8×8 has announced a host of new innovations to its XCaaS platform, including Microsoft Teams integrations and new meetings capabilities.
The VoIP product vendor has released its 8×8 Phone App for Microsoft Teams, a video meeting solution, work usability and interference enhancements, and much more.
‘XCaaS’ is an acronym coined by 8×8, which stands for ‘eXperience Communications as a Service’. It combines both its UCaaS, CPaaS, and CCaaS capabilities into a single offering.
Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, Inc, spoke about the benefits of its XCaaS offering: “At 8×8 we are committed to providing our customers with a customer engagement, communications and collaboration platform that not only offers the highest levels of innovation, but is reliable and easy to use.
“Our highly tailored and seamless integrated cloud contact centre and unified communications platform, not only improves employee and customer communications and collaboration, but it does away with disjointed, siloed information and resources.
Middleton continued: “Instead, everyone across the entire organization is empowered to provide the best possible experiences for their customers, regardless of whether they sit in the contact centre or elsewhere, which leads to overall happier customers and employees, and positive business growth.”
UCaaS Enhancements
8×8 has announced the 8×8 Phone App for Microsoft Teams, which enables PSTN calling without the need for per-user Teams Phone licences, desktop plugins, or additional software outside of Teams. Using 8×8’s direct routing service, it provides native calling within Teams. According to 8×8, it is simple for IT to deploy and manage, and flexible for organisations to customise licensing costs to meet their business needs.
8×8 has launched video enhancements in the form of a video meeting solution for up to 10,000 participants at events such as town halls, auctions, and other large audience events. 8×8 meetings will also have the option of turning off video hardware acceleration to improve shared content legibility and support for the modern AV1 video codec.
Work usability and interface enhancements include new call recording filters, the possibility of importing personal or company contacts from Office 365 and Outlook into 8×8 Work for desktop, an improved microphone Automatic Gain Control (AGC), and embedded call quality alerts for the status of connections.
CPaaS Enhancements
The 8×8 Omni Shield solution enables companies to protect their customers from fraudulent SMS activity through automated fraud alerts, real-time notifications, live traffic monitoring, and instant phone number assessments.
8×8 Voice allows customers to build automated phone systems to handle routing calls, capturing phone numbers, and more.
Smart Channel Routing locates telecom operators which can provide a more cost-effective alternative to route SMS messages.
8×8 Chat Apps now includes the Zalo Notification Service (ZNS), allowing businesses to send personalised notifications to users in Vietnam.
8×8 Connect has added the capability to let agents track the progress of their SMS Sender ID registration requests.
8×8 App to App Calling with automated fallback to the PSTN enables greater call reliability, access to voice logs on 8×8 Connect, and the ability to create customer call flows.
Communication API Enhancements include improved WhatsApp reporting on 8×8 Connect, multi-browser support for 8×8 Video Interactions, as well as 2FA on 8×8 Converse.
CCaaS Enhancements
An AI-powered voice self-service is now available for 8×8 Intelligent Customer Assistant.
Contact centre agents can now switch customer interactions to video from within 8×8 Agent Workspace. Furthermore, call handling has been added directly within 8×8 Agent Workspace.
8×8 Technology Partner Ecosystem includes a network of Independent Software Vendors, Value Added Resellers, and Systems Integrators to solve customer experience use cases.
A deeper Salesforce integration has been added, enabling 8×8 Contact Center and Salesforce customers to send and receive SMS and WhatsApp messages.
8×8 scripting functions allow admins to build out questions and quick replies to customers via web chat.
Enhancements to 8×8 Supervisor Workspace include interaction retrieval pages, and access to Barge, Monitor, and Whisper within the Agent Table Widget.
The XCaaS Global Reach platform was also extended to include two new global carriers in Hong Kong and South Africa to provide more effective local support and improved redundancy.
Last month, Lake Ridge Bank deployed 8×8’s XCaaS to improve its customer engagement and employee experience.
