Modernizing Phone System to Microsoft Teams Voice for NBGC

Neighborhood Boys & Girls Club (NBGC), a nonprofit, independent youth development organization on Chicago’s North Side, recently worked with Centric Consulting to migrate its outdated phone system to the cloud-based Microsoft Teams Voice.

As a result, the agency is ready to answer its community’s call — anytime, anywhere.

“Implementing the Microsoft Teams phone system has truly streamlined our operations and made our team more efficient,” said NBGC Executive Director Jeffrey Sadowski. “We are very happy with the final solution and appreciate how it’s improved our day-to-day work.”

Each year, NBGC supports five public schools and more than 2,500 at-risk children. That responsibility demands timely communication for:

• Parents to check on their kids and after-school programs
• Staff to coordinate events and respond to emergencies
• Prospective volunteers to look for opportunities

However, for years, NBGC faced significant limitations because of its outdated Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), which could only support three active calls and tied employees to their desk phones.

• Could only support three active calls at a time
• Tied employees to their desk phones
• Featured a cumbersome voicemail system and outdated software

A failure could result in missed opportunities to help a child, support a family, or organize a vital program.

Enter Centric: Aligning Objects for a Smooth Transition to a Cloud Phone System

For help, NBGC reached out to one of its board members, Centric Chicago Client Partner Bill Pittges. He helped NBGC identify clear objectives to maintain most existing workflows and processes while enhancing them with advanced communication features. The objectives included:

• Keeping existing phone numbers: Families and staff needed to reach the club using the same numbers they’d always used.
• Preserving call routing: All designated phones needed to ring for incoming calls, keeping the club’s workflow intact.
• Retaining extension dialing: Each phone needed to remain individually reachable within the club. Families and staff had to retain their ability to reach staff directly.
• Enabling outbound calls for all: The system needed the capacity for more than three lines to be open concurrently.
• Maintaining shared voicemail access: Staff needed a simple way to manage messages from any device, rather than accessing voicemail by dialing in from a handset only.
• Maintaining Call Park: Staff also needed the ability to place calls on hold and retrieve them from any handset.

“Based on NBGC’s strategy to eliminate as much on-prem technology as possible, and Centric’s growing alliance with Microsoft, we identified the cloud-based Teams Voice system as the best option,” he said. “I knew Centric had the telephony skills, and that we could accomplish this goal together.”

In addition to meeting NBGC’s technical requirements, Teams also supported the organization’s goal of avoiding as much disruption as possible. For example, replacing 20 traditional handsets with Teams Voice-enabled Polycom CCX 500 devices would give staff a familiar but enhanced experience.

With the solution identified, NBGC began moving to the new cloud phone system.

The Results: Modernizing with Microsoft Teams Voice

While NGBC staff were already using Microsoft Teams for collaboration and internal communications, the addition of Teams Voice required careful planning, technical expertise, and attention to detail. The migration process included several key steps:

• Number Porting: Coordinating with the existing carrier and Microsoft to transfer the organization’s three main numbers.
• Call Routing Preservation: Mapping current call flows onto Teams Voice to guarantee that inbound calls would continue to ring all phones at once and that extension dialing would function as before.
• Feature Mapping: Evaluating and replicating legacy features within the Teams Voice environment, including shared voicemail, call park, and extension dialing.
• Device Upgrade: Deploying 20 Polycom CCX 500 Teams-enabled handsets, providing staff with the required familiar, yet enhanced, device experience.
• Testing and Validation: Conducting thorough tests to confirm that every objective was met and to resolve any issues or technical challenges as they came up.

As with any significant technology migration, NBGC faced several challenges. For example:

• Mapping legacy features to Teams Voice. The team needed a precise configuration so that call routing, shared voicemail, and extension dialing worked as expected. The team had to make and troubleshoot some adjustments manually, especially when adapting legacy features to their Teams Voice equivalents.
• Minimizing disruption during the number-porting process. The team scheduled the work outside of peak call hours and preserved the first number ported as a backup number so families always had a method of reaching the center.
• Making the changes as seamless as possible for staff. Building the new system in the familiar Teams environment minimized this challenge.

And while the team achieved its goal of making the change as seamless as possible, NBGC sought help from Centric for Microsoft Teams Voice change management training and to address any questions and adoption concerns.

“Our focus was on ensuring that staff were ready and aware of the changes ahead, such as the new handsets and procedures for voicemail,” said Centric People and Change Manager Cindy Sullivan. “We created proactive communications and custom job aids to help them on their journey to the new system.”

New Cloud Phone Functionality Empowers Staff and Families

The move to Teams Voice not only replicated the functions of the old system but also introduced new features that dramatically improved the club’s communication experience. For example:

• Staff and external callers can now easily dial or transfer calls just by saying the recipient’s name, streamlining communications
• Instead of dialing in to voicemail and using a code to access individual mailboxes, staff now receive emailed transcriptions of their messages so they can review them and respond promptly
• Employees can now answer calls on any device, whether a desk phone, PC, mobile phone, or tablet.

In addition, before the switch to Teams Voice, NBGC lacked the IT resources needed to support the POTS phone system. Now the organization has the full backing of Microsoft support, removing the cost and administrative burden of maintaining and repairing the cloud-based phone system.

These enhancements have led to lower costs, improved responsiveness, and a communication experience that aligns with NBGC’s mission.

Answering Every Call, Empowering Every Connection Through Microsoft Teams Voice

The NBGC Team Voice Project serves as a strong example of how organizations can modernize legacy communication systems to achieve greater flexibility, reliability, and functionality.

It replaced a fragile, capacity-limited POTS system with a modern, resilient cloud-based platform — without disrupting the call experience staff and families count on. With Teams Voice and Polycom CCX 500 devices, NBGC now enjoys seamless continuity, powerful new capabilities, and the flexibility to answer the call for its community.