Thirteen fully realizes its work-from-anywhere vision on 8x8

Contact Center Business Phone Chat Public Sector - UK

"8x8 has transformed the way that we work, not only from an IT infrastructure perspective, but also from a customer experience perspective."

Hassan Bahrani, Head of IT, Thirteen Group

"8x8 has transformed the way that we work, not only from an IT infrastructure perspective, but also from a customer experience perspective."

Hassan Bahrani, Head of IT, Thirteen Group

"8x8 has transformed the way that we work, not only from an IT infrastructure perspective, but also from a customer experience perspective."

Hassan Bahrani, Head of IT, Thirteen Group

"8x8 has transformed the way that we work, not only from an IT infrastructure perspective, but also from a customer experience perspective."

Hassan Bahrani, Head of IT, Thirteen Group

Based in the North East of England, Thirteen is a housing association that manages 34,000 properties within the North East and Yorkshire, and supports over 70,000 customers. In addition to offering homes for sale or rent, the company provides a range of housing support services, including supported living, employment resources and independent living support.

To build stronger relationships with residents, customers, and staff, Thirteen replaced its ageing, on-premises communications technology. 8x8 provides a cloud-native solution with powerful analytics that help the organization become a more data-driven business.

The Challenge: Resilience and availability

In 2019, Thirteen adopted a new workplace philosophy. “Work is something that you do, and not where you go” was forward-thinking at the time, and also prescient, as only a year later the coronavirus pandemic made that a reality for everyone. “We were lucky as an organisation to have already shifted towards a hybrid workplace model before the pandemic hit,” says Hassan Bahrani, Head of IT at Thirteen.

The motto also had a technology component to it as well. The company was running an on-premises communications system that made it difficult to support remote work. So, Thirteen decided to introduce modern technology that could deliver on this vision.

“We had two main objectives for a new solution,” says Bahrani. “One was to increase network and infrastructure resilience, and another was to support work from anywhere.” To be successful, it also had to be cloud native, provide an open API to integrate with their housing management system, and fast to roll out.

One of Thirteen’s resellers set up a series of 8x8 demos. Bahrani sums up the final decision: “8x8 offered an intelligent communications platform with built-in analytics features that really set it apart from the competition.”

Thirteen Group migrated from an aging, on-premises system to cloud-native 8x8, improving network and infrastructure resilience and realizing its work-from-anywhere vision. 8x8’s built-in analytics help the company become a more data-driven business.

The Solution: Everything in one

Just a few months after the pandemic began, Thirteen rolled out 8x8 Contact Centre to drive its customer service operations. A year later, the company implemented 8x8 Work to support its administrative staff. All in all, over 1,600 employees were onboarded to the new system. “8x8 helped us train our staff,” recalled Bahrani, “and people learned how to use the new tools quite easily.”

Implementation was also smooth and painless for the IT team, thanks in part to 8x8’s support team. “Our 8x8 rep was amazing throughout the project and is still helping us today,” says Bahrani. The team also enhanced the employee experience with 8x8’s Microsoft Teams integration, which further supported the vision of a single communication solution for a geographically dispersed workforce.

However, it's the platform’s robust analytics feature set that continues to shine at Thirteen. “The most exciting part, from both a management and customer experience perspective, was 8x8’s omnichannel capabilities,” says Bahrani, “making sure that email, social media, and web chat were all flowing through the same platform. We were really excited to have that single pane of glass solution for all channels.”

Another critical feature was Speech Analytics, which allowed contact centre leaders to pull out keywords and detect raised voices in customer conversations with ease. With the platform’s automated, AI-driven tools, the team could proactively analyse customer sentiment to monitor trends or identify areas for improvement.

Managers also used the platform’s Quality Management feature to monitor and improve agent performance. Previously, the organisation would track quality metrics on paper. 8x8 digitises the process and makes it seamless for everyone. “We were spending hours every week doing that, and now it’s so much easier and faster,” says Bahrani.

The Solution: Everything in one

Just a few months after the pandemic began, Thirteen rolled out 8x8 Contact Centre to drive its customer service operations. A year later, the company implemented 8x8 Work to support its administrative staff. All in all, over 1,600 employees were onboarded to the new system. “8x8 helped us train our staff,” recalled Bahrani, “and people learned how to use the new tools quite easily.”

Implementation was also smooth and painless for the IT team, thanks in part to 8x8’s support team. “Our 8x8 rep was amazing throughout the project and is still helping us today,” says Bahrani. The team also enhanced the employee experience with 8x8’s Microsoft Teams integration, which further supported the vision of a single communication solution for a geographically dispersed workforce.

However, it's the platform’s robust analytics feature set that continues to shine at Thirteen. “The most exciting part, from both a management and customer experience perspective, was 8x8’s omnichannel capabilities,” says Bahrani, “making sure that email, social media, and web chat were all flowing through the same platform. We were really excited to have that single pane of glass solution for all channels.”

Another critical feature was Speech Analytics, which allowed contact centre leaders to pull out keywords and detect raised voices in customer conversations with ease. With the platform’s automated, AI-driven tools, the team could proactively analyse customer sentiment to monitor trends or identify areas for improvement.

Managers also used the platform’s Quality Management feature to monitor and improve agent performance. Previously, the organisation would track quality metrics on paper. 8x8 digitises the process and makes it seamless for everyone. “We were spending hours every week doing that, and now it’s so much easier and faster,” says Bahrani.

The Solution: Everything in one

Just a few months after the pandemic began, Thirteen rolled out 8x8 Contact Centre to drive its customer service operations. A year later, the company implemented 8x8 Work to support its administrative staff. All in all, over 1,600 employees were onboarded to the new system. “8x8 helped us train our staff,” recalled Bahrani, “and people learned how to use the new tools quite easily.”

Implementation was also smooth and painless for the IT team, thanks in part to 8x8’s support team. “Our 8x8 rep was amazing throughout the project and is still helping us today,” says Bahrani. The team also enhanced the employee experience with 8x8’s Microsoft Teams integration, which further supported the vision of a single communication solution for a geographically dispersed workforce.

However, it's the platform’s robust analytics feature set that continues to shine at Thirteen. “The most exciting part, from both a management and customer experience perspective, was 8x8’s omnichannel capabilities,” says Bahrani, “making sure that email, social media, and web chat were all flowing through the same platform. We were really excited to have that single pane of glass solution for all channels.”

Another critical feature was Speech Analytics, which allowed contact centre leaders to pull out keywords and detect raised voices in customer conversations with ease. With the platform’s automated, AI-driven tools, the team could proactively analyse customer sentiment to monitor trends or identify areas for improvement.

Managers also used the platform’s Quality Management feature to monitor and improve agent performance. Previously, the organisation would track quality metrics on paper. 8x8 digitises the process and makes it seamless for everyone. “We were spending hours every week doing that, and now it’s so much easier and faster,” says Bahrani.

The Solution: Everything in one

Just a few months after the pandemic began, Thirteen rolled out 8x8 Contact Centre to drive its customer service operations. A year later, the company implemented 8x8 Work to support its administrative staff. All in all, over 1,600 employees were onboarded to the new system. “8x8 helped us train our staff,” recalled Bahrani, “and people learned how to use the new tools quite easily.”

Implementation was also smooth and painless for the IT team, thanks in part to 8x8’s support team. “Our 8x8 rep was amazing throughout the project and is still helping us today,” says Bahrani. The team also enhanced the employee experience with 8x8’s Microsoft Teams integration, which further supported the vision of a single communication solution for a geographically dispersed workforce.

However, it's the platform’s robust analytics feature set that continues to shine at Thirteen. “The most exciting part, from both a management and customer experience perspective, was 8x8’s omnichannel capabilities,” says Bahrani, “making sure that email, social media, and web chat were all flowing through the same platform. We were really excited to have that single pane of glass solution for all channels.”

Another critical feature was Speech Analytics, which allowed contact centre leaders to pull out keywords and detect raised voices in customer conversations with ease. With the platform’s automated, AI-driven tools, the team could proactively analyse customer sentiment to monitor trends or identify areas for improvement.

Managers also used the platform’s Quality Management feature to monitor and improve agent performance. Previously, the organisation would track quality metrics on paper. 8x8 digitises the process and makes it seamless for everyone. “We were spending hours every week doing that, and now it’s so much easier and faster,” says Bahrani.

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