8x8 Work is a collaboration hub for phone, video, and messaging. It brings secure unified communication and collaboration experiences to every employee.
$24
per month
Google Hangouts (Classic)
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
The classic version of Google Hangouts is a communication platform that includes messaging, voice, VoIP, and video call capabilities. It was part of Google’s G Suite offering and integrated with applications such as Gmail and Google+. Users of the classic version of Hangouts will be migrated to the new Hangouts Chat collaboration tool, and Google continues to support conferencing via the new Hangouts Meet.
If you are a larger enterprise with a global span of offices equipped with a moderate to large IT department, you may prefer one of the more technically heavy/advanced solutions from others in this marketspace. The presumption there is that you may be looking for more customized, granular control of the application, its GUI and quite possibly- tinkering with certain coding or capabilities. You may also already have a large SaaS rollout already in place and 8x8 Work may either be redundant or lighter than the implementation you already have. If you are (i) a small to medium sized organization dependent on an outsourced IT and/or (ii) have a heavily non-IT user base who need access to more intuitive, end-user friendly tools that shorten the learning curve for them- without sacrificing strong security and data privacy compliance standards (US and EU standards); then this is a solution well worthwhile to consider adopting.
Had I completed this review a couple years ago, I would have given a rating of 9 or 10 as Hangouts (Classic) is an excellent product. However, now that Google Chat has succeeded Hangouts, I would not recommend that any new users begin using it where other more modern options are available. Android users who want an internet based instant messaging that also supports calling and video calling could benefit from using Hangouts (Classic) as Google Chat requires the user to also have Google Meet installed to make video calls and there is no voice only calling option.
A transcript of voicemails would be a great addition for those with auditory processing issues.
When a call comes in on my personal device and I choose to ignore it, the pop-up for the incoming call does not go away; I can continue using my device until the call ends.
The ease of communication with customer service could have been improved. It was not terrible, but it could have been more helpful.
I would like to see improved video support, so that saved videos can be sent back and forth via Hangouts more easily, without having to start a separate meet chat
More pronounced notifications of messages would be helpful; pop up notifications are good, but once there is one, additional messages do not pop up
Custom muting times would be great, so that if I am in a 90 minute Zoom meeting, I can set it for that time; right now, it is 1 hour or 2 hours. Easy to forget.
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
The 8x8 service has boosted productivity and allowed for a 100% remote work environment. Before 8x8, our phone system was more expensive and had fewer features, and it made employees dependent upon sending mass amounts of emails to each other for the simple task of ending a link or a message. The call queues and loops have made it easy for service and support departments to distribute calls evenly.
The tool is almost self-implemented. It is likely to be available in every pc or mobile device a user or potential user might have, and all you need to do is adding the company's account and you are done. Once you are setted up, you have almost all actual communication methods available in one tool
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
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.
We have had multiple negative experiences with our chat support, which has been non-responsive or failed to function as intended. In a particular incident, we encountered difficulty in receiving calls from a support call center, as it was unable to connect with our phones. Following several hours of back and forth, we were forced to resort to having them call our cell phone, but the issue remained unresolved. Even our 8x8 representative confirmed that they were aware of the inadequacies of their support service. I don't know if they provide varying levels of support to their larger clientele; however, our experience has consistently been subpar.
Google Hangouts works great and does not require a lot of work to troubleshoot. Everything is simple and easy to use. Google provides all of the tools that one requires to utilize Google Hangouts and any information can be found in the built-in help tools. There is also a forum for users to report issues and typically, Google responds well and will try to work out any issues.
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
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.
As stated earlier, one major advantage was support for older equipment that other providers could not guarantee or were incompatible. 8x8 Work also seems to cater to our size and type of company where our call center is key to customer satisfaction and delivery. The deep level of customization on profiles and lines, ingratiation with our SSO/SAML tools, and dedicated rep to assist along the way, helped us decide on 8x8 Work for our organization.
Google is the white cotton socks of the conferencing world. It’s a great ad-hoc tool, but not too much more. If you are not looking to spend money or operate completely on WiFi (without data charges), it’s a great free option as well. The benefit of being free and open is also the liability. It doesn’t have a great integration story with other corporate tools, but [it doesn’t have to] if you aren’t looking for that. All in all, it’s as helpful and ubiquitous as a public payphone…without the pay…and with a video capability.
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.
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.
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.
I believe it was part of the google suite that was purchased. It was worth the cost as it was cheaper. I believe it is now free, but also becoming deprecated. It is much better to use Teams, Discord, Telegram, etc. Google does not provide enough support or features to make using hangouts worth it these days.