8×8 Review

Why 8×8 Is Best for Scaling Businesses

8×8’s two feature-rich UC plans and three contact plans provide the full range of business communications tools for small and large operations in any industry. With unlimited users and the ability to mix and match plans, 8×8’s all-in-one platform is uniquely positioned to evolve with your business; this makes it the best phone system for scaling businesses.

8×8 cut its most basic phone plan in recent years. However, we do appreciate how every plan now includes a very strong list of call-handling, video conferencing and team messaging tools. Most Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) business phone providers offer unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada, but 8×8 is one of the few that include unlimited voice calls to up to 48 countries; it offers this in its upper-tier X4 plan. In fact, even the least-expensive 8×8 business communications plan includes unlimited voice calls to 14 countries.

As much of today’s business communications have moved to video conferencing, we like that 8×8 supports up to 500 participants in video and audio conferencing. And as your company grows beyond its borders, you’ll like how the platform offers communications support for 46 languages. 8×8 also has an extensive international footprint, with offices in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom, Bulgaria, France, Portugal and Romania. We also appreciate that the company’s security is globally focused for compliance with GDPR, HIPAA, U.K. government assurance, ISO 9001, SOC 2 and FISMA.

For these reasons, 8×8 shines as the best business phone system for businesses on a serious growth trajectory. But regardless of whether you’re making international calls or hosting large meetings, you can enjoy AI-powered tools, analytics, and comprehensive support through both 8×8 University and the vendor’s customer service team. These features make 8×8 a well-rounded offering, and the platform may even have too many features for organizations with very basic needs.

8×8’s mobile admin tools can surface key metrics and simplify common operational tasks. (Image source: 8×8)

Usability

8×8’s business communications platform is easy to use; this is, in part, because the vendor offers more than a dozen free and a few paid training courses that cover basic and advanced operations. Even without spending time in a virtual classroom, small businesses should have no problem setting up their phone system with 8×8’s user-friendly interface — this walks you through each customizable option. We love that everything from inputting your basic business information to customizing your call routing is accomplished with clear menu options; these options point you in the best direction to build an effective phone system for your organization.

8×8 also has more than 60 integration options across its platform, including Salesforce, Google Workspace and Microsoft Teams; these merge your voice, video and chat communications with the applications your business uses daily. Advanced features such as speech analytics tools make it easy to review calls by searching for keywords and identifying customer sentiment to measure your team’s success and point out areas for improvement. [See our Salesforce CRM review to find out why it’s one of the best CRM systems around.]

8×8 Features

This all-in-one platform serves both small and large businesses well with a strong selection of the essential features you’d expect for voice, video and chat communication. Even the entry-level X2 plan includes single sign-on, voicemail transcription and hot desking — items we’re used to seeing in middle- and upper-tier phone plans. Here are a few of the platform’s most notable aspects.

AI Companion

An available add-on for X2 and X4 subscribers, 8×8’s AI-powered Conversation IQ feature provides conversation insights through automatic transcription and analysis. You can search transcripts for keywords, topic trend reporting and sentiment analysis. The dual-channel recording captures separate audio for each caller on the line, which greatly improves the accuracy and searchability of your conversation transcripts. You can automatically track the use of keywords and phrases during customer interactions; plus, trigger words or phrases can be reviewed with data visualizations to highlight conversations and provide a barometer of customer engagement with key performance indicators. However, if voice intelligence tools are your top priority, you may want to check out our Dialpad review instead.

HD Audio and Video Conferencing

While we still think Zoom offers the best video conferencing service available, companies with large meeting requirements may find 8×8 to be a better solution. 8×8 offers by far the largest video conferencing options for an entry-level plan with up to 500 active participants. We think that’s pretty impressive considering the most expensive plans in this category don’t usually include anywhere near this many video meeting participants.

GoTo Connect includes 250 participants, but most platforms simply can’t support video conferencing for hundreds of people. 8×8 video features are also impressive with post-meeting insights, virtual backgrounds, calendar integrations, moderation controls, YouTube Live streaming, cloud recording and end-to-end encryption.

Analytics

Access to reliable, objective data makes difficult decisions, like staffing and promotions, much easier. We like that 8×8’s analytics provide customizable data from all of your communications channels to help you solve business problems and make informed decisions. You can explore metrics such as call quality, missed calls, abandoned calls and customer sentiment with historical data and live dashboards. You can also pull user-centric reports to evaluate the performance of your team members and find ways to make improvements or reward excellent work.

8×8 University

8×8 provides one of the industry’s best training resources for business phone systems. Called 8×8 University, it houses a robust training catalog with 16 free quick tutorials for the phone platform, on-demand lessons, and paid instructor-led courses designed for administrators and agents.

These are just three of 8×8 University’s 16 available training courses for business phone products. (Image source: 8×8)

Course lengths range from a few minutes for the quick tutorials to six hours for the instructor-led offerings for administration and configuration. Most of the content in 8×8 University is free for everyone; also, each course includes a clear list of outcomes designed to help participants utilize the communication platform to its fullest potential. If you love the idea of university-style training courses but aren’t sold on 8×8, you’ll want to read our RingEX review to learn about RingCentral University training courses.

8×8 Costs

Unfortunately, 8×8 has joined GoTo Connect in removing public pricing for its business phone plans. While we can tell you the X2 plan used to cost $24 per monthly user, it’s difficult to use that as a reference point because the plan now includes an unlimited number of users. In previous reviews, the X4 plan was priced at $44 per monthly user. In both cases, these plans were priced a bit above average for the category but offered huge potential savings with excellent international calling and video conferencing support. To learn how much an 8×8 plan will cost your business, you’ll need to reach out to a sales rep to inquire about a custom price quote.

8×8 also offers add-on features available for either business phone plan. These include quality management tools, speech analytics, and media cold storage with archival and retrieval services for long-term storage up to 10 years.

8×8 Setup

For small businesses with a simple call flow and a new business phone number, the setup process for 8×8’s business communications system can be completed in about 20 minutes. Some companies with an existing phone number may have to wait for the number to be released by their previous carrier; this is the case with all business phone systems like 8×8. As a default setting, your phone system will ring everyone in the company and go to voicemail after 30 seconds.

From the home screen, it’s straightforward to customize your business info, call routing during business hours, call routing after business hours, users, and phone and porting numbers. We like that changes are easy to make thanks to a guided editing interface that asks you simple questions; it also provides a list of available answers to determine how you want to do things such as route calls, ring devices and assign schedules.

For especially complex situations, 8×8 offers a paid Enhanced Implementation service with a dedicated coordinator who will work with your team on configuration, network assessment, performance testing and support. For hands-on help, the Premier Implementation service hands much of the work to your 8×8 implementation team and dedicated project manager; they will guide you through network testing, requirements gathering, solution design and device configuration.

8×8 Customer Service

We love that 8×8 offers the same 24/7 customer support with both of its business communications plans. Technical support is available daily via web case, chat and phone. In addition to getting help from vendor representatives, you can access guides and FAQs on the company’s website. 8×8 periodically hosts webinars, too, and has a developer portal for those interested in building integrations with the API.

Furthermore, as highlighted above, you can also take advantage of 8×8’s exceptional online university-style training platform, 8×8 University; it has free quick tutorials and self-paced courses for administrators and users, as well as paid instructor-led courses. You’ll find 30 course options covering everything from basic administration and configuration to how to identify trends and obtain data from all of your communications channels.

8×8 Drawbacks

8×8 stopped offering public pricing for its business phone plans. While it’s fairly common to withhold pricing information on enterprise-level SaaS, the majority of business phone providers we’ve reviewed include transparent pricing for most service plans offered. While we appreciate 8×8’s move to unlimited users with each plan, the decision to withhold pricing makes it very difficult for potential customers to thoroughly evaluate this service. Much like 8×8, GoTo Connect recently removed its pricing and switched to an unlimited user plan structure.

Another related limitation is the need to speak with a sales representative to make a purchase. Instead of having an online purchase button that would allow business owners to get started with the vendor’s services right away, 8×8’s website features a button to speak with a sales representative; this may feel like a roadblock for those who would prefer to make a typical online transaction. By contrast, RingEX and Dialpad allow you to purchase their services instantly online or even start using the system with a free trial.

Methodology

We conducted extensive investigations in which we researched and analyzed more than a dozen business phone systems to find the best options for small business owners. We tested a variety of platforms through paid and free-trial accounts and took part in vendor demos. In each case, we judged the solution on its pricing, plan options, features, usability, setup process, integrations, customer support options and drawbacks. 8×8 set itself apart as the best business phone system for scaling a business by offering mix-and-match service plans, unlimited users and the option to grow into an advanced contact center plan; this is thanks to its omnichannel routing for voice, chat, email, SMS, social media and messaging applications.

Overall Value

We recommend 8×8 for …

• Organizations that want to mix and match plans to support different employees or teams cost-effectively.
• Businesses that make lots of international calls.
• Large companies that conduct regular video conferences with upward of 500 participants.

We don’t recommend 8×8 for …

• Small businesses with very basic phone requirements looking for a low-cost solution.
• Large organizations with especially demanding or expansive integration requirements.
• Companies that are looking for AI-powered communications tools as standard features.