Contact centers have fundamentally changed since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic as customers shifted to remote engagement and companies relied on contact centers to manage their customer experience, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

The recent integration between 8×8’s ‘Work’ Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) offer and the ‘Cloud CX’ Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) offer from Genesys enables collaboration between contact center agents and subject-matter experts (SMEs) across an organization. ‘Work’ includes enterprise voice, video meetings, and chat, while ‘Cloud CX’ works across phone, email, chat, text, and social channels.

The integration between 8×8’s ‘Work’ and Genesys’ ‘Cloud CX’ will enable agents to access SMEs through a company directory, while SMEs can indicate their availability to respond to customer inquiries. Additionally, agents will access both offers through a single sign-on.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst at GlobalData, comments: “This integration highlights that users now want their platform to work seamlessly with others, rather than needing to purchase multiple platforms. Rivals are now acknowledging that to fill this need, going it alone is not prudent and instead have embraced cooperation with rivals. At the same time, vendors have established tight linkage between UCaaS and CCaaS. Combining UCaaS and CCaaS is an acknowledgement that, ultimately, every employee serves the customer.”