INTERVIEW
leaving things on the table? “Irrespective of how we describe it, whether it’s CX, CRM, or UC or CC, ultimately there’s so much pressure now on attracting new customers in the consumer market and then retaining them that businesses have to find ways to stay ahead.” One Stop Shop While the contact centre is having a moment in the sun, Angus was keen to emphasise that 8x8 can pull together a package that covers all bases. “Voice isn’t going away,” said Angus. “We find our biggest
..ultimately there's so much pressure now on attracting new customers in the consumer market and then retaining them that businesses have to find ways to stay ahead.
strength is that we have that one-stop shop where you can buy the AI agents, look at core routing for the contact centre with machine learning and analytics, but also plug in the HR and finance teams who just want a dial tone.
the cost of customer acquisition vs the cost of retaining customers, Angus said that the pervasive strategy at the moment is “meeting customers where they want to be met.” “What we need to look at is where the consumer feels comfortable and how we make it as easy as possible for them to communicate in that method without
“There’s still a high demand for unified communications. One of the largest deals we did last quarter was fundamentally UC-based, and I think that will continue. “The value for us as a company is what we can build around UC.” n
Comment from the Editor
Going into this interview, I was expecting the usual spiel about how AI is a transformative technology and how 8x8 is a leader in the space, or at least attempting to be. What transpired was a refreshing perspective that, in reality, the AI agents that are sold to most businesses have already been successfully rolled out in the contact centre. It’s clear that the customer experience is the focus of businesses the world over. Against a tough economic backdrop, to put it lightly, the prevailing sentiment is that maintaining customer numbers is the only way to guarantee survival for another year.
It is no surprise, therefore, that CRM platforms are now encroaching on the contact centre. Customer data is essentially priceless when it is made available to the agents who are providing support. Yet 8x8 seems unfazed by this development, knowing that they have the end-to-end solution that can connect the business before it begins its CX revolution. That way, they can focus on delivering outcomes. n
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