· Reviewed by Issabela Masters
Why do 8x8 users need a virtual assistant?
8x8 is unusually honest with you. Analytics for 8x8 Work has an Unreturned Calls dashboard, which means the system will show you, by name and number, every person who called your business and never heard back. Most accounts look at it once and then stop looking, because seeing the list does not shorten it. The Call Queues dashboard tells the same story from the other side: calls waiting, calls abandoned, agents who were logged in but not available. Add offices in more than one country, because 8x8 is the platform companies buy when they have them, and the gaps multiply across time zones. An assistant is what turns those dashboards into a shorter list. They answer in the ring groups and queues, work the unreturned calls back to zero, return transcribed voicemail, handle SMS where your numbers allow it, and keep Auto Attendants and schedules in the Admin Console matching how the business really runs.
What can a virtual assistant do inside 8x8?
- Ring groups and call queues
- Answers as a member of your ring groups and as an agent in your 8x8 call queues, follows the distribution pattern your admin chose, stays available rather than logged in and idle, and uses group call pickup when a colleague's line rings out.
- Unreturned Calls dashboard
- Opens the Unreturned Calls dashboard in Analytics for 8x8 Work every day, calls each entry back, records what happened and reports the number down rather than reporting that the dashboard exists.
- Auto Attendant and schedules
- Keeps your Auto Attendant menus, routing profiles, business hours and holiday schedules correct in the 8x8 Admin Console, tests each menu option from an outside line and writes up changes for your admin to approve.
- Voicemail transcription
- Works the emailed voicemail transcriptions each morning, listens to the recording where the transcription is unclear, calls back in priority order and marks the message handled.
- Business SMS and MMS
- Replies to texts on your 8x8 numbers where the number supports it, sends confirmations and reminders with lawful consent and do-not-call scrubbing, honors opt-outs and keeps your campaign registration details on file.
- 8x8 Engage and supervisor views
- Where you run 8x8 Engage, the assistant handles queued interactions alongside direct calls, and the team lead uses the supervisor views for monitoring and whisper coaching during onboarding weeks.
- Multi-country coverage
- 8x8 carries numbers in many countries, so one team can answer a London number in UK hours and a Sydney number in Australian Eastern hours, with the greeting, hours and escalation list set separately for each.
- Analytics and quality
- Pulls the Call Queues, Call Quality and Unreturned Calls dashboards weekly, flags the hours where wait times climb, and feeds recordings into the monthly QA scorecard your team lead runs.
Integrations we handle
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8x8 and Microsoft Teams
With 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams the assistant calls and receives inside Teams, sees named inbound callers rather than raw numbers and checks presence before a transfer.
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8x8 and Salesforce
Logs calls on the lead, account or case through the 8x8 integration, records disposition and next step and pulls contact details onto the screen as the call connects.
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8x8 and Zendesk
Creates tickets from support calls with the call detail attached, and updates the open ticket when the same customer rings back about it.
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8x8 and Freshdesk
Raises and updates tickets from the 8x8 integration so a phone conversation and an email thread stay on one record instead of two.
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8x8 and Pipedrive
Click to dial from the deal, then activity and next step written back so the pipeline reflects the conversation rather than someone's memory of it.
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8x8 and Google Workspace
Checks Calendar before transferring, schedules meetings from the 8x8 app and delivers voicemail transcriptions into Gmail for morning triage.
