The Hidden Costs of a Fragmented Communications Stack (and What to Do About It).

You might be overspending by six figures without knowing it.link to this section

When was the last time you took a good, hard look at your business communications and contact center setup?

Sure, day to day, it may seem like your business communications (UC) and contact center (CC) solutions are chugging along just fine. But there are also less-helpful things lurking in the dusty corners of your self-assembled stack: duplicate software licenses, siloed vendors, tools that don’t play nice together.

Your CX budget is leaking—and it’s happening behind the scenes.

The red flags you’ve learned to live with.link to this section

At first, the signs are subtle—a few clunky workflows here, an extra step there. But over time, the cracks in your communications stack start to widen, and the costs start to add up.

If you’re seeing any of the following, it might be time to take a closer look:

• Separate tools for voice, video, messaging, and more.
• Duplicated software licenses due to split systems.
• Overlapping features across internal and external tools.
• Multiple support contracts, multiple vendors.
• IT teams are buried in maintenance.

Individually, these issues might not feel urgent. But collectively, they drain resources and introduce friction across your organization. When teams switch between tools, lose context, or can’t get a complete picture of performance, conversations break down—and that hurts your customers, your employees, and your bottom line.

A real-world breakdown: $635,689 in costs, $2.3 million in missed gains.link to this section

In our guide, we walk through a modeled example based on real-world data from a mid-sized retail business grappling with the costs of fragmentation. Over just three years, their disconnected communications stack led to:

• $635,689 in direct communication costs.
• $758,122 in lost time and productivity.
• $2.3 million in unrealized CX value.

These weren’t dramatic failures—just the slow bleed of inefficiency, redundancy, and lack of visibility.

A unified platform that actually works.link to this section

If your sink were leaking, you wouldn’t just mop the floor—you’d call a professional to diagnose and fix the issue. Think of us as your plumber.

8x8’s unified platform brings together business communications and contact center tools under one roof. Voice, video, messaging, contact center, AI-powered analytics—all in one cloud-based solution.

According to Metrigy, organizations that consolidate can lower their total cost of ownership by up to 56% while improving customer satisfaction by 57%.

And because 8x8’s platform is built with AI at the core—not just bolted on—you get more than just streamlined workflows. You get smarter ones. From real-time speech analytics and sentiment insights to intelligent routing and automated reporting, AI turns your communications stack into a decision-making engine.

One platform. One partner. One support structure. It’s a smarter foundation for business conversations that actually go somewhere.

Because every conversation should count.link to this section

This isn’t just about fixing IT headaches. It’s about creating the conditions for better conversations between agents and customers, teams and departments, leadership and frontline. The conversations that move decisions forward, retain customers, and build lasting relationships.

When communication systems work together, your people can too. And that’s how you make every conversation count.

TL;DR? Fragmentation is expensive. Unity pays off.link to this section

• Lower your total cost of ownership.
• Reduce IT complexity and manual effort.
• Empower agents and employees with connected tools.
• Improve customer experience across every touchpoint.

Download the guide.link to this section

See how much your current stack might be costing you—and how a unified business communications and contact center platform can change the math.

Get the guide