as possible to stay ahead of the competition. Even though we also like new features like anybody else, we never lose our main goal out of sight.
That goal was to create an inbox that feels intuitive and makes it easy to collaborate for teams. It works just as intuitively as Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, but it is just more complete.
Comparing Microsoft Teams features to Trengo
Microsoft Teams and Trengo focus on different types of features. Some of them have overlap, but they are definitely two distinctly different software solutions. Let’s compare them, shall we?
Microsoft Teams
Trengo
Team chat
available
available
Individual chat
available
available
Internal video calls
available
unavailable
External team inbox
unavailable
available
External communication (WhatsApp, email, phone, live chat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, WeChat, text)
unavailable
available
Chatbots & automation
unavailable
available
Help center
unavailable
available
Trengo runs in your browser
No need to install any software on your computer and - more importantly - no need to worry about how you are going to get rid of it later on.
You can simply use Trengo in your browser or with an app on your iOS or Android device.
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams is a great tool for internal communication. Whether you want to perform 1-on-1 chats, team chats or video chats.
However, if you are in need of a Microsoft Alternative that offers an all-in-one communication solution, instead of only being focused on internal communication, I would most definitely recommend you to try out Trengo for free for 14 days.
