What’s new for 8x8 Contact Center agents in March?
In this release of 8x8 Agent WorkspaceThe brand new interface for 8x8 Contact Center agents to receive and process customer interactions., we have introduced the following enhancements:
- Ability to view your search history for contacts
- Improved UI for My assigned queues
- Improved sorting capability for My assigned queues
- Ability to view agent availability when transferring customers to a queue
Ability to view your search history for contacts
When you click on the search field in your Contacts directory, the app displays a list of contacts you recently interacted with. This feature helps save valuable time when trying to reach people.
To clear your search history, click the search field and select the Clear search history option from the bottom of the list.
Improved UI for My assigned queues
The user interface (UI) for My assigned queues has been improved to ensure 8x8 Contact Center agents can efficiently manage and prioritize their tasks.
As an agent, you can now select the check box next to the media type label to enable or disable all queues within that media (if you have permission to opt in/out of queues). Additionally, the queue icons display detailed information when expanding the Control Panel to make it easier to understand how many agents are busy, how many customers are waiting in the queues, and the queue waiting time. When no interactions are waiting in the queue, the number of interactions waiting and the waiting time are not displayed. Expand the control panel to view the full description for the icons.
These enhancements improve usability and help you increase productivity and improve customer service.
For a more comprehensive list of the UI enhancements, refer to the list below.
- The media type label (inbound and outbound phone, chat, email, and voicemail) displays the number of queues you are enabled to serve and supervise.
- Supervisors will see the icon in the queue details for the queues they are enabled to supervise. Previously, the icon was used to highlight the queues for which you had supervisor permissions.
- You can enable or disable all the queues related to a media type by clicking the check box next to the media type label. If you only wish to enable specific queues from a media type, click the check box next to the desired queue.
- If you are enabled to serve only certain queues within a media type, the media type label displays the icon instead of a check mark icon, indicating that you are not enabled to serve all the queues.
- If you only have supervisor permissions for the queues within a media type, the media type label will not display a check box because, as a supervisor only, you are not required to opt in or out of queues to perform your tasks.
- The queue details display descriptions for the icons to allow you to quickly determine the number of agents currently serving the queue, the number of agents in busy status, the number of interactions waiting in the queue, and the queue waiting time. When no interactions are waiting in the queue, the number of interactions waiting and the waiting time are not displayed. Expand the control panel to view the full description for the icons.
- The number of agents that are currently busy are displayed in red in the queue details.
- When no agents are enabled to serve the queue or no agents are logged in to the queue, an orange-colored warning sign followed by the number zero displays in the queue details.
- Queues with long labels are truncated. Hover over the truncated queue name to display the full text.
Note: The media type will not contain a check box if you don’t have permission to enable/disable queues, and the queues you are enabled to serve will display a gray check mark in front.
Improved sorting capability for My assigned queues
The Sort feature from My assigned queues is now accessible from the upper-right corner of the Control Panel. Additionally, you can now sort your assigned queues by:
- QueueA queue is an ordered collection of interactions waiting to be served by agents qualified to respond to these interactions. In addition to enabling the call center administrator to customize how incoming interactions are prioritized and routed, queues also ensure that interactions are never lost or discarded. A-Z: Sorts the queues in alphabetical order.
- Queue Z-A: Sorts the queues in reverse alphabetical order.
- Busy interactions: Sorts the queues based on the number of busy interactions, from busiest to least busy.
- Interactions waiting: Sorts the queues based on the number of interactions waiting in queue, in descending order.
- Longest waiting time: Sorts the queues by waiting time, in descending order.
Prior to this release, you could only sort queues alphabetically.
Ability to view agent availability when transferring customers to a queue
When transferring a customer to another queue, you can now see the number of agents that are currently enabled to serve the queue, the number of agents available to receive interactions (next to the green icon), the number of interactions waiting in the queue, and the queue waiting time. When no interactions are waiting in the queue, the number of interactions waiting and the waiting time are not displayed. Expand the control panel to view the full description for the icons.
When no agents are enabled to serve the queue or no agents are logged in to the queue, an orange-colored warning sign followed by the number zero displays in the queue details.
This information empowers you to make an informed decision about which queue to transfer the interaction to, thus expediting the resolution of the issue and increasing customer satisfaction.
What’s new for 8x8 Contact Center agents in January?
In this release of 8x8 AgentAgents use the Agent Console to view and manage customer interactions. Virtual Contact Center supports Regular agents and Supervisor agents. Workspace, we have introduced the following enhancements:
- Improved message for search results in the contact directory
- Enhanced search filter access
- New search filters available in the contact directory
- Improved email handling experience
Improved message for search results in the contact directory
When searching your Contacts and either no results or more than 20 results are found for your search, the system displays a message to suggest using filters to refine your search. You can click the link in the message to access the filters, or click the Filter icon next to the search field. This enhancement aims to help you access filters more easily and make the search process more efficient.
Enhanced search filter access
The Filter icon, which is accessible from your Contacts , My assigned queues, and the agent dashboard , has been moved to the right of the search field. This enhancement makes it easier for you to spot the search filter when you need to narrow down your search results.
Prior to this enhancement, the Filter icon was located in front of the search field on a dark color background.
New search filters available in the contact directory
8x8 Contact Center agents can now filter their contacts by Ring group or Call queue. Using these two new filters, you can find your contacts within specific ring groups or call queues more easily. Prior to this release, agents were required to manually search for these contacts when handling calls, which led to unnecessary delays.
To access the Ring group and Call queue filters:
- Log in to your 8x8 Agent Workspace account.
- Select Ready to work or set your status to Work Offline.
- Click the Contacts icon from the bottom left side of Agent Workspace.
- Click the Filter icon.
- Select Type from the filter category list. A drop-down list displays.
- Select Ring group and/or Call queue.
Selected filters display a blue check mark in front of them. The number of selected filters displays next to the category and the Filter icon.
Improved email handling experience
Known issue: This feature currently has a known limitation where email replies aren't saved in the CRM. We will notify you when the limitation is addressed.
Note: The email handling experience is configured by the Contact Center administrator.
Emails can now be handled from the Control Panel in 8x8 Agent Workspace, in addition to the previous experience of handling emails from the Display Panel. This new capability aims to improve how emails are handled in 8x8 Contact Center by allowing agents to:
- View the sender’s email address in the same panel.
- Handle emails and view the thread in same panel.
- See attachments easily and the email they are associated with.
- Have their productivity reported in Analytics.
For more information, refer to Process email interactions from the Control Panel (New email experience).
For enhancements introduced prior to this release, see our content on previous releases.