🔍 What Are We Actually Comparing?
This comparison focuses on making and receiving real phone calls — calls to and from external phone numbers, not just internal video meetings. All three platforms can do this, but the way they do it, what it costs, and how well it works varies significantly.
| Microsoft Teams | Zoom Phone | Hosted VoIP (Telexico) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Collaboration + calls | Calls + meetings | Business phone system |
| Call to external numbers | Via Direct Routing or Calling Plan | Via Zoom Phone plan | Native — included |
| Desk phones supported | Limited SIP support | Some Polycom/Yealink | Full SIP phone support |
| Monthly cost/user | £8–£20 (365 licence + phone add-on) | £12–£20 | £9.99–£19.99 |
| Call recording | Add-on or Compliance Recording | Add-on | Included |
| IVR / auto-attendant | Basic (Teams Auto Attendant) | Basic | Advanced, fully configurable |
| Mobile app | Teams mobile app | Zoom mobile app | Dedicated softphone app |
| Offline/failover calls | No (internet-dependent) | No | 4G failover available |
💬 Microsoft Teams: Strengths and Weaknesses for Calls
Teams excels when your business already runs deeply on Microsoft 365. If staff spend their day in Teams chat and video meetings, adding phone calls via Direct Routing keeps everything in one interface. The weaknesses:
- Complexity: Setting up phone calls in Teams requires either purchasing Microsoft Calling Plans (expensive) or configuring Direct Routing with a SIP provider (more work upfront).
- Desk phone support: Teams-certified desk phones are limited and expensive. Most businesses end up using Teams on laptops and mobiles only.
- Reception/operator experience: Teams lacks sophisticated call queuing, wallboards and supervisor tools that dedicated phone systems offer.
- Reliability dependency: If Microsoft has an outage (they do), your phone system goes down with it.
📹 Zoom Phone: The Middle Ground
Zoom Phone is Zoom's dedicated calling product — separate from Zoom Meetings but using the same infrastructure. It's more phone-system-focused than Teams, with better IVR and call routing options. It suits businesses that use Zoom heavily for video but want phone calls in the same ecosystem.
Weaknesses: less widely used than Teams in UK businesses, fewer integration partners, and Zoom's data centres are primarily US-based which can introduce latency on UK calls compared to a UK-native VoIP provider.
☁️ Hosted VoIP: The Dedicated Phone System Approach
A hosted VoIP system (like Telexico's Cloud-X) is built from the ground up as a phone system. This means features like advanced IVR, call recording, call queuing, wallboards, supervisor monitoring and hunt groups are native — not bolted on.
The trade-off: it's a separate app from Teams or Zoom. Staff who live in Teams will need to switch apps for phone calls unless you integrate via Direct Routing (which Telexico supports).
🎯 Which Should Your Business Use?
| Scenario | Best Choice | Reason |
|---|---|---|
| Team already in Teams all day | MS Teams + Direct Routing | One app, keeps workflow intact |
| Need real desk phones in office | Hosted VoIP | Full SIP phone support |
| Complex IVR / call routing needed | Hosted VoIP | Most configurable |
| Regulated industry (FCA recording) | Hosted VoIP | Compliant call recording built in |
| Small team, budget-sensitive | Hosted VoIP | Lowest total cost, no Microsoft licence dependency |
| Zoom-heavy video team | Zoom Phone | Single vendor simplicity |
| Multi-site with failover needed | Hosted VoIP | 4G failover available |
💡 You can have both
Many businesses use Telexico Direct Routing to make Teams the interface for outbound calls, while keeping a dedicated VoIP system for inbound call handling, reception desks and complex IVR. Best of both worlds.
Free consultation on the right calling setup for your business — Teams, VoIP or both.
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