8x8 Makes It Easier for Organizations to Engage, Work, and Manage Interactions Between Employees and Customers

Rhea-AI Summary

8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) has announced enhancements to its integrated cloud communications platform, focusing on optimizing employee and customer engagement. Key updates include the integration of 8x8 Contact Center with Microsoft Teams, new features for improved customer engagement, and a partnership with Verint for workforce management. Research indicates companies using unified solutions see higher customer satisfaction and revenue growth. 8x8's Winter 2021 Release aims to streamline workflows, drive sales success, and expand global reach, empowering organizations to enhance customer experiences and operational efficiency.

Positive

• Integration with Microsoft Teams for seamless communication.
• Research shows unified solutions lead to 54% higher revenue growth.
• New features enhance customer engagement and sales efficiency.
• Partnership with Verint improves workforce management capabilities.
• 8x8 Contact Center recognized in Gartner's Magic Quadrant.

Negative

• None.

8x8, Inc. (NYSE:EGHT), a leading integrated cloud communications platform provider, today announced new contact center, voice communications, chat, meetings and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) product enhancements to optimize employee and customer engagement. The latest 8x8 updates highlight the benefits organizations gain by having an integrated contact center and communications solution from a single provider, making it easy to engage, work, and manage interactions between employees and customers.

Easy to Engage

8x8’s innovative customer engagement products help organizations exceed customer experience and growth objectives. According to Metrigy Research, companies integrating cloud communications and contact center with a single provider saw substantial benefits when compared to those using multiple providers. Using a single provider, companies reported increases in customer ratings (37 percent vs. 29 percent) and a dramatic rise in revenue (54 percent vs. 26 percent) versus their multiple-vendor counterparts.

The Winter 2021 Release adds new features and functionality, key partnerships and integrations that offer customers the ability to:

• Make and receive calls with 8x8 Contact Center and Microsoft Teams - 8x8 Contact Center is now included in Microsoft's Connected Contact Center for Microsoft Teams Certification program, integrating seamlessly with 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams direct routing capabilities. Contact center agents, knowledge workers and supervisors can make and receive PSTN calls using the native Microsoft Teams app as the preferred endpoint. Learn more about the Top Microsoft Teams Trends in 2021 in the upcoming 8x8 webinar.
• Drive customer engagement and sales success - Customers can now utilize 8x8 Quality Management for both inbound and outbound voice. The closed-loop workflow now includes automated notification, acknowledgement, feedback and reporting for more effective coaching. Combined with 8x8 Speech Analytics, 8x8 customers can easily mine, gather and share specific contextual examples of interactions with teams and individuals to improve NPS/CSAT, upsell, cross-sell and objection-handling training without exhaustive manual processing.
• Improve overall effectiveness of outbound campaigns - Enhancements to 8x8 Auto Dialer, like expanded monitoring statistics, help customers more effectively monitor, adjust and optimize campaign performance. To maximize call connection rates, expanded Sequential Dialing functionality now supports up to 22 numbers, making it easier to identify, select, and establish the order in which phone numbers will be contacted. High-volume and blended inbound/outbound sales teams can save time and experience greater productivity with enhanced support of auto-retry for abandoned and non-answered calls, busy tones, and answering machine detection.
• Expand workforce management functionality with Verint Monet and Verint Enterprise - 8x8 and Verint recently announced a partnership, bringing additional cloud workforce management applications integrated with 8x8 Contact Center. Tight synchronization of historical and real-time interaction data and agent information from 8x8 Contact Center with Verint Monet or Verint Enterprise is out of the box without the need for professional services, allowing mid-market and enterprise businesses to optimize customer engagement operations by making it even easier to plan, forecast, and schedule contact center agent workloads.
• Build customer trust - With Google Verified SMS, which is now available to 8x8 business customers through the 8x8 SMS API.
• Expand global customer reach - With the addition of KakaoTalk, a mobile messaging app with over 52 million monthly active users in South Korea. The 8x8 Chat Apps API now allows companies to reach customers across seven different services, including WhatsApp, Viber, and Facebook Messenger.

“We've seen tremendous results in using the 8x8 Auto Dialer,” said Dominic McDonald, Managing Director, italk telecom. “Increased agent productivity, simplified management, and overall improved visibility into our campaigns has made a significant impact in how we proactively connect with our customers. The user experiences for admins and agents alike is so simple that proactive outreach is an effortless part of our daily operations."

Easy to Work

The 8x8 Work app, which includes voice, video meetings and team chat, allows users to connect and collaborate securely with customers and colleagues from anywhere, using any device. New enhancements make it easier to:

• Manage settings directly from Microsoft Teams - With 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams, users can simply log into their Microsoft Teams app to view and update 8x8 calling configurations, including voicemail and call forwarding, as well as log in and out of call queues.
• Decide who runs video meetings - Advanced moderator settings allow meeting owners and administrators to designate a single moderator and elevate other participants to the moderator role at any time during the meeting.
• Ensure the highest level of meeting security - In addition to 8x8’s unparalleled standards-based end-to-end encryption, moderators can lock the meeting once it is underway, requiring new participants to request access in a lobby before joining.
• Message multimedia files for faster collaboration - Provides richer, more personalized and efficient media exchange with MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) support for multimedia attachments in external communications.
• Stay connected without interruption - The Flip Call banner allows users to immediately change devices without any loss of connection, while quick-reply messages allow users to decline incoming calls but stay engaged with colleagues, partners and customers.

Easy to Manage

The integrated 8x8 cloud communications and contact center platform allows organizations with distributed offices and workforce to reduce total cost of ownership, providing a single vendor for support and a central management portal for administration. Winter 2021 Release enhancements include:

• Support for compliance initiatives - 8x8 Nomadic E911 helps customers meet US regulations set forth by Kari’s Law and RAY BAUM’s Act by providing company notifications of emergency calls and accurate, dynamic user location information for emergency callers.
• Ability to customize cost centers - Supports payment methods and expense allocation allowing IT to chargeback service costs through the easy set up of independent and site-based cost centers using company locations, sites, and teams.

“The 8x8 single-vendor cloud platform was purpose-built to eliminate silos, facilitate dynamic collaboration and engage both customers and employees through highly personalized experiences,” said Dejan Deklich, Chief Product Officer at 8x8, Inc. “Our global cloud approach enables us to rapidly inject new, innovative capabilities into our integrated contact center, voice communications, chat, meetings, and APIs product. We are proud to support organizations’ digital transformation efforts with a platform that delivers everything they need to meet unique business requirements, and thrive in the new operate-from-anywhere model.”

8x8 Webinars

Register for the upcoming Winter 2021 Release webinar on February 2, 2021, at 8 am PT / 11 am ET to learn about the latest 8x8 contact center, voice communications, chat, meetings and CPaaS product enhancements.

8x8 will also host the 2021 Customer Experience Trends to Watch Webinar, on February 17, 2021 with R "Ray" Wang, Principal Analyst, Founder, and Chairman of Constellation Research, Inc, and 8x8 Vice President of Product Marketing Janice Rapp to discuss key trends impacting customer experience and the contact center in 2021 and beyond. Register for the webinar at 2021 Customer Experience Trends to Watch.

8x8 and Gartner Magic Quadrant

Recently, 8x8 was named a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide¹. This is the ninth consecutive year 8x8 has been recognized as a Leader in this report. 8x8 was also recognized as a Challenger in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service².

[1] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide, Rafael Benitez, Megan Fernandez, Daniel O'Connell, Christopher Trueman, Pankil Sheith, November 12, 2020. This Magic Quadrant report name has changed from 2015 onwards- 2015-2020: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, Worldwide, 2014: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America With Additional Regional Presence, 2012-2013: Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service, North America.

[2] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service, Steve Blood, Drew Kraus, Pri Rathnayake, November 9, 2020.

About 8x8, Inc.

8x8, Inc. (NYSE: EGHT) is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of contact center, voice communications, video, chat and API solutions powered by one global cloud communications platform. 8x8 empowers workforces worldwide to connect individuals and teams so they can collaborate faster and work smarter. Real-time business analytics and intelligence provide businesses unique insights across all interactions and channels so they can delight end-customers and accelerate their business. For additional information, visit www.8x8.com, or follow 8x8 on LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

8x8® and 8x8 X Series™ are trademarks of 8x8, Inc.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210128005353/en/

FAQ

What are the new features announced by 8x8, Inc. in their latest press release?

8x8, Inc. announced enhancements focused on improving customer engagement, including integration with Microsoft Teams, new customer engagement tools, and expanded workforce management capabilities with Verint.

How does 8x8's integration with Microsoft Teams benefit users?

The integration allows users to manage 8x8 calling configurations directly from Microsoft Teams, enhancing workflow and streamlining communication.

What are the key benefits reported by companies using 8x8's integrated solutions?

Companies reported a 54% increase in revenue and higher customer satisfaction ratings when using 8x8's integrated cloud communications and contact center solutions.

How does the partnership with Verint benefit 8x8 users?

The partnership enhances workforce management by providing integrated cloud applications that optimize customer engagement operations.

What recognition has 8x8, Inc. received in the Gartner Magic Quadrant?

8x8 was named a Leader in the 2020 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Unified Communications as a Service for the ninth consecutive year.