It's Skype we all know, but just for business nothing personal.
June 12, 2018

It's Skype we all know, but just for business nothing personal.

Stefan Trbojevic | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Skype for Business

Skype for Business is being used across the whole organization. We mostly use it for a quick conversation, quick questions, and answers.
The whole Idea being connected with everyone from your organization that numbers 10.000+ users is perfect. Team collaboration has never been easier. No matter where you are stationed you can jump into a Quick conversation, meeting or video call to elaborate on hot topics.

My team which has around 350+ people use it daily. I, for instance, have 20 separate Chats/Conversations. Some of them are really big chats where we have more than 50+, and some of them are just private e.g. Leadership chat.
In those big chats, we have employees asking questions about work, and someone is always available to provide them with an adequate answer, which boosts our team productivity enormously.
  • Status: Integration with Outlook and Outlook calendar makes it easy for you if you accept a meeting invitation. Skype will read your calendar data and change your status to "In a Meeting" where you won't get disturbed by side chats or notifications.
  • Remote connection: another great tool if you need to connect with someone and show them how something is done. For example, you need to install your company printer on their machine, it is easier to take control than to explain chatting.
  • Video and Audio calls: Skype always had high-quality calls, nothing has changed in that department, you can always call a colleague and have a talk about something that must be explained quickly.
  • Ability to add Skype contacts outside of your organization. It makes Skype for Business also your personal Skype, but you shouldn't share your organization email easily with everyone.
  • Having multiple Chats/Conversations open, make Skype unresponsive from time to time. Sometimes it has tendencies of crashing even on high-end machines.
  • Grouping chats - Works well, however, there is no option to group appointed meeting conversation with other regular conversations/chats that were not initiated by calendar event.
  • Should be able to have some themes to choose from. Microsoft is going for a dark theme in Windows insider program. Personal Skype already has it why wouldn't Skype for business have it? It is pleasant to the eye, at least in my opinion and for my eyes.
  • I cannot imagine working my day job without Skype for business. When it goes down, we are cut from the communication with the rest of the organization, making it hard to do almost anything.
  • If you depend on collaboration with your colleges, Skype will impact that field of your job in the best possible way.
Skype for business is just a professional tool compared to all competitors.
There are no things that will distract you from finishing your daily tasks unlikely from competitors which are trying to make mix of Fun and Business, but my personal opinion is that a Business tool shouldn't have Emojis, Hashtags and social media integration, unless your job requires you to work with social networks or if you are from social networking company.
Skype for business is literally good for everything no matter if it's a quick conversation, question and answer, or simple file sharing. It can do it all.

It is much better and faster way of communication than email if you want to get fast answer. But its integration with Outlook makes it just easy if you want to shoot a question about some email that you received and you do not completely understand it or you have more questions about your project.

Less appropriate usage would be for chit chats as your employees can lose focus having fun chatting with other employees in their private conversation.

Skype for Business, now part of Microsoft Teams Feature Ratings

High quality audio
10
High quality video
9
Low bandwidth requirements
7
Mobile support
10
Desktop sharing
10
Whiteboards
10
Calendar integration
10
Meeting initiation
10
Record meetings / events
10
Slideshows
10
Live chat
10
Audience polling
10
Q&A
8
User authentication
7
Participant roles & permissions
10
Confidential attendee list
10

Evaluating Skype for Business and Competitors

  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
While talking to ITS about our whole office package, i was told that there is nothing similar and that good as Microsoft office 365 Enterprise package for all the employees inside of our organization.

So the singe most important factor in my company's decision would be that offer that Microsoft has alongside with all the other great office products. It is just Win WIn.
There is not anything that i would change about my company's decision on having Skype for Business as our main communication tool. Whoever though about which platform we are going to use did a great job and a great research, my whole organization 10.000+ people are satisfied with how Skype for Business under different scenarios performs.