Item: Skype for Business, now part of Microsoft Teams
Rating: 9
Author: María Lucía Santagata

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We're using it for communicating with clients both nationally and abroad. It's used by my department and also by the commercial area, as we are the ones who communicate with clients. It's an alternative for Google Hangouts (our favorite tool for calls) and it helps us to share screens and images with remote clients, especially when making trainings or when we're defining changes in our services.

Pros and Cons

It's a light app to download.
Don't need any special OS specifications.
It's easy to share screens.
It allows many people to connect.

It's hard sometimes to connect the microphone or audio.
It's not that intuitive when audio or microphone problems happen. I had to restart a call several times because I couldn't figure out how to connect my microphone.
Sometimes has some delay when establishing the calls.

Return on Investment

The tool allows me to communicate with clients that don't like Google Hangouts.
Sometimes the calls are interrupted because the sound doesn't work and it's not easy to fix the problem.

Usability

As I wrote before, I think is an easy-to-download tool that doesn't require much system/hardware specifications, but also it doesn't work properly in cases of bad internet connection. Also, I think it needs to be more intuitive when it comes to fixing sound and microphone problems, because once you enter the call, if you didn't allow Skype for Business to access to your microphone (by mistake), for example, then you don't have the possibility to change it, so you have to leave the meeting and rejoin to fix the problem.

Support Rating

I haven't had to ask for support yet, so I really can't give an honest rating. Based on former experiences with other Microsoft products, I would give it a 7 as most of the times you can find the answer to your questions just by looking it up on their website's Q&A.

Alternatives Considered

Google Hangouts

I really prefer Google Hangouts, but some clients only use Microsoft Software. I use Skype for business to communicate with them as an alternative, but if I could, I would choose Hangouts, as I'm more used to that tool and feel it's much more intuitive and works better in cases of bad internet connection (where I live internet doesn't work perfectly all the time).

Other Software Used

Asana, Everhour, Google Hangouts

Likelihood to Recommend

Skype for Business is a useful tool when you have to work with clients/teams abroad or remote, especially if the members of the team are all in different places. Of course, it's not very useful if you don't work remotely, and I think most users nowadays prefer Google Hangouts because it's already integrated with the e-mail services and Google Calendar, where usually people make their appointments.

An alternative when communicating with clients

Overall Satisfaction with Skype for Business (formerly Lync)