Over 86% of business owners say that inadequate communication tools are the number-one cause of problems in the workplace.
Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) software streamlines VoIP calling, audio/video communications, messaging systems, and more into one centralized platform, cutting down on frustrating and costly miscommunications.
8×8 UCaaS, an 8-time Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader, is one of the top unified communications tools. Some of 8×8’s top clients are McDonald’s, Regus, Remax, Farmers Insurance, and Edible Arrangements.
Below, we’ll break down its enterprise-grade features, benefits, and overall user experience.
What’s Included in 8×8 UCaas?
8×8 Inc’s X Series communications hub is an all-in-one cloud solution contact center including:
- Voice and Telephony
- Video and Audio Conferencing
- Universal Team Messaging
- Collaborative Contact Center
- Advanced Analytics
The X Series SaaS communications solution also offers employee training, customer support, and third-party software integrations.
The contact center solution is designed to improve company-wide team collaboration, boost communication among remote workers, and allow for consistent real-time customer communication.
8×8 Voice and Telephony Features
8×8’s enterprise-grade cloud based business phone system eliminates the need for costly hardware and annual maintenance fees while offering the advanced features and high call quality that a traditional office phone cannot.
Integration with CRM software and apps like Microsoft Teams allows end-users to view current and historical caller data in a single platform on both desktop and mobile devices. User-based tiered pricing structures make it easy and affordable to manage channels and administrators.
Top telephony features include:
- Free unlimited calls/SMS in the United States and Canada
- Unlimited global calling in up to 47 countries
- Outbound preview and predictive dialing
- Post-call surveys
- Automatic web callback or scheduled callback
- Call waiting, call parking, skills-based call routing
- IVR customer self-service
- Caller ID, call waiting, hot desking
- Call barge, whisper, and monitoring
- Compatibility with over 25 PSTN carriers
- Call recording with cloud or Dropbox storage
- Standard and visual voicemail with transcription
- Phone number porting
- Call queues and hold music
- Rules-based multi-level auto-attendant
- Agent status and availability updates
- FCC and HIPAA compliance
- Secure voice encryption
Video and Audio Conferencing
In addition to business telephony, 8×8’s HD Video Meeting tool provides internal and external face-to-face communication for up to 100 participants.
Integration with Google and Outlook calendars simplify the meeting scheduling process, while dedicating meeting room links and no-download click-to-join meetings offer greater convenience. “Meet Now” capabilities allow users to immediately transform any chat or call into a video conference.
Meeting attendees can dial into a web conference from over 50 countries for audio-only or video and audio participation, regardless of their communications platform service provider. Larger events can be streamed live on YouTube. Team messaging is also possible within video conferences.
Additional web conferencing features include:
- Screen sharing
- Remote desktop control
- Meeting recordings
- Muting, removing, or blocking attendees
- Push-to-talk mode
- Browser-based and mobile app access
- Anonymous meeting attendance
- Virtual hand raising
- Meeting password protection
- Multiple video screen layouts
- Join video meetings from in-room systems
Universal Team Messaging
In addition to channel-wide and one-on-one chat messaging, the Universal Team messaging tool offers private rooms and real-time integration with tools like Slack, Chatter, and more than 20 other messaging applications through its SameRoom feature.
Contacts are automatically added to the chat messaging system from the company directory, and users can turn chats into an audio or video call with a single click.
Additional features include:
- SMS text messaging
- File sharing
- Unlimited online facing
- User status updates (available, away, do not disturb, invisible)
- User mentions
- Read receipts
- Message thread following
- Live notifications
Collaborative Contact Center
The collaborative contact center combines the aforementioned omnichannel communication capabilities — including across email and social media — with workforce management.
It is are especially valuable to the remote workforce, allowing them to access upcoming schedules, provide superior customer service, and make outbound sales calls from anywhere they have Internet access.
Workforce management allows CIOs, managers, and team leaders to better analyze employee productivity, balance workloads, and identify areas that need improvement to provide better customer experience. Above all, it’s designed to increase first call resolution rates.
The Digital Channels tool allows customers to connect with employees on the platform of their choice while providing deep CX customer insights designed to maximize customer retention. Speech analysis makes it easy to identify customer sentiment and common issues, ensuring agents are better prepared for any customer interaction.
Additional features of the collaborative contact center include:
- Native CRM capabilities
- Automated scheduling
- Customer-agent co-browsing
- Volume forecasting
- Schedule adherence monitoring
- Interaction journey analysis
- Agent training optimization
- Screen and voice recording for call center compliance
- Team-wide knowledge base for faster customer support
- Call flow reports
- Post-call survey
- Social media communication channels
Advanced Analytics
8×8’s Advanced Analytics tools provide admins with actionable insights regarding agent productivity, customer satisfaction, call flow, quality, length, and business communication trends.
Improve call routing options, identify common pain points, and better analyze the customer journey with both live and historical data. Data regarding channel use, queue levels, talk time, and hold times, are some of the 15 available KPIs and call center metrics available for analysis.
Bar graphs, word clouds, color-coded pie charts, graphical views, and diagrams of the top 10 customer IVR paths provide several data visualization options.
Additional Advanced Analytics features include:
- Company-wide summary dashboard
- Searchable Speech Analytics data
- Real-time missed and abandoned call rates
- Live active call data
- Date range setting
- DID data
- Meeting analytics
- MOS scores
- Agent talk time data
8×8 Integrations
8×8 integrates with more than 200 CRM, productivity, and business communication tools, providing single sign-on capabilities and eliminating the need to switch back and forth throughout multiple applications.
Available integrations and APIs include:
- G Suite and Outlook
- Salesforce
- Zendesk
- Okta
- Slack
- Office 365
- Microsoft Teams
- Bullhorn
- Cisco Webex
- Zoho
Click here for a more complete list of available integrations.
User Experience
8×8 has an excellent customer satisfaction rating, with many users mentioning the ease of use, high level of customization, and call quality.
The below pros and cons have been compiled based on recent user reviews.
| 8×8 Pros | 8×8 Cons |
| Ease, speed, and cost savings of installation | Audio-only conference calls limited to 15 participants |
| Excellent onboarding training | Low video/image quality when screen sharing |
| 15 worldwide data centers, 99.999% uptime | Download required to open files shared in messenger |
| Consistent updates and new features | Some essential features as add-ons |
| High level of analytics and reporting | High fees for early termination of contracts |
| Responsive customer support | Video conferencing missing webinar and breakout room capabilities |
| Intuitive mobile application | Time-consuming auto attendant setup process |
8×8 UCaaS Pricing
8×8 X Series pricing is a tiered system, based on the number of licenses needed and add-on features required.
The below table outlines available 8×8 UCaaS pricing and plans.
| Features | X6 Plan | X7 Plan | X8 Plan |
| Pricing | From $115/user per month | From $135/user per month | From $175/user per month |
| Auto-Attendant | Basic | Multi-Level | Multi-level |
| Business SMS | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Business Phone Minutes | 4,000 minutes, 47 countries | 4,000 minutes, 47 countries | 4,000 minutes, 47 countries |
| Call Recording | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Outbound Preview/Predictive Dialer | X | X | ✓ |
| ACD features | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CRM features | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Customer Surveys | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Team Chat Messaging | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| File Sharing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Video/Audio Conferencing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Screen Sharing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CX Analytics | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Screen Recording | X | X | ✓ |
| Intelligent IVR | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on |
| Workforce Management | Add-on | Add-on | Add-on |
| Quality Management | Add-on | Add-on | Included in Plan |
| Speech Analytics | Add-on | Add-on | Included in Plan |
What Are The Top 8×8 Alternatives?
Unsure if 8×8 is the right choice for you? Curious about other CCaaS options?
Our comparison table of additional Enterprise VoIP software and UCaaS providers breaks down pricing and features of popular platforms like:
- Nextiva
- Dialpad
- GoToConnect
- RingCentral
- Avaya
However, 8×8’s UCaaS platform is ideal for large-scale corporations with a high daily volume of internal and external communications. Common 8×8 use cases include accounting, higher education, insurance sales, hospitals, retailers, and federal government agencies.
It quickly facilities omnichannel large and small business communications between departments, customers and representatives, and managers and employees.
Streamline your communication platform and stop losing valuable time with 8×8.
