“The answer revealed itself pretty quickly,” Slope says. “We found only one solution that ticked all the boxes, and that was the 8x8 Experience Communications Platform.”
What stood out most was 8x8’s eXperience Communications as a Service (XCaaS), a deployment model that fuses unified communications and contact center capabilities. 8x8’s cloud-based solution checked another box: integrations.
“If you want a system that’s built on a robust library of APIs, look to the cloud,” Slope advises. “8x8 integrated beautifully with our Microsoft platforms.”
8x8’s established implementation methodology also helped make it a winner. ocV!BE Sports & Entertainment implemented 8x8 in five large office locations in under five months and is on track to complete all 15 sites by the end of year one.
“Communications is the backbone of this organization,” says Slope. “We thought this switch would be complicated and challenging, and it just wasn’t at all disruptive.” The switch even went flawlessly at Honda Center – a massive location with over 800 phones.
“Sentiment analysis is one of the unique features of 8x8,” Slope says. Using 8x8’s Speech Analytics, they are able to examine sales and retention conversations to analyze what customers are thinking and feeling. With that insight, ocV!BE Sports & Entertainment can anticipate buyer behavior and continuously refine the sales process for success.
Another advantage of 8x8 is its unified communications platform that includes voice, video conferencing and chat.
“Allowing our staff to work from wherever is one of the huge benefits of 8x8,” Slope says. Especially in an organization where events take place at night, the freedom and flexibility to work from anywhere has ignited collaboration. “They can join meetings from wherever they need to be, but still be as present as somebody who’s in the office,” Slope says.
Before 8x8, employees installed their choice of meeting software. “The shadow IT was an absolute nightmare to referee and secure,” Slope recalls. They wanted one reliable tool that is easy to use and yet keeps meetings secure. 8x8 Meet was the answer. Within six weeks of implementing 8x8, ocV!BE deprecated the point solutions without any objections.
When a new employee starts, everything is ready for them on day one. With 8x8, ocV!BE Sports & Entertainment sliced the time for employee onboarding from days to hours, and phone training is a five-minute orientation to the 8x8 platform.
When ocV!BE Sports & Entertainment implemented 8x8, they discovered long-forgotten landlines and telecom carriers. Eliminating them saves ocV!BE Sports & Entertainment about $36,000 per year.
“It's very gratifying to choose the right product and have it deliver what they say it’s going to deliver,” Slope says. “If we hadn’t chosen a product as capable as 8x8, I wouldn’t have been so confident about leaving those other services behind.”
