Keith Dawson's Analyst Perspectives

We are happy to share some insights about 8x8 drawn from our latest Value Index research, which assesses how well vendors’ offerings meet buyers’ requirements. Earlier this year we published the Ventana Research Value Index: Contact Center in the Cloud 2021, the distillation of a year of market and product research efforts. It is an assessment of how well vendors’ offerings will address buyers’ requirements for contact center software. The index is structured to replicate an RFI/RFP process by incorporating all criteria needed to evaluate, select, utilize and maintain technology, and maintain relationships with vendors. In all of our Value Indexes we utilize a structured research methodology that includes evaluation categories designed to reflect real-world criteria incorporated in a request for proposal (RFP) and vendor selection process for contact center in the cloud. We evaluated 8x8 and 13 other vendors in seven categories, five relevant to the product and experience (adaptability, capability, manageability, reliability and usability) and two related to the customer experience (TCO/ROI and vendor validation). To arrive at the Value Index rating for a given vendor, we weighted each category to reflect its relative importance in an RFP process, with the weightings based on our experience and on data derived from our benchmark research. 8x8’s overall performance rating in the Value Index is at 83.7%, with customer experience at 82.9% and product experience at 83.9%. 8x8, a provider of both CCaaS and UCaaS platforms, was categorized as a Vendor with Assurance, ranking ninth overall in this Value Index evaluation. Its product, 8x8 Contact Center, is an omnichannel platform with support for routing and outbound dialing and interaction data capturing across channels. 8x8 performed its best in Manageability with its business administration and licensing methods. It also did well in Validation where its overall customer commitment was evident. 8x8 provided strong integration into its UCaaS product, with a reasonable amount of integrations into other business systems and telephony platforms. Our assessment finds some room for improvement, as 8x8 performed close to the median overall. More depth in its strategic value and benefits and overall depth would have helped its TCO/ROI ranking. Its Capability ranking also could have been improved with more depth in agent workforce management and analytics, particularly around predictive and what-if analyses. This assessment was based on 8x8’s cloud contact center products available at end of March in 2021. Since then, 8x8 has announced a new blended platform that combines unified communication with the contact center, additional capabilities in its integration with Microsoft Teams, and features focused on employee collaboration and hybrid work (in-office and remote). When cloud contact centers first emerged a decade ago, the focus for many was on finding the lowest cost provider. Today’s organizations should consider a broader range of criteria in their selection process, which we outline in this Value Index. A modern contact center requires technology that provides continuous innovation and a product and customer experience to meet their long-term goals. With this in mind, when organizations begin the process of evaluating their efforts, they might consider 8x8. This research-based index is the most comprehensive assessment of the value of contact center in the cloud software in the industry. Technology buyers can learn more about how to use our Value Index by clicking here and included vendors that wish to learn more can click here. Read the report here. Regards, Keith Dawson

Keith Dawson's Analyst Perspectives

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