What's new in October 2024?
We are introducing the following enhancements in October 2024:
- Ability to transfer informal Contact Center calls to other queues
- Ability to pause and resume Contact Center queues
- Ability to control how users can handle additional incoming calls during another call
Ability to transfer informal Contact Center calls to other queues
As an 8x8 Engage specialist, you can now transfer an informal Contact Center (CC) call to any enabled CC queues.
The Contact Center (CC) transfer process is only activated for engagement specialists and is triggered when the call originates from a specific CC queue (identified by its queue name). During the transfer process, the user has various options, including transferring the call directly, initiating a warm transfer, or choosing from a list of other available queues to transfer the call to.
To transfer an informal Contact Center call to a queue:
- While on a call, notify the other party that you will transfer them to a colleague.
- Tap Transfer and select Transfer to queue to bring up a list of queues without placing the other party on hold.
- Select a favorite or suggested queue from the list, or enter the queue name you want to transfer to and confirm.
- The queue transfer has been processed, and you have been disconnected from the call. The contact you selected receives a call from the other party.
To learn more about managing your queues on mobile, see 8x8 Engage - Manage queues on mobile.
Ability to pause and resume Contact Center queues
Customer engagement specialists can pause or resume their Contact Center (CC) queues whenever necessary. When your queues are paused, customers will not receive any queue calls and cannot take any action on the queues.
To pause/resume CC queues for engagement specialists:
- Log in to 8x8 Work for Mobile.
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Swipe up or tap My Queues at the bottom of the main screen.
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On the My Queues screen, click Pause queues , click Break (for iOS only), and select a reason: Work offline or Break.
- Optional: Click the selected reason for pause and choose another one from the list, if necessary.
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Your queues are currently disabled, and you cannot act on them. You will only receive calls once you resume them. A timer in the screen's upper-right corner shows the paused time until the queues are resumed.
Note: When the My Queues section is collapsed, the counter still displays on the right side of the My Queues section.
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Click Resume queues to enable your queues and start receiving calls again.
When you resume the queues, the counter will no longer be displayed. Your queues are enabled, and you can receive calls again or search for, enable, or disable queues.
To learn more about managing your queues on mobile, see 8x8 Engage - Manage queues on mobile.
Ability to control how users can handle additional incoming calls during another call
To control how users can handle additional incoming calls during another call:
- While configuring the user's settings, go to Voice Basic Settings.
- Under Enable call waiting, choose how users will handle incoming additional calls, when they are in another call:
- Turn on Enable call waiting to allow the user to receive direct DID calls while on an 8x8 Engage/8x8 Engagequeue call.
- Turn off Enable call waiting to prevent the user from receiving direct DID calls while an 8x8 Engage/8x8 Engagequeue call..
Note: Users on a direct DID call do not receive 8x8 Engage or 8x8 Engage queue calls, regardless of whether the Enable call waiting option is enabled or disabled.
To learn more about how admins can customize an 8x8 Engage user accounts, see Create 8x8 Engage user accounts in the 8x8 Admin Console.
Previous releases
Note: These enhancements are only available with 8x8 Work for Desktop/Web version 8.14. To check your version number, navigate to the Profile Menu and select About. To learn more about downloading the latest version of 8x8 Work, see Download 8x8 Work for Desktop.
In this release of 8x8 Engage, we are introducing the following enhancements:
As an 8x8 Engage user, you now have the ability to transfer 8x8 Contact Center queue calls to any enabled inbound phone queues. This new feature empowers users and ensures customers are routed to the appropriate queue. Let’s say you receive a call intended for a specific queue, you can simply transfer the active call to the suitable 8x8 Contact Center queue in 8x8 Work for Desktop/Web. When transferring a call, the Queues tab displays a list of available queues. It also shows queue metrics such as the number of available agents, the number of calls in progress, and the number of calls waiting in a queue. You can leverage these metrics to ensure that you are not transferring a customer to a queue with no available agents.
To transfer a call:
As an 8x8 Engage user, you can pause inbound calls to your assigned queues. Pausing queued calls allows you to stop receiving new interactions while on a scheduled break, or while working offline. You can specify a reason for the pause, allowing your 8x8 Engage supervisor to accurately track your status. When pausing interactions from My assigned queues, you can specify one of these reasons:
- Break: It indicates you are not available to receive new interactions, and access to all user-related features is disabled.
- Work Offline: It indicates you are not available to receive new interactions, but all user-related features are enabled and accessible.
Note: 8x8 Engage supervisors can view reporting for paused queues along with he reason for the pause in 8x8 Analytics for Contact Center and 8x8 Supervisor Workspace.
To pause calls to your assigned queues:
- Log in to 8x8 Work for Desktop/Web.
- From the navigation menu, click My assigned queues.
- Select the phone queue(s) you would like to pause.
- Click Pause. From the drop-down menu, select a reason to pause calls.
All inbound calls routed via the selected queues are paused, and a timer is displayed indicating the duration of the pause.
Note: As an 8x8 Engage user, you can change the reason for pausing interactions from a queue without having to first resume queue calls.
To resume calls to your assigned queues:
- Log in to 8x8 Work for Desktop/Web.
- From the navigation menu, click My assigned queues.
- Click Resume now or Resume to start getting calls again.
Video Elevation is an integrated solution that allows 8x8 Engage users to establish a one-way video connection with customers in need of assistance. With this feature, you can switch from a phone interaction to a one-way video interaction with a few clicks. This new feature ensures you can get a clear visual of the customer’s problem by extending a video call invitation to gather all the information necessary for a quick call resolution. While on a queued call with a customer, click Video invite to send an SMS with a link to a video call. The customer can simply click the link received via SMS to establish the video connection, without having to install any software.
Let’s say Pat is a customer support specialist at AcmeJets, a window shutter manufacturer. Pat receives a call from Blake, a customer, claiming that the recently installed shutters cannot close. To get a clear understanding of the problem, Pat decides to elevate the conversation to video and sends out an meeting link to Blake’s mobile phone. Blake accepts the invitation and Pat can now see the window shutters installed. With the camera pointing at the shutters, Blake tries to close them. Pat notices that a safety pin is preventing the shutters from closing. After instructing Blake on the correct removal of the safety pin, the shutters work as intended. The interaction ends successfully without having to escalate to an expert or dispatch a technician to the customer’s location.
Note: The live video feed shared with the customer can only be viewed by the 8x8 Engage user and the customer. The customer cannot see the 8x8 Engage user during the video interaction.
Select Past meetings from the Meetings tab to access a list of previous video interactions.