8x8 Work vs. Google Hangouts (Classic)

I’ve found 8x8 Work to be a reliable and efficient communication solution for our business. It offers excellent call quality, easy management of call flows and departments, and seamless integration for both in-office and remote users. One feature we especially like is that it automatically searches for phone numbers on the web, which saves time and makes it easier to identify and reach contacts

Incentivized

As previously mentioned, Google Hangouts (Classic) is best suited for ad-hoc, informal communications with external collaborators that would benefit from face-to-face interactions, but don’t require a record of the conversation and don’t necessarily require a high degree of corporate security. For communications of consequence, our corporate toolset is more appropriate, but Google Hangouts (Classic) serves a similar function to FaceTime or Zoom.

Incentivized

• Direct calls to the extensions.
• Callers were able to either talk to our individual staff members or leave a message.
• We loved having a record of every single call that came in for CRM purposes.
• We loved being able to collect our messages from the console.

Incentivized

• Google Hangouts (Classic) is embedded within Gmail's scheduler, so setting up the link is as quick as a click of the button. It's a one-step process.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) is user-friendly and [has] features to share screens easily.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) is much easier to use than its competitors.
• Google Hangouts (Classic) have [a] good connection time and there are few glitches.

Incentivized

• The auto attendant has built in text-to-speech, but this same engine should be put to use for individual and ring group voicemail messages.
• Call forwarding in the mobile app should be relocated for easier access. Instead it's buried somewhere under the generic "account settings"
• The default user template disables voicemail text transcription. Why???
• One fax number should be accessible by app for more than 1 user. Responsibility for faxes is usually distributed among a few people in a typical small office setting.
• Ability to receive and send SMS messages from a shared "main company number" would be awesome. Ability to assign this to certain users would rock!

Incentivized

• I would like to see improved video support, so that saved videos can be sent back and forth via Hangouts more easily, without having to start a separate meet chat
• More pronounced notifications of messages would be helpful; pop up notifications are good, but once there is one, additional messages do not pop up
• Custom muting times would be great, so that if I am in a 90 minute Zoom meeting, I can set it for that time; right now, it is 1 hour or 2 hours. Easy to forget.

Incentivized

Everyone at the company now have the experiance needed to make phone calls, meetings, video conferencing. It's easy to use is unmatched in the industry. It's been a solid product throughout. The phone tree was easy to setup with the implementation team and they guided us throughout the process

Incentivized

We never have problems working with 8x8, employees pickup quickly on how to use the system best for them. Calling out and receiving calls is simple, the ablility to click on a number and 8x8 dial it for you saves so much time when you are making high volume calls.

Incentivized

The tool is almost self-implemented. It is likely to be available in every pc or mobile device a user or potential user might have, and all you need to do is adding the company's account and you are done. Once you are setted up, you have almost all actual communication methods available in one tool

Incentivized

In the time I have used 8x8 Virtual Office, the core system has been up and running almost flawlessly though we do have a slight performance degradation from time to time as is expected of cloud software. The one recurring issue for us is that the fax connection is not always functional for outbound messages. We usually have to retry three or four times to get the fax to connect reliably to the destination machine. Once connected, it's smooth sailing.

Incentivized

No problems with performance, Pages load as they should. I can't answer on the reports side as only a handful of our Admins ( call center ) currently use that side of the software. It does intergrate very well with Office for meetings and conferences. Sometimes there is a slight lag or static when users are talking, but we found this to be a cause of a users computer had not restarted in a while, Once the user restarts thier computer the problem is resolved, So this is not an issue with 8x8

Incentivized

We are a USA based organization. Support was refreshingly quick (callback via phone or email, online live agents). Agents are knowledgeable, thorough in their explanations, and extremely patient when dealing with end-users at various levels of the ICT knowledge spectrum.

Incentivized

Google Hangouts works great and does not require a lot of work to troubleshoot. Everything is simple and easy to use. Google provides all of the tools that one requires to utilize Google Hangouts and any information can be found in the built-in help tools. There is also a forum for users to report issues and typically, Google responds well and will try to work out any issues.

Incentivized

The person giving the training was very engaged, He also listened and answered all the questions. He created a video for our company while he was training in case we needed to reference it again in the future. The questions he could not answer were answered within 24 hours via an email to the IT support staff here so we could share the answers with the rest of the group

Incentivized

Good and Simple Training Module, also Certification is available.

Incentivized

We had a third party implement and set up the system the way we wanted it - after that I do all changes or additions. The vendor was very knowledgeable and had it up and running in less than an hour.

Incentivized

8x8 Work offers all we need in an easy-to-use format. Zoom seemed to have too many features that are not required and can be overwhelming to Users who are not the most Tech-Savvy. The price point of 8x8 is great, too. Get everything we need at a low cost.

Incentivized

For its time, Google Hangouts (Classic) was a fantastic product and matched up well with all of its successors. Now however, with it having been phased on within Workspace for Education, I would not advise any new users use the product. Google Chat, combined with Google Meet, have superseded Hangouts (Classic) and should be used by default due to their close knit integration with Gmail.

Incentivized

The only issue was adding licences was not via a button click but through your account admin which seems bad practice in a SaaS world as the user should be able to sign up, amend and close their account with ease

Incentivized

• Moving to 8x8 Work helped us consolidate our soft phone and IVR needs with our contact center platform and save thousands in the first year alone.
• All of the 8x8 Work products I've worked with have great integration options from CRMs like Zoho/Salesforce to Google and Microsoft Office.

Incentivized

• I believe it was part of the google suite that was purchased. It was worth the cost as it was cheaper. I believe it is now free, but also becoming deprecated. It is much better to use Teams, Discord, Telegram, etc. Google does not provide enough support or features to make using hangouts worth it these days.

Incentivized