Likelihood to Recommend 8x8 is well suited for our small private practice. Even though we are close to each other, it makes managing and transferring calls effortless. Concurrent calls are also a strong suit. Even if two people are logged into the same user account, being able to answer two lines at the same time and flip between devices is a great feature to have.
Read full review Skype is useful for collaborations across distances, including work from home, as well as a more convenient way to communicate with a large group of people. Skype is also useful to communicate with specific parties quickly, rather than relying on cellular service in areas where not as available. Skype is less useful if the team does not use computers , tablets, smartphones, etc in daily workflow as it would rarely be used.
Read full review Pros Automatically routes incoming calls to the available agent with the appropriate skills, ensuring that customers are served promptly. Integrates with email systems to provide a unified view of customer interactions. Allows sales representatives to share their screens with customers and prospects, demonstrating products and services effectively. Read full review Instant messaging to anyone who we know only by name/email. Even if they're offline, they get the message in missed convos and a notification automatically goes to them via Outlook mail. All conversations are saved and accessible via Outlook. Video and voice calls are a norm in the WFH scenario, and an average employee has around 4-5 calls a day. Skype gives notifications for upcoming meetings, allows easy scheduling via outlook calendar, and its audio/video quality [is] reasonably good compared to the amount of data it consumes. Status availabilities - in the WFH scenario, you could be off for lunch, out of office, busy, sharing screens - and might not want to be disturbed. Skype allows you to do that, and in case you're off, ensures that you know that you have missed messages. Screen sharing - we have to share screens at least once or twice a day with a coworker when working on some issues/features, and Skype easily lets us do that. One of the best things about Skype is that the screen can be shared without being on a video/voice call - which is of immense advantage because oftentimes, you could prefer sharing the screen, while it [is] too noisy to talk. Read full review Cons 8x8's emails with billing info or auto-payments does not attach a pdf copy of the invoice for reference; you have to log in to your dashboard and navigate through several links to obtain a copy of your invoice, which is frankly just inconvenient. While 8x8 is very feature rich, a lot of it appears to be oriented towards call centers and therefore may not be required or useful for small offices (like ours). While 8x8 is very responsive to issues affecting its system, the frequent update alerts can become distracting. Read full review Probably the biggest area is the video element as it has historically struggled in this area. The need to be forced to federate with another organisation by providing yours and enabling the other organisation settings is a bit tedious but once done, allows for simple collaboration between third-parties. Functionality wise, as it's an older product and being superseded by MS Teams, it feels as if it's run its course but was very good for what it does/did at the time. Read full review Likelihood to Renew All our employees love this product. No one has ever had an issue, whether it be the phone or fax. Great during the winter when employees have to work from home because of the snow. Never had an issue with the phone app. Highly recommend this product
Read full review The software is simple to install and configure. It is rather simple to explain for correct use. It is possible to profile users for the different functions offered. It is integrated quite completely with Outlook and with Active Directory security. It performs all communication functions well with one or more interlocutors and the possibility of granting control of your computer is convenient.
Read full review Usability Again for a large call center with many needs, and full time people to manage this may be a good system, but for a small business needing a phone system in my opinion it is overly complicated and difficult to manage without multiple calls on support.
Read full review Very easy to use. Even though Microsoft Teams has a lot of features and integrations, as a user I feel completely comfortable on finding what I need, getting information about the app extensions and using them. It's a very comprehensive tool, intuitive design and does not make me feel tired to be using it. I am glad with the current experience.
Read full review Reliability and Availability As mentioned before, we have not had an outage with the phone system per say, There was an issue with the call center where we did have an outage, but it was quickly and promplty handled by 8x8 support, they got us up and going again within 24 hours. The 8x8 hard phone and softphone side of things have been rock solid, I couldn't ask for anything more seeing we are in health care and it's exactly what we were looking for. When and if there is an issue 99% of the time it's user error
Read full review Performance None of the features that are available slow down the application. The reports (even the ones with hundreds of records) complete very quickly and the web interface as well as the mobile application never struggle to load or complete a task. The analytics will sometimes take some time to reflect the online status of users but it is to be expected due to connection speeds.
Read full review Support Rating 8x8 support can be phenomenal. After getting in touch with a support member, all of my problems are either solved right away or throughout a small time frame, fine-tuned to my circumstance/issue. Whether they are following up via phone call or email, I have full confidence and faith that any matter will be resolved. Trying to contact the support team is where things get a bit tricky. Raising an issue in the chat can be taxing as we are mostly referred to the general FAQ section of the site. Although it may be helpful to some, it does nothing for those of us that have very specific problems. If each account holder can receive access to a customer service line that differs from non-member account holders, I think we'd have a higher level of trust and a lower level of frustration.
Read full review I have only had to reach out to the Support team at Skype for Business once with an issue, and I was pleasantly surprised and encouraged by the quickness and thoroughness of their response. The wait time was short and my question was dealt with politely and clearly, so I would say the support team has it together.
Read full review In-Person Training The person giving the training was very engaged, He also listened and answered all the questions. He created a video for our company while he was training in case we needed to reference it again in the future. The questions he could not answer were answered within 24 hours via an email to the IT support staff here so we could share the answers with the rest of the group
Read full review Online Training online (video) training is good. No issues.
Read full review Implementation Rating The implementation of 8x8 X was rather smooth. We had training prior to getting the system. The IT company did a good job on the training. The whole system is wonderful. Saves me so much time with the faxing, as i can just let it go by itself and not have to make sure pages don't get skipped, as with a regular fax machine.
Read full review Skpe for business is utilized company wide in regards to my company. Everyone not only uses it, but uses it often. It is an effective way of communicating. It also integrates very nicely with outlook and all conversation history is pushed to a folder within the outlook system. We also have it so that if someone misses a message, they are sent an email reminder saying that there is a message that went unread.
Read full review Alternatives Considered Hands down 8x8 is superior to the Spectrum Ring Central that we had tried. Interestingly, they supplied the same phone hardware but were unable to suggest an adapter for wifi for the phones. Cost wise very similar but customer experience very different. Above all else, the quality of customer service has made all the difference
Read full review For the below reason I will always choose this app over its competitors: Better audio and video quality, Little to no disconnections or freezing when on a call/video conference Integrates well with mailbox/ calendar/ one drive, and SharePoint is easy to use
Read full review Contract Terms and Pricing Model At this time, we’re very happy with the pricing model that we have worked out and they have provided for us. Just be sure to do your homework, and use your comparisons to work out your cost with 8x8. They will be very straightforward with you on what they can adjust for you.
Read full review Scalability 8x8 100% suits Business needs to connect with from anywhere and everywhere. The Softphone features is very light and very easy to use also very reliable with Zero Downtime. Can also be set personal Voicemail over softphone at anytime and logs everything is very easy to find.
Read full review Professional Services PS had all the users etc. set up by our go-live date. All hard phones were activated and when we received them, all we had to do was set them up and punch in the activation code to activate them.
Read full review Return on Investment It's been amazing. We used to have so many complaints about call quality, phone calls cutting in and out, tons of calls where it was dead air, dropped calls etc. Since switching back to 8x8 we have not had one complaint, which is great for business! Being able to communicate with our clients is the only way for us to have a positive ROI! Read full review We almost lost our biggest client because of the poor performance early on in our implementation...the online meetings were poor quality for audio and bandwidth refreshing Many of the employees in our company disliked the quality so much, they started to sign up for free Cisco WebEx accounts to use instead The majority of employees in our company lost trust in our CTO because of his decision to switch from Cisco WebEx to Skype for Business Read full review ScreenShots