8×8 Blasts Out New Contact Center, Communications Features for Hybrid Work

Partners who sell various 8×8 products and services have more features to entice customers. All of the upgrades aim to help businesses meet the needs of a hybrid workforce.

New to 8×8’s lineup is Work for Web, which the company says provides a secure unified communications and collaboration experience across almost any device and operating system. It offers the same user experience in Chrome and Microsoft Edge that you get in the 8×8 Work app.

The company’s integrated cloud contact center and communications product includes a number of other new features, including:

• The ability to start or join video meetings from a mobile browser without downloading an app.
• The ability to customize video meeting backgrounds by blurring or selecting an image.
• A function that allows you to respond to specific team chat messages.
• Silencing incoming calls during a video chat. That keeps anyone from interrupting your meeting, ideal for if you are recording.

Contact Center

Furthermore, 8×8 says the updates make it easier for contact center agents to resolve customer issues. For example, 8×8 Contact Center for Microsoft Teams gives sales, service and support agents the ability to connect and collaborate with fellow agents more quickly. Also, the 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams app is now available. This gives users access to features and settings such as voicemail and call-forwarding directly in Teams.

Also new is what 8×8 says is the industry’s only platform-wide service-level agreement to enable hybrid work.

8×8’s Dejan Deklich

Dejan Deklich is chief product officer at 8×8.

“[The] hybrid work model … is transforming the way employees and customers communicate, collaborate and engage,” said Deklich. “The 8×8 customer-first, product-first, team-first culture drives our commitment to innovate on the integrated cloud contact center and communications platform, allowing organizations and their employees to work and engage from anywhere, on any device in the app of their choice.”

The company has good reason to make hybrid work more convenient for its customers. A recent 8×8-commissioned survey found 82% of organizations plan to offer a mix of remote and in-the-office work.