As the worlds of unified communications and contact centre increasingly and rapidly merge into the converged world of customer experiences, integrated cloud contact centre and unified communications platform provider 8×8 has made enhancements in its core experience communications as a service (XCaaS) platform, designed to elevate customer and employee experiences.
Explaining the reasons for the introduction, the company said it recognises that one size does not fit all, and that it was looking for ways to innovate across its cloud contact centre and unified communications platform to provide organisations with the technology solutions they need, now and as their businesses grow.
The features in the 8×8 Contact Centre include artificial intelligence (AI)-generated post-meeting smart summaries and action items; rich omnichannel experiences for both contact centre and unified communications services; AI summarisation beta for 8×8 Speech Analytics, additional integrations with key technology partners; global workforce support with language enhancements in the Supervisor Workspace product; and improved productivity and efficiency capabilities in contact centre and unified communications to improve customer and employee experiences.
A limited beta of AI summarisation is now on offer for customers who utilise 8×8 Speech Analytics. This feature will automatically extract key information from calls and push a smart summary and recorded interaction directly into select CRM.
Beta availability is limited. Noting that contact centre leaders are empowered to deliver an enhanced omnichannel customer experience, new integration capabilities are said to be able to create richer omnichannel experiences. This is achieved by now allowing agents to reply to SMS and WhatsApp messages, initiate SMS and receive screen pop-up contextual information for these channels while using the 8×8 for Salesforce or 8×8 for Microsoft Dynamics Integrations.
New agent workspace productivity and efficiency enhancements include a directory search user interface that allows agents to locate the right contacts, revisit previous searches and receive alternative search suggestions when no search results are found for enhanced efficiency and improved experiences. Agents can now find queue and ring groups in the contact directory, improving productivity and accuracy.
Looking to streamline email handling, agents can now handle emails from the Control Panel, the same place where they handle chats and phone interactions, allowing the agent to view the email thread in the local CRM to improve agent efficiency. 8×8 Supervisor Workspace now supports seven different languages, automatically matching the selected language in the product’s admin settings. In addition, new criteria is now available in the top filter bar, allowing the selection of different media, so users can only see queues from inbound phone, outbound phone, voicemail, chat and email.
Updates for 8×8 Unified Communications include the addition of AI-powered video meeting capabilities to the XCaaS platform, designed to give users real-time access to AI transcriptions, smart summaries and follow-up action items for enhanced collaboration during and after meetings.
The features highlight 8×8’s continued focus on platform innovation and delivering AI-driven contact centre and unified communications services to improve productivity and efficiency. Additionally, a new analytics dashboard provides IT admin with better visibility into meetings and performance metrics.
New 8×8 CPaaS capabilities encompass cost savings with phone number intelligence, with a new phone number intelligence feature evaluating the legitimacy and responsiveness of phone numbers using historical behavioural data. This is intended to enhance the deliverability of SMS messages, providing businesses with cost savings and higher conversion rates.
Callflows API enables users to build their own custom voice call flows, incorporating popular use cases such as number masking, complex IVRs and voice messaging. An SMS extension in the Cognigy marketplace allows users to integrate SMS messaging into their conversation workflows, while a native integration with MoEngage for WhatsApp allows users to launch, measure and automate WhatsApp campaigns.
Commenting on the suite’s enhancements, 8×8 chief product officer Hunter Middleton said: “8×8 XCaaS provides organisations with a single platform capable of providing customer engagement, collaboration and communications functionality across the entire organisation, which is why creating a seamless, easy-to-use platform is so important to us – we are committed to providing our customers with the solution that is going to improve both customer and employee experiences, always.”