Summer 2024 Update Highlights
Key Announcements
8x8 Contact Center™
Harness the power of conversational AI to deliver effortless, human-like voice self-service interactions with personalization at scale. Access highly accurate AI summarization in your CRM of choice or from other external AI providers for contextual, human-assisted service. Enhancements in our Microsoft Teams integration facilitate agent access to experts for improved FCR.
8x8 Engage™
Empower all customer-facing employees with 8x8 Engage to deliver exceptional customer experiences across the organization.
8x8 Work®
Improve collaboration with new enhancements to 8x8 Meetings, including late arrival summaries and emails, new hardware certifications, integrated device call control, and more. IT Admins now have additional control over app settings and caller info pop-ups for better user experience and security.
8x8 Communication APIs
Deliver simple and secure customer experiences with Silent Mobile Authentication, a one-click solution for phone number verification. Optimize your strategy and planning with the WhatsApp messaging campaign scheduler. Boost customer engagement through native integrations with CleverTap and MoEngage.
8x8 Contact Center
8x8 Intelligent Customer Assistant
Intelligent Customer Assistant (ICA) is a powerful, user-friendly conversational AI solution that enables businesses to create instant, effortless, and engaging self-service experiences. The platform now supports human-like voice as well as digital interactions across multiple regions and languages to deliver automation at scale with personalization.
Supervisor Workspace Mobile
An intuitive, mobile-first designed interface with single-value widgets and quick access to the most common configuration options so supervisors can quickly keep a pulse on their contact center operations on the go.
Supervisor Workspace mobile experience.
Proactive Outreach: Interact
Interact enables direct communication with your customers at scale via SMS and WhatsApp messaging channels, with inbound messages seamlessly routed to your contact center for agents or bots to handle. Utilize the flexible sender feature in 8x8 Connect or leverage full API access to integrate programmatically, offering versatile options to suit your needs.
Microsoft Teams Integration for Agents
The 8x8 Contact Center is certified for Microsoft Teams, bringing new functionality that builds on our investment in Microsoft Teams. A robust integration between Microsoft Teams and Agent Workspace includes a presence integration, a contact directory, and the ability to initiate a chat in Microsoft Teams. This integration reduces average handle times (AHT) and increases first call resolution (FCR) as agents can seek real-time guidance or support from supervisors or subject matter experts—even those outside the contact center—without leaving the customer interaction.
8x8 Microsoft Teams integration with Agent Workspace for contact directory importing, contact presence, and chat initiation in Microsoft Teams.
AI Summarization for External CRMs
AI summarization can be accessed in your CRM of choice, such as Salesforce, Zoho, or other leading providers. This way, agents on active calls can easily access the AI summarization from previous calls, helping to provide more context about that customer and deliver a more personalized experience.
AI summarization in external CRMs.
External AI Summarization Plug-in
Plug-and-play external AI (LLM) for 8x8 Contact Center means you can leverage your existing AI provider for an AI summarization. Supervisors can gain quick access to interaction summaries from third-party AI solutions within their workspace, which means valuable insights at your fingertips and that the value machine learning and intelligence your AI provider has accumulated is not lost during a migration to 8x8 Contact Center.
Improved AI Transcription Accuracy
8x8 has improved transcription accuracy by converting all Interaction Analytics services to the latest transcription model. We are constantly upgrading our systems to achieve the best performance. We know that transcription accuracy is paramount to making the most out of your customer interactions, as it is the basis for accurate AI summaries. As we adopt new technology, we want to bring the advantages to businesses as soon as possible to make sure they get the best ROI from 8x8's partnership. Whether it's reviewing transcripts for a more personalized experience or to identify trends in your contact center, we feel it's important to provide the most accurate transcriptions possible.
Improved AI transcription accuracy in Speech Analytics.
Integrated Softphone in Agent Workspace
Agents can now handle calls directly in Agent Workspace with no need for an external hard phone or softphone. This feature minimizes disruptions by eliminating the need to switch between different tools, boosting agent productivity.
Softphone settings
8x8 Engage
8x8 Engage is an AI-powered, tailored solution that enables cross-organization customer engagement for enhanced customer experiences, fostering loyalty and driving business success. Intentionally engineered to address the distinct needs of customer-facing employees outside of the contact center, 8x8 Engage empowers this underserved user base with the right-fit tools and capabilities for delivering consistent, successful outcomes.
Existing customers can sign up for access now.
8x8 Work
8x8 Meetings
- Meeting Summary Email
All participants now receive a summary email after the meeting ends, enabling easy follow-ups and action items.
Learn More
Start Recording settings > Transcription recording enabled to enable summary email
- Meeting Late Arrival Summary
Participants who join a meeting at least 10 minutes after the meeting transcription starts will now receive a meeting chat summary of everything discussed before they joined, enabling easy catch-ups.
Learn More
Private meeting chat summary
SMS 10DLC Application-to-Person (A2P) Registration
Carriers announced that starting June 17, 2024, all outbound SMS/MMS traffic from unregistered phone numbers will be blocked.
8x8 Work phone numbers assigned to users sending SMS/MMS messages that are not assigned to an SMS campaign will be notified with a system message that their messages are not being delivered. We encourage our customers to take the necessary actions immediately to avoid disruption in service.
System message
New Phone Certifications
8x8 certifies a wide selection of phones, headsets, and accessories compatible with the 8x8 service. Yealink SIP-T34W, Yealink SIP-T44W, and Yealink CP935W phones are now 8x8-certified.
See the complete list of compatible phones and accessories.
Admin Console and Settings
- 8x8 Admin Console UI Available in French-Canadian
The 8x8 Admin Console interface is available in French-Canadian. To have the 8x8 Admin Console UI translated, users must set the browser language to French-Canadian.
Learn More
French-Canadian Admin Console
- User Group for Recordings
When assigning roles, admins can now assign user groups to the Storage Admin role. Users with permissions for a specific group can only see the recordings set up for that group which helps organize and control access to call recording data.
Learn More
Edit group assignment
- App Settings with IT Admin Override Option
8x8 Work admins can now override additional app settings to default values configured in the Work Apps Settings application.
Learn More
Admins can also turn off startup pop-ups. For customers using remote sessions that always clear the user’s cache, it is disruptive to go through all the startup pop-ups every time the application is opened.
Learn More - Conceal Caller Info Pop-Up Values
Admins can now conceal caller info pop-up macro values for privacy purposes.
Learn More
Caller pop-up values concealed
8x8 Work Usability and Interface Enhancements
- Caller Info Pop-Up Search Improvements
Users can customize the information returned in their browser when someone calls them based on who answered the call. The search for information set in the macros is also performed for warm transfers in addition to direct calls.
Learn More
Caller info pop-up settings
- Integrated Call Control through Web Human Interface Device
8x8 Work now supports advanced call control on all the devices supported by the Web Human Interface Device (HID). Call control events are synchronized, including answer, hangup, volume, and mute.
Learn More
Enable built-in call controls
- Other Enhancements
- Web Dialer is supported in Firefox.
- When the Citrix optimization is activated, users can choose a specific speaker to play the calling sounds and incoming ringtones from the secondary ring source list.
- Contacts display profile photos imported from Google contacts.
- Users can select different ringtones for incoming internal, external, and group calls.
- The upload and download sounds in messaging are now disabled if the user is on an active call or meeting.
- Users can use the Yealink headset for advanced call control by pressing the headset's buttons to answer, hang up, or mute.
Learn More
8x8 Communication APIs
Silent Mobile Authentication
Silent Mobile Authentication provides a seamless method of mobile verification, allowing users to verify phone numbers with just one click and without manual input. Instead of receiving and entering a code, users are automatically verified based on their network IP. This approach enhances security and delivers a smoother experience when accessing mobile services or applications.
Silent Mobile Authentication
Native WhatsApp Integrations
8x8 WhatsApp messaging capabilities are now natively integrated into customer engagement platforms, CleverTap and MoEngage. This integration allows businesses to leverage the robust features of 8x8's messaging services directly within these platforms, enhancing customer interactions through seamless and efficient communication.
WhatsApp Campaign Scheduler
The new WhatsApp scheduling capabilities enhance efficiency by automating communication workflows and ensuring timely, consistent content delivery. It aids in strategic planning, improves team coordination, and enhances customer experience through personalized interactions.
Easily schedule WhatsApp messaging campaigns
To learn more about what’s new at 8x8, check out our quarterly product webinars showcasing some of the latest and greatest features and capabilities that can help boost customer and employee experiences.