8x8 offers their eponymous 8x8 Contact Center as a call center solution with in-built workforce optimization features, as well as an integration with Teleoptics to supply workforce management capabilities.
The software is based at least partially on technology gained when 8x8 acquired Contactual in 2011; the Contactual OnDemand Contact Center was the earlier name of the platform.
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Alvaria Workforce
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Alvaria Workforce (formerly Aspect Workforce Management), is a suite of software which combines call center workforce management with advanced analytics features like call recording, speech analytics, eLearning for training, data sharing for schedule optimization across call center or branch locations, and desktop analytics for monitoring and analyzing discrete actions like employee keystrokes and application usage. The Basic, Advanced, and Enterprise tiers include…
8x8 Contact Center has made my Care Center run much more efficiently. It is a move that I wish we had made many years ago. There have not been any days that we have had a disruption in service and the quality of the calls are always perfect.
Easy workforce management tool and the dashboard is well designed with multiple accessible functionalities. This platform allows easy data collection across other project management systems and the analytics which the tool provides are excellent and very reliable project planning and easy scheduling with effective and excellent management functionalities and initial implementing is also an easy process.
Tracks all inbound and outbound calls from our organization.
Gives us the ability to record and review calls.
Gives the user the ability to receive phone call either via computer, cell phone, or polycom phone when in-house - all received from the same static number/extension.
Post-sale support through the online ticket system is painfully slow.
It's hard to get in contact with people for license help and understanding why phone numbers are not properly distributed in your account. i.e. Our account has 48 free local numbers and we had to purchase 120 additional numbers. But for some reason only 25 of the 48 free numbers are being utilized, and there's no good way in the Admin UI to see which numbers are which, or reallocate paid numbers into those 'free' slots.
The system has bugs which pop up from time to time such as when a user uses the 'Do Not Disturb' option in their app or on their phone - it does not always turn off on the back-end of the system, even though the phone or app shows the user as available. This causes inbound phone calls to be routed directly to Voicemail, and the only notice the user has is when someone reaches out by other means to say "Why is your phone going directly to voicemail?" - which initiates a service ticket for IT who cannot see this in the admin center. And unless 'flipping' DND on then off again fixes it, it requires a ticket with 8x8 which is, as mentioned before, slow.
The configuration of the system is quite complex and very difficult to administer.
Initial training on the product is simply focused on the product and it typically not done using a customers real data. Since many customers do not have a strong background in WFM to begin with, the training should focus more on the fundamental of WFM before it dives into how to use the tool. You have to learn more about how it is best to use the tool for real world environments and not just how to click here and go there.
RTA has not been updated in years. It does not offer real-time schedule adherence scores and the reporting is terrible. Reporting is specific to each workspace and you lose data each time you close a workspace.
The shrinkage calculator feature that was added a few years ago is a great feature but very difficult to reconcile. If you are not an extreme expert with the very confusing superstate philosophy in eWFM it can be disastrous.
While I support other customers who utilize the software, the response from our customers is over-whelmingly positive. Many customers who have not had any type of workforce management software in the past use spreadsheets to schedule and forecast agents. This can be extremely complicated and a nightmare to control. The time saved by having a product that can quickly complete these functions for you is worth the investment. Also, we have several customers who had no way to track what their agents are doing and have found many problems in their call-center with the software. After rolling out a program where their adherence was tracked and actually 'mattered', they were able to see increased efficency from their agents.
The system is flexible, adaptable and easy to use and research. Once again the reporting is fantastic and gives up the information we need to be successful and even make changes or tweaks. The 8x8 Contact Center team is there to assist with questions when needed or to help get through an issue. Charlie Knutson is the best!!
Once the initial set up of the software is complete and/or you are familiar with the software, it is easy to use and runs like a dream. However, if you are unfamiliar with the software or have used a competitor's product, some features can seem difficult to learn or get used to.
The initial live support person seems to be just collecting information and is outsourced. Sometimes it is difficult to communicate with them, but going through this process gets me to the right person and having my support ticket opened in order. It's usually very smooth thereafter.
I was impressed with the support I received. There were never any long delays when I had issues and the representatives that I worked with were always patient and eager to fully understand not only my problem but our business processes surrounding the problem.
Detailed training and good quality to provide our customers to achieve their needs and to give the best we can as far as information and technology and the best service we can to have the customers be satisfied with the technology and the best quality to get the best answers to their doubts.
its was with the best quality and the best performance we could have as far as detailed information for us to get the best training on how to get used of 8*8 and provide the best quality and technology to provide to our customers when they need and made us fell comforatble in how to use it
Implementation of the software was not difficult but it was tedious for us due to the fact that our processes had not kept up with the times and we had to make a large number of process changes along with setting up the software.
Vonage was priced right on the install but escalated as the year went on and by the end of the second year, they had lost the edge they had over many other companies and forced a change by me. We had to work with a single account manager and that was hard when things went wrong on the system. The downtime was minimal with them also.
I have used NICE IEX Workforce Management in addition to Aspect Workforce Management, both tools are great at what they do. Aspect however builds its forecast model continuously, adding more information to the model everyday, where are with IEX, the model has to be built each and every time from used selections each week. IEX does not have a historical base model to reference, where Aspect does.
The ROI for us is measured more within the CSAT and NPS score increase we have seen thus far, both scores have gone up significantly since we have streamlined our process with 8X8.
We are now focusing our attention on retention with the hopes of seeing a second wave of ROI with 8X8.
The workforce management team was able to decrease the cycle time forecasting, staffing and scheduling staff; resulted in higher employee engagement
The scenario based planning enabled us to develop a more accurate call volume forecast thus staffing the contact centers appropriately; approximately $500k savings realized in labor expenses (reduced FTE headcount, while meeting the same level of service level measures)
Improved customer experience due to staffing the call center properly (answered 80 percent of our calls within 20 seconds)
