These include 8x8 Engage for cross-organisation customer engagement, Proactive Outreach for 8x8 Contact Centre and Unified Communications to eliminate the reactive nature of customer service, and 8x8 Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams to provide 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 organisation, further connect teams, expand to new channels and drive business success include:
• 8x8 Engage: An AI-powered, tailored solution that enables cross-organisation customer engagement for enhanced customer experiences, fostering loyalty and driving business success. Intentionally engineered, 8x8 Engage addresses the distinct needs of customer-facing employees outside of the contact centre with the right-fit tools and capabilities for delivering consistent, successful outcomes.
• Proactive customer engagement: Proactive Outreach for Unified Communications and Contact Centre customers uses 8x8's programmable SMS and WhatsApp capabilities to further enable cross-organisation customer engagement. It now allows CX professionals to launch highly personalised mass messaging campaigns through 8x8’s campaign management platform, with features such as scheduling, advanced routing, reporting and analytics.
• 8x8 Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams: Now a certified provider of Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams, 8x8 provides PSTN calling through Microsoft Teams Phone, powered by Microsoft’s Operator Connect for approved third-party providers. This addition to the 8x8 for Microsoft Teams portfolio provides a reliable calling option that streamlines deployments through the Teams admin centre and is from the only Operator Connect provider with a native Contact Centre 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 improve 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 8x8’s cloud contact centre and unified communications platform include:
• Improved analytics and reporting: Organisations 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.
• 8x8 Work usability and interface enhancements: New features for 8x8 Work include:
o Enhanced internal caller identification, call details tooltip, and voicemail log details.
o The ability to toggle on/off the app startup sound.
o Country-specific ringback tone while waiting for a call to be answered.
o Improved UI accessibility for screen readers.
o Optimised search during an incoming call while the app is in Compact mode.
o Intuitive call forwarding when routing calls to a user on a different PBX system.
• Supervisor workspace interface enhancements: Enhancements include the ability to further personalise the workspace by selecting and organising which agent and queues metrics and tables are visible to create a visually appealing view of the key information supervisors require.
• Enhancements to 8x8 smart channel routing: Provides cost-effective message delivery, 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 8x8 CPaaS Platform:
o Self-registration for WhatsApp Business account and SMS Sender ID on 8x8 Connect.
o Intelligent routing in 8x8 voice solutions.
o SMS integration with CleverTap.
"At 8x8, we understand that all innovations should be intentionally engineered to enable organisations 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 8x8. "By introducing these recent enhancements to our integrated cloud contact centre and unified communications platform, which is now expanding beyond the traditional CCaaS and UCaaS definitions to also include 8x8 Engage, we are prioritising solutions and capabilities that will enable organisations to provide their customers and employees with exceptional communication and collaboration experiences at every step of the customer journey."