March 08, 2017 08:15 AM Eastern Standard Time
SAN JOSE, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–8×8, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGHT) today announced the world’s first Communications Cloud that combines unified communications, team collaboration interoperability, contact center and real-time analytics in a single, open platform. As part of the introduction of the 8×8 Communications Cloud, the company also today announced the acquisition of Sameroom, an interoperability platform that enables cross-team messaging and collaboration in the enterprise; a host of new integrations with some of the world’s most popular enterprise applications; and the introduction of new open APIs for customers and partners.
Enterprises today are faced with an increasingly fragmented and siloed technology landscape that impacts their ability to service a global, distributed, remote and multigenerational workforce. “In today’s business environment, more and more functional teams are making IT purchases, and employees are bringing unsanctioned tools and apps into the enterprise (i.e. shadow IT). At the same time, CIOs are struggling to unify all communications and team collaboration tools,” said Amy Lind, Research Manager, VoIP and UC&C, IDC. “Companies are looking for simpler, more flexible, open cloud communication platforms that fuel the convergence of communications and business processes in order to more quickly access data to make informed and timely decisions. The 8×8 Communications Cloud combines unified communications, team collaboration interoperability, contact center and real-time analytics to create more integrated, interoperable and seamless experiences and addresses many of the challenges businesses are facing today.”
“The 8×8 Communications Cloud marks the beginning of a new era for our industry where all communications, team collaboration, contact center and analytics are unified in a single, open platform that integrates across all clouds and applications used by lines of business,” said Vik Verma, CEO of 8×8. “This convergence of two healthy and thriving markets- communications and collaboration- is going to change the way employees, customers and partners use and consume communications intelligence, making them better informed, more productive and more effective than ever before. The days of a fragmented communications landscape are numbered.”
8×8 Communications Cloud Capabilities
Key tenets of the 8×8 Communications Cloud include: open cloud and platform; integrated and interoperable communications capabilities that are tightly aligned with business applications; intelligent real time analytics; global availability in every continent; and ease of use and deployment.
In addition, 8×8 enables enterprises to seamlessly connect across clouds, embed and customize communications into business workflows, and connect intelligently to share data with lines of business applications. As a result, companies can optimize their existing investments in sales, marketing and human resources (HR) applications, among others, while making employees more effective and productive in their everyday jobs. To support these new open cloud capabilities, 8×8 today introduced dozens of new integrations, new customer and partner APIs, and Script8, a dynamic communications flow and routing engine that provides enterprises with robust communications control, data source integration and intelligent routing.
Integrations with Lines-of-Business Applications
The 8×8 Communications Cloud includes out-of-the-box integrations with dozens of the most popular enterprise applications. These integrations expose rich communications intelligence to the applications used everyday by sales, marketing, customer service and support, HR, finance, and more to improve workflows and drive better productivity. Sample integrations include:
- Sales & Marketing: Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite, Oracle Sales Cloud, Hubspot, and ZOHO
- HR: Bond, Bullhorn, Jobscience and TargetRecruit
- Customer Service and Support: Zendesk, Freshdesk and ConnectWise
Customer & Partner APIs
The 8×8 Communications Cloud offers a number of open APIs that allow customers and partners to expose rich communications data to their existing enterprise applications. New open APIs for customers and partners include:
- Communication Microservices: APIs for direct access to messaging and chat, meetings, IVR/auto attendant, SMS and Fax
- Analytics & Data Extraction: APIs to discover the hidden value of your analytics data
- Provisioning & Service Management: Automated provisioning for Active Directory integration and new administration portal with intuitive design for custom and bulk configuration
Script8
Script8 is 8×8’s dynamic communications flow and routing engine API that offers a scripting environment for intelligently routing communications data for specific workflows. Script8 empowers end users with simple, personalized and customizable communications experiences, including robust communications control, data source integration and intelligent routing. Some use case examples that 8×8 customers have deployed using Script8 are:
- Routing priority calls based on sales pipeline data in CRM system
- Interactive Voice Response with two-factor authentication
- Sending SMS with directions to a retail store
- Sending parents and students a broadcast voicemail message
- Emergency dialing with Caller ID override
The new APIs for customers and partners including Script8 are available through 8×8 professional services. To learn more about the 8×8 Communications Cloud, read CEO Vik Verma’s blog post.
Supporting Quotes
“We want every Zendesk customer to experience the benefits of integrated communications support. Seamlessly and accurately tracking every customer interaction empowers organizations to improve customer engagement and better understand their customers,” said Ryan Nichols, Zendesk Talk General Manager. “Companies are benefitting from the tight integration of the 8×8 Communications Cloud with Zendesk, which enables them to improve the overall customer experience.”
“Our customers fall in love with our signature pineapple shaped shortbread cookies when they discover them in our stores in Hawaii, Las Vegas and Guam. When looking to purchase more, our website and customer service call center provides customers with even more products to choose from, along with special promotions. We need to have an agile communications solution to handle multi-channel, multi-lingual customer communications at all times,” said Debbie Scott, Customer Service Manager at Honolulu Cookie Company. “By integrating Zendesk, our customer service solution, with the 8×8 Communications Cloud, we can track and manage every customer service interaction and maintain the highest standards of quality and excellence.”
“Our team of sales specialists are committed to helping customers make every part of the car buying and leasing process easy and enjoyable,” said Jessica Carstens, Marketing and Operations Manager at Cartelligent. “The 8×8 Communications Cloud’s integration with Salesforce has automated our sales team’s workflow, making it easier for us to deliver an even higher level of personalized service to customers while offering managers deeper insights into the sales pipeline.”
About 8×8, Inc.
8×8, Inc. (NASDAQ:EGHT) is the world’s first Communications Cloud. 8×8 easily and seamlessly connects employees, customers and applications to improve business performance for organizations anywhere in the world. For additional information, visit www.8×8.com, or connect with 8×8 on LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.
8×8, 8×8 Communications Cloud and Sameroom are trademarks of 8×8, Inc. All other marks are trademarks of their respective owners.
Contacts
Media
8×8, Inc.
John Sun, 408-692-7054
john.sun@8×8.com
or
InkHouse for 8×8
Tracey Workman, 781-366-1789
8×8@inkhouse.com
