SMBs were provided a solution for streamlining communications this week as 8×8 Inc. announced its new Virtual Office cloud PBX services.
“Unified communications (UC), video calling and cloud-based PBXs all boost productivity and responsiveness, but only when they’re convenient and intuitive enough for all users,” states 8×8 in a press release submitted to Channel Pro-SMB.
The Virtual Receptionist and Group Intercom Multicast Paging services of the Virtual Office cloud PBX services are designed to make internal and external communication with business partners and customers more efficient and productive.
“8×8 developed Virtual Receptionist and Group Intercom Multicast Paging because they were two of our customers’ most requested features,” says 8×8 chairman and CEO Bryan Martin. “We were able to quickly accommodate these requests due to the innovation and agility enabled by our own internally-developed technology platform. The Polycom VVX 500 deskphone complements this innovation by providing our customers a highly intuitive way to access these new features and the rest of our Virtual Office suite via a touchscreen interface.”
VIRTUAL RECEPTIONIST
Virtual Receptionist, available now as an 8×8 Virtual Office add-on service, takes advantage of the smartphone-like interface and advanced, fourth generation firmware of the new Polycom VVX 500 IP phone to add call handling and work group monitoring capabilities to the Virtual Office business phone service.
With Virtual Receptionist, 8×8 Virtual Office customers can process up to six concurrent, incoming live calls, observe the status of up to six team member extensions, and enable immediate collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners.
GROUP INTERCOM MULTICAST PAGING
The Group Intercom Multicast Paging service enables 8×8 Virtual Office users to make real-time announcements to a department, team, or work area using the intercom feature on the Polycom VVX 500†phone, subsequently eliminating the need for an expensive multi-zone loudspeaker paging system.
With Group Intercom Multicast Paging, 8×8 Virtual Office customers can intercom to specific paging groups or broadcast a page to all other Polycom
†VVX 500 sets on the virtual office PBX, create and manage up to 23 customer-defined paging groups, and manage permissions for broadcasting and receiving pages.
