Over the past 12 months, we’ve seen some incredible examples of how our customers around the world have innovated to keep employees connected and meet customer needs during a crisis. Now, as we move towards a long-term view of our new reality, digital transformation will be key to supporting these 3 strategic business imperatives:

  1. Improve employee productivity
  2. Engage customers in new ways
  3. Accelerate time to value

Improving employee productivity means adapting to more flexible, hybrid work models that may distribute communications and collaboration across devices, locations, and time zones.

Customers have similarly expanded their expectations for businesses to meet them on their terms—and provide consistent service by chat, phone, messaging and social media.

But the best intentions and the strongest technology will fall short in the absence of a unified platform and processes. Get it right, and organizations will realize faster time to value, more productive workforces, and happier customers.

And that’s what the 8x8 Spring 2021 Release is all about.

Innovations in this release deliver integrated cloud contact center and communications features specifically for organizations shifting to hybrid work. Here are just a few:

  • Communicate and collaborate from anywhere on any device. Work for Web (beta), Meetings enhancements - virtual backgrounds, native mobile browser access, call quality metrics and more.
  • Connect every agent and employee for faster customer resolution. Microsoft Teams Contact Center certification and Salesforce.com FastTrack deployment process.
  • Peace of mind on a global scale. Platform-wide high-availability service level agreement (SLA), PSTN replacement services in Argentina, and new in-region data residency compliance with operations in new geographic regions including supporting Australia, Germany, India and the Netherlands.

Communicate and Collaborate from Anywhere on Any Device

  • 8x8 Work for Web turns any modern browser into a supercharged communications workspace. Employees can connect with instant chat, high-quality phone calls and secure video meetings, all from their browser*. Try the beta version today.
  • The 8x8 Work app has been upgraded for easier collaboration and enhanced usability.

Gif: Changing virtual backgrounds in video meetings
  • A streamlined central toolbar consolidates all your in-meeting controls so you never have to hunt for the screen share (or mute!) button again.

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  • Inline replies keep responses where they belong and keep chat rooms clear and easy to scan.

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  • No more “Is that my connection or yours?” A new call quality indicator takes the guesswork (and blame game) out of poor audio quality by providing connectivity status during an active call.

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  • Manage 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams settings directly from your Teams app. Easily access 8x8 call settings for voicemail, call forwarding and call queues without leaving Teams.

Connect Every Agent and Employee for Faster Customer Resolution

  • 8x8 Contact Center is now a certified solution for Microsoft Teams. With 8x8 Contact Center for Microsoft Teams, front-office agents using Teams and back-office employees can all work together to assist customers quickly and improve first contact resolution (FCR).
New research by Metrigy shows that companies see a 40% increase in customer rates (CSAT & NPS) when integrating UCaaS and CCaaS from a single provider.
  • 8x8 Analytics for Contact Center has new configuration options for dashboards, widgets, and reports. Supervisors and analysts will see new reports with greater detail and be able to drill into information with additional data selection options for filtering and viewing widgets and reports. Users will be able to select new, graphical reports that enable them to quickly identify trends in their contact center and even easier capabilities to share the data gathered.

Peace of Mind on a Global Scale

  • Announcing the industry’s only platform-wide SLA across an integrated cloud Contact Center as a Service and Unified Communications as a Service system. 8x8’s secure, highly-available, global cloud technology platform provides four levels of redundancy and full transparency.
  • 8x8 continues to extend the international reach of its enhanced calling services, adding Argentina for a total of 43 countries where 8x8 offers a full range of PSTN replacement services.
  • The addition of Argentina further strengthens 8x8’s existing capabilities to support multinationals with a physical presence in the major Latin American export markets, including Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Peru.
  • 8x8 is committed to providing the security, reliability, and peace of mind that small businesses and enterprises expect. This is reflected by the new online 8x8 Trust Center, which highlights the security measures we take, the compliance standards we meet, and the reliability promises we make to support business communications and continuity across the globe. This includes a Live Service Status dashboard which provides real-time visibility of regional and global system availability of 8x8 services.

To learn more, register for our upcoming Spring 2021 Release webinar on May 4th, 2021 at 8 am PT / 11 am ET, or check out our product release page.