6 Benefits of an 8×8 Cloud Phone System
8×8 Cloud Phone System
8×8 is a cloud-based phone system, omnichannel contact centre and collaboration tool. It integrates voice, video, messaging, contact centre and APIs into one platform. We think it’s pretty great – here are 6 benefits of an 8x8 cloud phone system.
1. One Login, One Experience
Not everything moved to a cloud/hosted model at the same time. For a lot of cloud telephony providers, this means the business plan has been one of acquisition. When a peripheral service, like analytics or call recording becomes cloud-based, buy that company and bolt that service onto the original offering.
Unfortunately, this cobbling together is visible to the end-user – they have one set of login credentials for the desktop client, another for the admin portal, another for call recording, etc. What’s worse is they have to bookmark or remember separate URLs for each part of the service too.
With 8×8, it’s one set of details to remember for absolutely everything. Use the same login credentials for desktop, mobile and web RTC clients. This makes 8×8 incredibly easy for your staff to access and use, driving up adoption.
The 8×8 eXperience Communications Platform provides a single user experience across voice, video, chat and contact centre. The time for having two separate platforms is over.
2. One Number, Any Device
At times, a hosted service will market itself as a truly mobile solution, perfect for your home workers and road warriors who don’t have a permanent desk in the office. This is often the case – if you purchase the right bolt-ons at a pounds per user per month cost.
This caught a lot of businesses unaware when we were all forced to work from home in March 2020 – it should be easy to send your staff home when you’ve gone cloud. You shouldn’t need to think about whether you’ve got the right disparate parts available.
With the base license for 8×8, the X1, users can access the service from any device – desk phone, desktop client, mobile client, web RTC client, or any combination thereof.
They are not limited to a single client with expensive bolt-ons to access the others. All of these devices are reachable from a single DDI and will ring at the same time without any further configuration. This makes 8×8 a truly reliable mobility and remote solution.
3. Inclusive Minutes
With the 8×8 cloud phone system, say goodbye to minute bundles – unlimited minutes come as standard with your user license. The destinations included depend on the type of license you go for.
The X1 includes unlimited UK minutes, whereas the X4 through X8 include unlimited calls to 47 countries (excludes mobile, premium and special numbers).
Additional features are added as you move up through the licenses too, which makes it easy to take advantage of the great collaboration features 8×8 offers if there are specific destinations you need to dial.
Unlimited minutes mean predictability in your monthly bill, allowing you to forecast your telephony and collaboration costs accurately.
4. Integrated Contact Centre
If you want to move your contact centre to the cloud, you need to do your research, carefully! Some cloud contact centre services are delivered via an overlay, meaning they sit on top of your existing PBX, which is retained at your cost. The downside to this cloud contact centre service is that the two systems don’t speak to each other.
Any contact centre agent who needs to transfer a call to a non-contact centre agent must do so via an external call and won’t be aware of that user’s presence, which can lead to a poor customer experience.
8×8 offers an integrated cloud contact centre, meaning it’s all part of the same system/deployment.
Contact centre agents can search, dial, see presence, etc for non-contact centre agents and vice versa, just like in a traditional on-site solution.
The best bit about 8×8 Contact Centre is there isn’t a minimum number of seats or licenses to purchase. So if you’re a start-up with expansion in mind but still want to have your finger on the pulse of customer interactions – including voice, chat, SMS, social and email – this is possible without having to fork out for licenses you don’t need right away.
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More Information5. Microsoft Teams Integration
Integrating 8×8 with Microsoft Teams enables your team to make voice and video calls, as well as send messages, directly from the Teams interface. This can improve communication and collaboration within your organisation by reducing the need to switch between different applications.
8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams is a cloud-based direct routing service to make and receive calls over the PSTN using the Teams Desktop, mobile or web app with 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams.
8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams also enables contact centre agents using 8×8 Contact Centre for Microsoft Teams to simplify customer engagement workflows using Teams.
In short, you get all the features 8×8 offers in a single collaboration platform in Teams.
6. Easy to Deploy, Easy to Maintain
Because 8×8 is a cloud phone system, nothing needs to be installed in your server or comms room; the only kit that would require on-site installation is desk phones, and these are entirely optional.
Your 8×8 deployment with Croft will have a dedicated project coordinator and engineer who will discuss your requirements with you, document them and set the system up accordingly.
The most significant delay when it comes to 8×8 installs is number porting. If you’re happy to roll out a system with brand new numbers, this can be done within days (subject to engineer availability).
And once 8×8 is in, it’s easy to take care of. The admin portal is a point-and-click GUI that makes adds, moves and changes very straightforwardly. With full admin training provided by Croft, your 8×8 system can be fully managed in-house, even if your team isn’t IT savvy. But don’t forget the Croft service desk is always at the other end of the phone or an email, should you need us.
Did you know…
8×8 is an 11x Leader in the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for UCaaS, Worldwide. We could have easily made this benefit number 7. What it tells us is you can trust 8×8, they are relaible and consistent in their approach.
Interested in 8×8?
Croft are a trusted 8x8 partner and are experienced at deploying and supporting 8×8. We have a dedicated 8×8 team that can discuss your requirements, get to know your business and provide you with a demo.
Contact us to arrange your demo, request pricing or speak about anything 8×8.
