8x8 Releases Revamped Cloud Contact Center Solution

Cloud communication provider 8x8 has upgraded its Virtual Contact Center (VCC) cloud-based call center software offering, designed to improve an organization's customer relations, enhance the management and productivity of their call center agents and guarantee the security of the call center environment.

8x8's VCC service is available as a single point solution or as an integrated component of 8x8's Virtual Office cloud-based telephony and unified communications solutions. Midsize and distributed enterprises worldwide are increasingly adopting cloud-based alternatives to traditional PBX and call center systems and many, such as Merchant Warehouse and Replicon, are choosing to outsource both solutions from a single vendor, deploying business VoIP phone service throughout the organization and call center services in one or more departments. Organizations such as these appreciate the simple and powerful interfaces included with VCC that make agents productive quickly.

The first in a series of upcoming enhancements, VCC 8.0 is available immediately and includes the following key features:

  • System status optimized for mobile devices--wallboard status information optimized for the iPad, iPhone or Android devices enables mobile off-site administration of the call center, allowing supervisors to dynamically respond to changing conditions
  • Virtual queuing -- helps build customer loyalty by eliminating long hold times across all interactions. 8x8's Virtual Queuing capability allows customers to request a callback, eliminating their need to sit on hold while helping contact centers manage the peaks and valleys of their call loads.
  • Increased agent and supervisor productivity
  • Reporting wizards give supervisors better insight into the workings of the contact center.
  • Enhanced usability for agents makes it easier to turn novices into power users and to increase the productivity of experienced agents.
  • Contact directories and queue lists now support favorites and recently accessed records.
  • Agent tools for recording and playing audio messages to reduce live agent talk time.
  • Customizable SMTP services--by default, VCC tenant's outbound email communications are routed via the preconfigured VCC internal SMTP servers. Now 8x8 customers can use their own company's SMTP server as the source to control security and regulatory compliance.
  • Local CRM enhancements - An enhanced native customer relationship management tool built into the platform features a desktop view that consolidates agents' cases, customers and tasks into a convenient tabbed environment for easy switching and viewing. Automatic logging of activities has been added as well. Customers can also choose to have both local CRM and their own CRM turned on at the same time.
  • Chat interface--presents a better visual experience to the customer with additional customization options available through 8x8 Professional Services.
  • Multibrowser support--now compatible with more than 80 percent of browsers used by companies today through support of the latest browser versions of Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Internet Explorer, running on Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac OS. With VCC, there are no plug-ins or codes to download.