For years, 8x8 has lured customers in with its UCaaS solution, built relationships, and then served up a CCaaS platform to meet their customer communication needs.
A classic land and expand strategy that allows 8x8 to bring UCaaS and CCaaS together. In doing so, it delivers on its XCaaS vision.
That vision has not changed. However, 8x8 has pulled a strategic switcheroo, which will lead with CCaaS, not UCaaS.
8x8 made the announcement last week during an event in New York. There, it also launched additional contact center AI capabilities and a new tagline to underline its change in focus: "Communications for the Customer Obsessed."
Discussing the new tagline, Walt Weisner, 8x8 Chief Customer Officer, told CX Today:
Companies that are leading in their sectors are the ones that are truly customer obsessed and, as such, they need a communications platform that is not only built with customers in mind but is one platform that allows for every communications experience across the organization.
Here, Weisner reiterates the value of XCaaS. But he also delved deeper into why 8x8 will lead with CCaaS, with the following four reasons seemingly top of mind.
1. The CCaaS Market Is Less Saturated
Many businesses have already installed UCaaS solutions to support their new hybrid work strategies.
Consider the growth of Microsoft Teams. At the start of 2021, it had 145 million monthly active users. In January 2022, this figure jumped to 270 million. This year, it has risen to 280 million.
As these statistics suggest, its growth curve is slowing considerably - a trend that stretches across the UC space.
So, while in years gone by, it made sense to lead with UCaaS, now the pendulum has seemingly swung, and 8x8 sees the ripest opportunity in the much more open CCaaS space.
Indeed, according to 2023 Metrigy research, only 29.5 percent of companies globally have switched to CCaaS. As such, there is lots of business to play for.
2. The CCaaS Market Is Less Mature
Think of Zoom and Slack. How often have they launched a new UCaaS feature, only for Microsoft Teams to release something similar just months later? There is little space for differentiation.
As Weisner confirms:
The opportunities to differentiate based on stand-alone UCaaS are becoming increasingly rare.
Thankfully, modern CCaaS platforms present many more opportunities through AI-based differentiation – whether through conversational AI, insight generation, augmenting agent experiences, or something else.
As a result, 8x8 may open up more opportunities to set itself apart by prioritizing CCaaS.
3. The Switch Enables a More Compelling Argument for XCaaS
Contact center agents are not the only employees that use CCaaS tools anymore. Store workers, account managers, marketing and sales teams, and others use them too.
If 8x8 leads with CCaaS, it can make a compelling argument for XCaaS to help bring these tools to workers outside the service operation.