While many organizations see the need for a complete contact center solution, many others choose to use Unified Communications (UC) solutions as their key customer experience contact solution.

As you would expect from the experts that Gartner has recognised as a UC leader for 12 years in a row now - the only company to have that longevity - 8x8 works with a number of organizations and more than one million users worldwide to deliver an outstanding experience in UC.

Legacy tech letting down customer analytics

Halfords turned to 8x8 after their on-premises solution started to show its age. Customers would call a store but couldn’t be transferred to another store location, Autocentre, or team. The other legacy systems also made it difficult for Halfords to utilize metrics to track and improve the customer experience.

After moving to 8x8, the difference was clear. Staff relished being able to stay connected from anywhere with a single app for voice, video, and chat on their laptops and mobile phones. Live web chat and the call-back service reduced queuing and lost calls while 8x8’s integration with Salesforce meant that customer details appeared instantly on screen once the call connected.

As a result of the change, calls were resolved faster, customers had a better experience, and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) and Net Promoter Scores were boosted.

Healthcare needs

The Princess Alexandra Hospital NHS Trust provides general acute, outpatient and diagnostic services, serving an extended catchment area of up to 500,000 residents in Essex. It needed a modern service to match the needs of a modern population and their ailments.

Thanks to 8x8 patients are now getting far better experiences – and no engaged tones at the switchboard. They can use direct dialing to reach employees or request call-backs. Meanwhile, managers value being able to see analytics on wallboards in real-time – and can fine tune services to fit needs.

With better communications and insights, the contact center has been able to handle around 200 calls per day, up from 90. They’ve also driven down the number of missed appointments, which can cost £300-800 each in an area such as radiology.

Jeffrey Wood, Deputy Director of ICT at the Trust, said: “Every time we think of a new feature we might need, we don’t need to keep looking for new suppliers – because 8x8 come back with the answers.”

Helping citizens to make a difference in their day to day dealings

Liverpool City Council is the governing body for the city of Liverpool in Merseyside, England. Residents live, bank, and shop online — and expect council services to be in the digital space too. With a digital approach, the council can also use resources more effectively, whilst ensuring that those people who require more help and support to interact with us are not left behind.

Now, the council has a single platform for all customer communications, including voice, emails, and social media. This digital approach massively reduces costs because meeting in-person can cost £15 per meeting but dealing digitally or via telephony costs pence instead of pounds.

Building up

Abri Housing is one of the UK’s largest housing associations with over 50,000 homes across the south of England. Abri puts home owners and tenants first by providing outstanding customer service, thanks to 8x8.

Abri used to have an outdated communications system that was not reliable and lacked the flexibility, agility, and functionality needed to deliver modern tenant experiences. Due to the lack of stability in the previous system, teams were spending too much time focusing on troubleshooting as opposed to delivering good customer experiences. Staff morale was low with agents coming into work expecting the system not to work and tenants being unable to get through to speak with an agent. Communication with customers and between internal staff members was becoming increasingly frustrating, which resulted in an unwelcome, negative perception of the organization, as well as a negative impact on employee and tenant satisfaction scores.

Since adopting 8x8 for contact center agents, Abri has seen significant improvements in response times. Reporting and analytics have made a big difference to operations with out-of-the-box reports saving managers and supervisors time, and allowing them to become more effective and focus on what really matters.

Award-winning UC too.

It’s not just customers who love our UC Solutions. Judges and industry experts do too. In addition to Gartner, we were recently Highly Commended at the Comms Business Awards as Best UC Vendor. Also, our UC efforts have been shortlisted in this September’s CNA Awards and CCUK Awards.

You See? 8x8 delivers Unified Communications success

Learn more about our UC solution or get in touch with the Sales team and see how they can help you and your business.