In an inspiring new blog post from Microsoft, the well-known software giant has unveiled an exciting new feature to their collaboration tool, Teams. Microsoft's long-term vision of integrating tools for both communication and collaboration from a single platform is taking shape with this recent introduction of financial transactions. This step enhances user experience for the over 300 million people who utilise Teams to stay productive and interconnected with colleagues, clients, friends, and family.
The latest Payments app, designed for small businesses and currently in public preview in the Teams Store, streamlines handling and receiving payments during any meeting. Whether it’s for appointments, classes, webinars, or license renewal sessions, businesses in the United States and Canada can manage their finances effortlessly using Teams on their desktop or mobile device.
The burgeoning feature will greatly assist professionals across various sectors. For instance, professionals like attorneys or financial advisors can now collect payments for consultancy sessions whilst simultaneously interacting with their clients.
Capitalising on partnerships with renowned entities such as GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe, Microsoft showcases this groundbreaking application that extends Teams core collaboration capacities with notable commerce functionalities. Teams users can establish connections to their GoDaddy Payments, PayPal, and Stripe accounts to send payment requests to their customers during a virtual meeting in mere clicks.
Customers then remit payments using their credit/debit cards, digital wallets, and more. The Payments application also provides an overview of completed transactions and pending payments, simplifying customer payments management.
The app is free for Teams Essentials and Microsoft 365 business subscribers. Stripe and PayPal are currently accessible within the app, with GoDaddy Payments to be introduced shortly. To learn how to install and configure the Payment app within Teams, more information can be found here.
Microsoft's recent strides to serve Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have been summarised aptly during the National Small Business Week. Boosting AI, payments, and collaboration tool innovations are among the various efforts from Microsoft to support these companies in their growth trajectories.
Notable partners, GoDaddy, PayPal, and Stripe share this vision to revolutionise the way SMEs conduct business, especially in the face of the pandemic-induced shift towards digital transactions. Microsoft Teams is set to enhance virtual customer interactions and facilitate online revenue growth. This new payment method provides both the consumer and businesses with a trusted method well-known to both parties.
In line with the global shift towards virtual services, the ability to collect payments during virtual meetings opens up opportunities for several small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). Digital transformation due to the pandemic has made virtual meetings the norm and this integrated Payments tool is a huge step supporting this.
UL>Microsoft Teams continues to bring innovative solutions to better serve its users - from communication and collaboration to now, payments.