At a glance:

  • Advanced moderation controls for large meetings
  • Polls and participant reactions to drive in-meeting engagement and interaction
  • More endpoint options for joining large meetings
  • Ability to flip a meeting between devices on the go
  • Reimagined receptionist experience and workflows with 8x8 Frontdesk
  • Call recording capabilities for 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams
  • 8x8 Contact Center now recommended for Chrome Enterprise
  • Rich analytics for large meetings and 8x8 Contact Center
  • Extended services in Japan, Russia, and Puerto Rico

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As someone who has worked out of a satellite office or remotely for a good part of her career, most of my meetings have swung between the spectrum of ‘hey, you’re muted’ or ‘hey, could you mute yourself, please.’ What was a problem for me (and a few others like me) is now the problem of many.

Gartner forecasts that by the end of 2021, 51% of all knowledge workers worldwide are expected to be working remotely, up from 27% in 2019.

In the hybrid work world, the companies that get ahead are the ones that empower every role across the enterprise with the technology and tools they need for effective collaboration, more productivity and improved customer experience.

That’s what our Fall 2021 release is all about. We’re leaving no employee or customer behind as we continue to innovate and lead the unification of UC and CC with 8x8 platform.

Okay, enough with the vision talk. Here are the highlights in this release:

1. Effective in-meeting collaboration and participant engagement

  • Advanced moderation features for large meetings

If, like me, you’re the hostess with the mostess and you run large meetings, we’re here to help. With support for 500-participant meetings, announced as part of the summer release, 8x8 is great for department town halls, classroom, and lecture sessions. And now, you can run those meetings in style, avoiding audio distractions by muting and stopping video and content sharing for all participants.

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  • Polls

Want a pulse on the meeting? As a host, you can use the polling feature to pose a question to the audience with multiple-choice answers. A perfect way to gather feedback and drive participant engagement in real-time.

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  • Participant reactions

Want to communicate or show appreciation to the host or presenter without interrupting the meeting? Meeting participants can now send emojis like thumbs up, claps, or even a boo, as real-time non-verbal cues and feedback to meeting proceedings. This feature gets a thumbs up from us!

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2. Meetings on-the-go

  • Meet from anywhere

8x8 Work now supports 500 active participants across desktop and mobile apps, web browsers, and audio dial-ins.

  • Flip a meeting between devices

Meeting participants can seamlessly flip a meeting from one device to another with a single click.

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3. Happy employees = Happy customers

  • Enhanced receptionist functionality

We have transformed the receptionist role with 8x8 Frontdesk, a new composed experience for high volume call handling. This tailored experience is built right into the 8x8 Work app, eliminating the need for separate apps and solutions.

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  • Deeper integration with Microsoft Teams

8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams users can now gain even more from this unique integration and capture, retain, and retrieve call recordings for training, compliance, and archival purposes.

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  • 8x8 Contact Center now recommended for Chrome Enterprise

8x8 Contact Center is now a Chrome Enterprise Recommended product optimized for Chrome OS, making it easy for Chrome OS users to quickly deploy and manage end-to-end customer experiences.

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4. Analytics and reporting

  • Interactive analytics and custom reporting for 8x8 Contact Center

Enhanced Contact Center analytics and reporting capabilities allow users to create, save, and share custom reports and metrics for display on widgets.

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  • Large meeting analytics

Powered by 8x8 callstats, we now offer the latest suite of robust reports that provide real-time metrics and analytics on large meeting performance.

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5. Be Global, think local.

  • For global organizations with offices or employees in Japan, Russia, and Puerto Rico, we’ve extended our service to include access to in-country enterprise-grade PSTN connectivity, local direct inward dial (DID) numbers, global dialing plans, and emergency services.

We believe these features will enable organizations to boost productivity, delight customers, and provide tailored experiences for a distributed workforce.

Learn more about how the 8x8 Experience Communications PlatformTM can help your organization. Want to see what else we delivered with this release? Check out the detailed release highlights. And, keep an eye out for our Winter release and more announcements in the months ahead.