Chapter 2

How to choose a vendor.

Selecting the right communications should be easy, and we’ll show you how.

In Welcome to the new normal, we explore how employee collaboration and customer communication has transitioned to virtual-first. Making that successful depends on an all-in-one communications platform. 

In this chapter, we’ll outline four specific selection criteria you should consider when evaluating unified communications vendors.

Selecting the right communications should be easy, and we’ll show you how.

In Welcome to the new normal, we explore how employee collaboration and customer communication has transitioned to virtual-first. Making that successful depends on an all-in-one communications platform. 

In this chapter, we’ll outline four specific selection criteria you should consider when evaluating unified communications vendors.

Selecting the right communications should be easy, and we’ll show you how.

In Welcome to the new normal, we explore how employee collaboration and customer communication has transitioned to virtual-first. Making that successful depends on an all-in-one communications platform. 

In this chapter, we’ll outline four specific selection criteria you should consider when evaluating unified communications vendors.

Selecting the right communications should be easy, and we’ll show you how.

In Welcome to the new normal, we explore how employee collaboration and customer communication has transitioned to virtual-first. Making that successful depends on an all-in-one communications platform. 

In this chapter, we’ll outline four specific selection criteria you should consider when evaluating unified communications vendors.

We should all agree that communications security is especially important today, and yet it frequently takes a backseat to cost. Much of this is likely due to a lack of understanding of why it’s important, so let’s take a moment to clarify. 

When we talk about communications security, we’re primarily referring to encryption, which is making your data unreadable to those without the encryption key. 

And when we talk about data within communications, there are two types to consider: 

  1. Data at rest, such as communications history logs, recordings and other associated metadata
  2. Data in flight, meaning live calls, meetings or chats in progress

We should all agree that communications security is especially important today, and yet it frequently takes a backseat to cost. Much of this is likely due to a lack of understanding of why it’s important, so let’s take a moment to clarify. 

When we talk about communications security, we’re primarily referring to encryption, which is making your data unreadable to those without the encryption key. 

And when we talk about data within communications, there are two types to consider: 

  1. Data at rest, such as communications history logs, recordings and other associated metadata
  2. Data in flight, meaning live calls, meetings or chats in progress

We should all agree that communications security is especially important today, and yet it frequently takes a backseat to cost. Much of this is likely due to a lack of understanding of why it’s important, so let’s take a moment to clarify. 

When we talk about communications security, we’re primarily referring to encryption, which is making your data unreadable to those without the encryption key. 

And when we talk about data within communications, there are two types to consider: 

  1. Data at rest, such as communications history logs, recordings and other associated metadata
  2. Data in flight, meaning live calls, meetings or chats in progress

We should all agree that communications security is especially important today, and yet it frequently takes a backseat to cost. Much of this is likely due to a lack of understanding of why it’s important, so let’s take a moment to clarify. 

When we talk about communications security, we’re primarily referring to encryption, which is making your data unreadable to those without the encryption key. 

And when we talk about data within communications, there are two types to consider: 

  1. Data at rest, such as communications history logs, recordings and other associated metadata
  2. Data in flight, meaning live calls, meetings or chats in progress

So what puts that information at risk? According to this recent Nemertes report, common threats to business communications solutions include:

  • Denial-of-service attacks against providers, or against the enterprise that limit the ability of users to connect to cloud services
  • Toll fraud attacks that cause unwanted and costly outbound calls, or that route calls across high-cost network providers
  • Phishing attacks designed to enable unauthorized log-in to a user’s communications applications

These attacks are becoming alarmingly more common, taking advantage of the recent shift toward increased remote-work models.

So what puts that information at risk? According to this recent Nemertes report, common threats to business communications solutions include:

  • Denial-of-service attacks against providers, or against the enterprise that limit the ability of users to connect to cloud services
  • Toll fraud attacks that cause unwanted and costly outbound calls, or that route calls across high-cost network providers
  • Phishing attacks designed to enable unauthorized log-in to a user’s communications applications

These attacks are becoming alarmingly more common, taking advantage of the recent shift toward increased remote-work models.

So what puts that information at risk? According to this recent Nemertes report, common threats to business communications solutions include:

  • Denial-of-service attacks against providers, or against the enterprise that limit the ability of users to connect to cloud services
  • Toll fraud attacks that cause unwanted and costly outbound calls, or that route calls across high-cost network providers
  • Phishing attacks designed to enable unauthorized log-in to a user’s communications applications

These attacks are becoming alarmingly more common, taking advantage of the recent shift toward increased remote-work models.

While employee training and compliance with security best practices is critical in defending against attacks like social engineering, it is incumbent on the communications service provider to develop, manage, and maintain a secure platform.Only then can businesses take the necessary precautions to secure their endpoints and users from any malicious attacks.

Vendors with lax security practices—both internal and in the solutions they provide—put your business’ communications at risk. Vendors who implement weak security protocols when encrypting communications traffic or that comply with government agency requests to compromise that security (e.g. by providing a backdoor) should not be considered at all if data security is a priority.

In short, before changing or training on your company’s security protocols, you should be sure that your communications vendor is enforcing the highest of security standards within theirs. If not, it’s out of your control.

8x8 has earned several industry-standard security and compliance certifications, encrypts all communications traffic across all channels to and from its endpoints, and secures data at rest in the 8x8 cloud. In fact, 8x8 has worked with standards bodies to evolve and implement industry-first security standards, including its most recent initiative to provide end-to-end encrypted video meetings. As a business, you can be confident that 8x8 takes communications security seriously, remains open and transparent about its communications practices, and constantly improves and innovates to lead on security.

While employee training and compliance with security best practices is critical in defending against attacks like social engineering, it is incumbent on the communications service provider to develop, manage, and maintain a secure platform.Only then can businesses take the necessary precautions to secure their endpoints and users from any malicious attacks.

Vendors with lax security practices—both internal and in the solutions they provide—put your business’ communications at risk. Vendors who implement weak security protocols when encrypting communications traffic or that comply with government agency requests to compromise that security (e.g. by providing a backdoor) should not be considered at all if data security is a priority.

In short, before changing or training on your company’s security protocols, you should be sure that your communications vendor is enforcing the highest of security standards within theirs. If not, it’s out of your control.

8x8 has earned several industry-standard security and compliance certifications, encrypts all communications traffic across all channels to and from its endpoints, and secures data at rest in the 8x8 cloud. In fact, 8x8 has worked with standards bodies to evolve and implement industry-first security standards, including its most recent initiative to provide end-to-end encrypted video meetings. As a business, you can be confident that 8x8 takes communications security seriously, remains open and transparent about its communications practices, and constantly improves and innovates to lead on security.

While employee training and compliance with security best practices is critical in defending against attacks like social engineering, it is incumbent on the communications service provider to develop, manage, and maintain a secure platform.Only then can businesses take the necessary precautions to secure their endpoints and users from any malicious attacks.

Vendors with lax security practices—both internal and in the solutions they provide—put your business’ communications at risk. Vendors who implement weak security protocols when encrypting communications traffic or that comply with government agency requests to compromise that security (e.g. by providing a backdoor) should not be considered at all if data security is a priority.

In short, before changing or training on your company’s security protocols, you should be sure that your communications vendor is enforcing the highest of security standards within theirs. If not, it’s out of your control.

8x8 has earned several industry-standard security and compliance certifications, encrypts all communications traffic across all channels to and from its endpoints, and secures data at rest in the 8x8 cloud. In fact, 8x8 has worked with standards bodies to evolve and implement industry-first security standards, including its most recent initiative to provide end-to-end encrypted video meetings. As a business, you can be confident that 8x8 takes communications security seriously, remains open and transparent about its communications practices, and constantly improves and innovates to lead on security.

While employee training and compliance with security best practices is critical in defending against attacks like social engineering, it is incumbent on the communications service provider to develop, manage, and maintain a secure platform.Only then can businesses take the necessary precautions to secure their endpoints and users from any malicious attacks.

Vendors with lax security practices—both internal and in the solutions they provide—put your business’ communications at risk. Vendors who implement weak security protocols when encrypting communications traffic or that comply with government agency requests to compromise that security (e.g. by providing a backdoor) should not be considered at all if data security is a priority.

In short, before changing or training on your company’s security protocols, you should be sure that your communications vendor is enforcing the highest of security standards within theirs. If not, it’s out of your control.

8x8 has earned several industry-standard security and compliance certifications, encrypts all communications traffic across all channels to and from its endpoints, and secures data at rest in the 8x8 cloud. In fact, 8x8 has worked with standards bodies to evolve and implement industry-first security standards, including its most recent initiative to provide end-to-end encrypted video meetings. As a business, you can be confident that 8x8 takes communications security seriously, remains open and transparent about its communications practices, and constantly improves and innovates to lead on security.

“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

Paul J. Meyer

“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

Paul J. Meyer

“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

Paul J. Meyer

“Communication – the human connection – is the key to personal and career success.”

Paul J. Meyer

Usability is key to adopting any new technology. Gone are the days when users would tolerate a trade-off between sophistication and ease of use.

This is especially true for communications solutions, where a consistent experience across different modes of communication can mean business-changing productivity gains and improvement in collaboration. A Nemertes report found recently that 63.8% of organizations are already using a team collaboration solution or were planning to. The recent sudden transition to remote working has accelerated this adoption.

Usability is key to adopting any new technology. Gone are the days when users would tolerate a trade-off between sophistication and ease of use.

This is especially true for communications solutions, where a consistent experience across different modes of communication can mean business-changing productivity gains and improvement in collaboration. A Nemertes report found recently that 63.8% of organizations are already using a team collaboration solution or were planning to. The recent sudden transition to remote working has accelerated this adoption.

Usability is key to adopting any new technology. Gone are the days when users would tolerate a trade-off between sophistication and ease of use.

This is especially true for communications solutions, where a consistent experience across different modes of communication can mean business-changing productivity gains and improvement in collaboration. A Nemertes report found recently that 63.8% of organizations are already using a team collaboration solution or were planning to. The recent sudden transition to remote working has accelerated this adoption.

Usability is key to adopting any new technology. Gone are the days when users would tolerate a trade-off between sophistication and ease of use.

This is especially true for communications solutions, where a consistent experience across different modes of communication can mean business-changing productivity gains and improvement in collaboration. A Nemertes report found recently that 63.8% of organizations are already using a team collaboration solution or were planning to. The recent sudden transition to remote working has accelerated this adoption.

A simple, unified user interface is more than a nice-to-have, as it will:

  • Facilitate the onboarding of new employees, most if not all of which will be recruited and onboarded remotely
  • Make collaborating on different channels and moving amongst channels effortless
  • Encourage wide use and adoption by all employees
  • Render customer communications with your business effortless

A simple, unified user interface is more than a nice-to-have, as it will:

  • Facilitate the onboarding of new employees, most if not all of which will be recruited and onboarded remotely
  • Make collaborating on different channels and moving amongst channels effortless
  • Encourage wide use and adoption by all employees
  • Render customer communications with your business effortless

A simple, unified user interface is more than a nice-to-have, as it will:

  • Facilitate the onboarding of new employees, most if not all of which will be recruited and onboarded remotely
  • Make collaborating on different channels and moving amongst channels effortless
  • Encourage wide use and adoption by all employees
  • Render customer communications with your business effortless

A simple, unified user interface is more than a nice-to-have, as it will:

  • Facilitate the onboarding of new employees, most if not all of which will be recruited and onboarded remotely
  • Make collaborating on different channels and moving amongst channels effortless
  • Encourage wide use and adoption by all employees
  • Render customer communications with your business effortless

We know adoption is key to employee productivity and happiness. According to this study, employees are more inclined to adopt new technology if they feel it will improve their productivity. Choose a difficult, complicated communications platform and your users will not hesitate to find easier alternatives. And if employees bypass official communications channels, true productivity towards business objectives suffers, and customer satisfaction suffers—not to mention a reporting and accountability nightmare.

The message is simple: Select a solution that makes communications simple. 8x8 Virtual Office provides a consistent, intuitive experience across devices, unifying voice, chat, and video channels. Through Express and X Series, comprehensive analytics can provide you with valuable insights into communications effectiveness and productivity.

We know adoption is key to employee productivity and happiness. According to this study, employees are more inclined to adopt new technology if they feel it will improve their productivity. Choose a difficult, complicated communications platform and your users will not hesitate to find easier alternatives. And if employees bypass official communications channels, true productivity towards business objectives suffers, and customer satisfaction suffers—not to mention a reporting and accountability nightmare.

The message is simple: Select a solution that makes communications simple. 8x8 Virtual Office provides a consistent, intuitive experience across devices, unifying voice, chat, and video channels. Through Express and X Series, comprehensive analytics can provide you with valuable insights into communications effectiveness and productivity.

We know adoption is key to employee productivity and happiness. According to this study, employees are more inclined to adopt new technology if they feel it will improve their productivity. Choose a difficult, complicated communications platform and your users will not hesitate to find easier alternatives. And if employees bypass official communications channels, true productivity towards business objectives suffers, and customer satisfaction suffers—not to mention a reporting and accountability nightmare.

The message is simple: Select a solution that makes communications simple. 8x8 Virtual Office provides a consistent, intuitive experience across devices, unifying voice, chat, and video channels. Through Express and X Series, comprehensive analytics can provide you with valuable insights into communications effectiveness and productivity.

We know adoption is key to employee productivity and happiness. According to this study, employees are more inclined to adopt new technology if they feel it will improve their productivity. Choose a difficult, complicated communications platform and your users will not hesitate to find easier alternatives. And if employees bypass official communications channels, true productivity towards business objectives suffers, and customer satisfaction suffers—not to mention a reporting and accountability nightmare.

The message is simple: Select a solution that makes communications simple. 8x8 Virtual Office provides a consistent, intuitive experience across devices, unifying voice, chat, and video channels. Through Express and X Series, comprehensive analytics can provide you with valuable insights into communications effectiveness and productivity.

Many communications vendors focus on a single channel and try to sell their strength in that area. In today’s digital workplace, employees and customers switch channels constantly, and they deserve a consistent experience.

In fact, true communications power comes from support for multiple channels and making it easy to move between them.

Making communications easy doesn’t necessarily make them better, though. For small businesses, teamwork is key and every customer interaction could be the last. If you don’t understand how effective your communications are, you can’t make the right decisions to improve productivity, avoid customer churn, and increase profit margin.

Many communications vendors focus on a single channel and try to sell their strength in that area. In today’s digital workplace, employees and customers switch channels constantly, and they deserve a consistent experience.

In fact, true communications power comes from support for multiple channels and making it easy to move between them.

Making communications easy doesn’t necessarily make them better, though. For small businesses, teamwork is key and every customer interaction could be the last. If you don’t understand how effective your communications are, you can’t make the right decisions to improve productivity, avoid customer churn, and increase profit margin.

Many communications vendors focus on a single channel and try to sell their strength in that area. In today’s digital workplace, employees and customers switch channels constantly, and they deserve a consistent experience.

In fact, true communications power comes from support for multiple channels and making it easy to move between them.

Making communications easy doesn’t necessarily make them better, though. For small businesses, teamwork is key and every customer interaction could be the last. If you don’t understand how effective your communications are, you can’t make the right decisions to improve productivity, avoid customer churn, and increase profit margin.

Many communications vendors focus on a single channel and try to sell their strength in that area. In today’s digital workplace, employees and customers switch channels constantly, and they deserve a consistent experience.

In fact, true communications power comes from support for multiple channels and making it easy to move between them.

Making communications easy doesn’t necessarily make them better, though. For small businesses, teamwork is key and every customer interaction could be the last. If you don’t understand how effective your communications are, you can’t make the right decisions to improve productivity, avoid customer churn, and increase profit margin.

Unified analytics across voice, chat, and video communications channels can help:

  • Identify opportunities to proactively remedy customer issues based on frequency and type of communications
  • Predict, identify, and proactively remedy communications quality issues
  • Build a complete picture of customer touchpoints across channels to identify key inflection points and opportunities
  • Use speech analysis to determine overall customer mood and key topics being addressed, driving business adjustments and improvements
  • Self-troubleshoot employee communications issues like poor headset quality or bandwidth problems to improve connectivity and productivity

8x8 provides comprehensive analytics including quality monitoring, speech analytics, and communications history analysis to help your business know more, improve faster, and serve customers more effectively.

Unified analytics across voice, chat, and video communications channels can help:

  • Identify opportunities to proactively remedy customer issues based on frequency and type of communications
  • Predict, identify, and proactively remedy communications quality issues
  • Build a complete picture of customer touchpoints across channels to identify key inflection points and opportunities
  • Use speech analysis to determine overall customer mood and key topics being addressed, driving business adjustments and improvements
  • Self-troubleshoot employee communications issues like poor headset quality or bandwidth problems to improve connectivity and productivity

8x8 provides comprehensive analytics including quality monitoring, speech analytics, and communications history analysis to help your business know more, improve faster, and serve customers more effectively.

Unified analytics across voice, chat, and video communications channels can help:

  • Identify opportunities to proactively remedy customer issues based on frequency and type of communications
  • Predict, identify, and proactively remedy communications quality issues
  • Build a complete picture of customer touchpoints across channels to identify key inflection points and opportunities
  • Use speech analysis to determine overall customer mood and key topics being addressed, driving business adjustments and improvements
  • Self-troubleshoot employee communications issues like poor headset quality or bandwidth problems to improve connectivity and productivity

8x8 provides comprehensive analytics including quality monitoring, speech analytics, and communications history analysis to help your business know more, improve faster, and serve customers more effectively.

Unified analytics across voice, chat, and video communications channels can help:

  • Identify opportunities to proactively remedy customer issues based on frequency and type of communications
  • Predict, identify, and proactively remedy communications quality issues
  • Build a complete picture of customer touchpoints across channels to identify key inflection points and opportunities
  • Use speech analysis to determine overall customer mood and key topics being addressed, driving business adjustments and improvements
  • Self-troubleshoot employee communications issues like poor headset quality or bandwidth problems to improve connectivity and productivity

8x8 provides comprehensive analytics including quality monitoring, speech analytics, and communications history analysis to help your business know more, improve faster, and serve customers more effectively.

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Michael Faraday

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Michael Faraday

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Michael Faraday

“The five essential entrepreneurial skills for success are concentration, discrimination, organization, innovation and communication.”

Michael Faraday

You don’t need us to tell you how critical communications are to your business. The last thing you need as a small business leader is a customer help line that goes down constantly or a video conferencing tool that hangs up on your employees.

In the previous chapter, we emphasized that the cheapest solution may not always be the best solution. Reliable communications means investing in a highly available and redundant infrastructure that supports the highest quality communications with consistent uptime.

You don’t need us to tell you how critical communications are to your business. The last thing you need as a small business leader is a customer help line that goes down constantly or a video conferencing tool that hangs up on your employees.

In the previous chapter, we emphasized that the cheapest solution may not always be the best solution. Reliable communications means investing in a highly available and redundant infrastructure that supports the highest quality communications with consistent uptime.

You don’t need us to tell you how critical communications are to your business. The last thing you need as a small business leader is a customer help line that goes down constantly or a video conferencing tool that hangs up on your employees.

In the previous chapter, we emphasized that the cheapest solution may not always be the best solution. Reliable communications means investing in a highly available and redundant infrastructure that supports the highest quality communications with consistent uptime.

You don’t need us to tell you how critical communications are to your business. The last thing you need as a small business leader is a customer help line that goes down constantly or a video conferencing tool that hangs up on your employees.

In the previous chapter, we emphasized that the cheapest solution may not always be the best solution. Reliable communications means investing in a highly available and redundant infrastructure that supports the highest quality communications with consistent uptime.

Look for vendors that guarantee their service with an open and transparent service level agreement for both communications quality (mean opinion score, or MOS) and uptime, demonstrating that they take availability seriously. This means they are only reactive when issues arise, but proactive in anticipating and resolving potential issues before they impact their customers.

8x8 was the first communications-as-a-service provider to offer both a MOS and 99.99% availability service level agreement. 8x8 continues to lead the industry in both quality and availability, with complete transparency on the terms of those guarantees. As your employees and customers work and connect virtually, it’s critical to ensure uninterrupted communications between them so you can focus on running the business.

Look for vendors that guarantee their service with an open and transparent service level agreement for both communications quality (mean opinion score, or MOS) and uptime, demonstrating that they take availability seriously. This means they are only reactive when issues arise, but proactive in anticipating and resolving potential issues before they impact their customers.

8x8 was the first communications-as-a-service provider to offer both a MOS and 99.99% availability service level agreement. 8x8 continues to lead the industry in both quality and availability, with complete transparency on the terms of those guarantees. As your employees and customers work and connect virtually, it’s critical to ensure uninterrupted communications between them so you can focus on running the business.

Look for vendors that guarantee their service with an open and transparent service level agreement for both communications quality (mean opinion score, or MOS) and uptime, demonstrating that they take availability seriously. This means they are only reactive when issues arise, but proactive in anticipating and resolving potential issues before they impact their customers.

8x8 was the first communications-as-a-service provider to offer both a MOS and 99.99% availability service level agreement. 8x8 continues to lead the industry in both quality and availability, with complete transparency on the terms of those guarantees. As your employees and customers work and connect virtually, it’s critical to ensure uninterrupted communications between them so you can focus on running the business.

Look for vendors that guarantee their service with an open and transparent service level agreement for both communications quality (mean opinion score, or MOS) and uptime, demonstrating that they take availability seriously. This means they are only reactive when issues arise, but proactive in anticipating and resolving potential issues before they impact their customers.

8x8 was the first communications-as-a-service provider to offer both a MOS and 99.99% availability service level agreement. 8x8 continues to lead the industry in both quality and availability, with complete transparency on the terms of those guarantees. As your employees and customers work and connect virtually, it’s critical to ensure uninterrupted communications between them so you can focus on running the business.