8×8 Delivers Latest Platform Innovations Adding Video Engagement to 8×8 Contact Center

8×8, Inc., a leading business communications, CX and CPaaS platform provider, announced expanded availability of Video Elevation capabilities for 8×8 Contact Center. The new digital engagement capabilities enable contact center agents to visually diagnose and resolve issues, such as property damage or the assembly of a recently purchased product, reducing the need for onsite technical assistance and improving the overall customer experience. Since introducing Video Elevation, video interactions initiated by agents using 8×8 Contact Center to assess and resolve customer inquiries have grown by 150% quarter-over-quarter.

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The video escalation feature enables agents to evaluate and determine the best course of action on a case-by-case basis, reducing support costs and unnecessary time spent on onsite visits. For instance in the UK, housing associations have used Video Elevation to address tenant concerns remotely by assessing the urgency of repair and resolving routine maintenance requests without the need for an onsite visit from a technician, enhancing first contact resolution.

UK public housing association, Platform Housing Group, used the one-way video capabilities to handle 31% of issues remotely as well as replace more than 20 on-premises computer servers. “The £50,000 saved on communications hardware per year is just the beginning, once you factor in a host of time-savings. The phone bill is almost zero each month and when we added 300 users, our costs remained virtually static,” said Mohammed Zabir, Director of Technology & Delivery at Platform Housing Group.

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“Video is widely used for business meetings and personal interactions, so why not extend its value for customer interactions, especially considering consumers overwhelmingly want to use video and screen-sharing when they interact with companies,” says Robin Gareiss, CEO of Metrigy. “For example, nearly 97% say they want to use these technologies when they are troubleshooting new products. This may explain why customer satisfaction improves by 41.4% and resolution time improves by 40.6% when video and/or screen-sharing are used.”

For the retail sector, 8×8 customers have leveraged Video Elevation to enable their customers to ask agents for help with assembly or identifying a missing part quickly and easily. Further, contact center agents can reduce average handling time by clarifying confusing discussions and overcoming language barriers.

“Video Elevation is incredibly user-friendly and intuitive. It allows our contact center agents to easily interact with a dealership through video or screen sharing to troubleshoot and resolve issues,” said Tom Gustine, Lead Technical Service Specialist at Manitou Group, a French heavy equipment manufacturer of forklifts, cherry pickers, telehandlers, and other heavy equipment. “It has enabled us to solve complex issues quickly and efficiently while saving time and resources.”

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Example use cases and key benefits of 8×8 Contact Center video elevation capabilities include:

• Easy to Use, Mobile-first Engagement for Automobile Insurance Providers: Contact center agents share a secure, one-way video link via SMS, allowing customers to easily grant the agent permission to see their mobile device camera and geolocation in real time, reducing the need for onsite technicians to assess automobile damage and speeding up insurance claim processing times.
• Reduce Cost and Time for Manufacturers: Assess issues with complex manufacturing equipment quickly to determine if an issue can be resolved remotely or if an onsite visit is necessary.
• Meet Rising Tenant Expectations for UK Public Housing Associations: Video Elevation provides tenants of housing associations with a new video engagement channel capability to resolve issues more quickly and in a more empathetic and personalized way.
• Easy Access to the Full Customer Story for Retailers: In today’s omnichannel environment, consumers often interact with retailers across several channels before making a purchase. Video recording history can be found in the 8×8 Agent Workspace and any still screenshots, metadata, and the recordings themselves are stored within the 8×8 CRM, making it easy for the agents to access all the customer context they need to deliver a personalized experience.
• Dynamic Agent Controls for Utilities: Agents are given multiple, dynamic controls to assist the customer as efficiently as possible, including the ability to take a screenshot of a water meter, for example, on the customer’s camera, request exact location of an issue, as well as request to flip to the other camera on their device.
• Great Agent Experience: Native video elevation functionality allows agents to utilize the capabilities directly in 8×8 Contact Center, providing additional privacy as they handle video interactions.
• Expanded Recording Storage: 8×8 supports up to 130 days of hot storage and up to ten years of cold storage for expanded coverage of video recordings.

“The ability to elevate customer support issues to video is an incredible way to optimize contact center operations while driving a higher level of customer experience and satisfaction,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, Inc. “The new one-way video capabilities reduce average handling times and increase first contact resolution for so many industries, including retail, manufacturing, and housing, while also improving the contact center agent experience, empowering them to provide faster, more seamless customer support.”