Recent Platform Capabilities Include 8×8 Engage for Cross-organization Customer Engagement, 8×8 Operator Connect for Deeper Integration with Microsoft Teams, and New Bulk Messaging Capabilities for Outbound Customer Engagement
8×8, Inc., a leading integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform provider, today highlighted the latest enhancements to the 8×8 integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform. These include 8×8 Engage for cross-organization customer engagement, Proactive Outreach for 8×8 Contact Center and Unified Communications to eliminate the reactive nature of customer service, and 8×8 Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams to provide Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) calling through Microsoft Teams Phone, as well as enhanced collaboration features for employees and customers to improve communication and service.
Recent innovations to enhance customer engagement throughout the organization, further connect teams, expand to new channels, and drive business success include:
- 8×8 Engage: An AI-powered, tailored solution that enables cross-organization customer engagement for enhanced customer experiences, fostering loyalty, and driving business success. Intentionally engineered, 8×8 Engage addresses the distinct needs of customer-facing employees outside of the contact center with the right-fit tools and capabilities for delivering consistent, successful outcomes.
- Proactive Customer Engagement: Proactive Outreach for Unified Communications and Contact Center customers utilizes 8×8’s programmable SMS and WhatsApp capabilities to further enable cross-organization customer engagement. It now allows CX professionals to launch highly personalized mass messaging campaigns through 8×8’s campaign management platform, with features such as scheduling, advanced routing, reporting and analytics, and more.
- 8×8 Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams: Now a certified provider of Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams, 8×8 provides PSTN calling through Microsoft Teams Phone, powered by Microsoft’s Operator Connect for approved third-party providers. This addition to the 8×8 for Microsoft Teams portfolio provides a reliable calling option that streamlines deployments through the Teams admin center, and is from the only Operator Connect provider with a native Contact Center Solution certified to integrate with Teams.
- Meeting Whiteboards: Meeting participants can now contribute to a whiteboard by drawing, writing, and connecting items for more effective brainstorms, to better illustrate ideas, and to boost real-time collaboration.
- The Line Official Notification Channel for Businesses: The LINE Official Notification (LON) channel is available for businesses to send one-way notifications, such as order confirmations and payment reminders, to customers in Thailand and Indonesia.
Further updates to 8×8’s cloud contact center and unified communications platform include:
- Improved Analytics and Reporting: Organizations can now use a new version of the Calls by DID report to track incoming call activity to phone numbers, see aggregated call volumes, and review how calls were handled at every number—regardless of how the call was handled.
- 8×8 Work Usability and Interface Enhancements: New features for 8×8 Work include:
- Enhanced internal caller identification, call details tooltip, and voicemail log details
- The ability to toggle on/off the app startup sound
- Country-specific ringback tone while waiting for a call to be answered
- Improved UI accessibility for screen readers
- Optimized search during an incoming call while the app is in Compact mode
- Intuitive call forwarding when routing calls to a user on a different PBX system
- Supervisor Workspace Interface Enhancements: Enhancements include the ability to further personalize the workspace by selecting and organizing which agent and queues metrics and tables are visible to create a visually appealing view of the key information supervisors require.
- Enhancements to 8×8 Smart Channel Routing: The feature empowers businesses with cost-effective message delivery, seamlessly routing SMS messages to specific telecom operators and delivering them via alternative channels such as Viber. Other improvements include the integration of new messaging channels, offering more versatility by enabling one time password messages to be routed to WhatsApp and Zalo.
- Improvements to the 8×8 CPaaS Platform:
- Self-registration for WhatsApp Business account and SMS Sender ID on 8×8 Connect
- Intelligent routing in 8×8 voice solutions
- SMS integration with CleverTap
“At 8×8, we understand that all innovations should be intentionally engineered to enable organizations to bridge gaps between channels and teams, both internally and externally, to drive superior customer experiences and business success,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, Inc. “By introducing these recent enhancements to our integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform, which is now expanding beyond the traditional CCaaS and UCaaS definitions to also include 8×8 Engage, we are prioritizing solutions and capabilities that will enable organizations to provide their customers and employees with exceptional communication and collaboration experiences at every step of the customer journey.”
The 8×8 integrated cloud contact center and unified communications platform includes contact center, business phone, video meetings, team chat, and SMS capabilities in a single-vendor solution. The platform is built on a resilient, secure, and compliant platform, which offers the highest levels of reliability with financially backed, platform-wide 99.999% uptime SLA across an integrated cloud UCaaS and CCaaS solution.
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