8×8 Has Launched 8×8 AI Routing

8×8 has launched 8×8 AI Routing, a new routing engine designed to connect customers with the most suitable employee across the organisation, rather than relying solely on traditional contact centre queues and manually assigned skills.

“AI-powered routing has long promised a lot, but vendors have largely failed to address one key challenge: automatically assigning and maintaining agent skills and proficiency levels.

Using interaction transcripts, previous history, sentiment and other real-time factors, 8×8 AI Routing analyzes data, suggests skills and skill levels for each agent, and lets administrators accept or adjust those assignments.

The routing engine reanalyzes the data to recommend additional skill or level changes based on the agent’s actual work, again for admin review,” said Sheila McGee-Smith, founder and principal analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics.

“What is even more powerful is that 8×8 can evaluate each inbound interaction and determine who — across the entire enterprise, not just the contact center — is best equipped to resolve the customer’s intent.”

The system uses real-time and historical interaction data, including transcripts and sentiment, to automatically suggest and update employee skills and proficiency levels. It can route interactions not only to contact centre agents but also to subject matter experts and back-office teams across different channels.

8×8 said the platform provides supervisors with visibility into routing decisions through audit trails and allows organisations to pilot the technology gradually before wider deployment. The routing engine also integrates with existing 8×8 tools and third-party systems, adapting as new channels and teams are added.

“The routing problem has always been about architecture,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8.

“The best person for a given customer interaction might sit anywhere in the business, but most systems were never designed to look beyond their own boundaries.

8×8 AI Routing was built differently, spanning all teams and boundaries in the business simultaneously and evaluating the full range of available resources in real time. That’s a challenge point solutions fundamentally struggle to solve, and exactly the kind a true platform is built for.”

The company says the aim is to reduce transfers and improve customer resolution by matching enquiries with the best available resource across the business.

For more information about 8x8 - visit the 8x8 Website

About 8x8

8x8 is transforming the future of business communications as a leading Software-as-a-Service provider of voice, video, chat, contact centre, and enterprise-class API solutions, powered by one global cloud communications platform.

Find out more about 8x8

Author: Robyn Coppell
Reviewed by: Megan Jones