University of Worcester Streamlines Clearing Process with 8×8 XCaaS

8×8’s Single-vendor Cloud Communications and Contact Centre Solution Chosen by Leading UK University to Deliver Excellent Staff and Student Experiences During Busy Clearing Period

8×8, Inc. (NASDAQ: EGHT), a leading integrated cloud communications platform provider, announced that the University of Worcester successfully deployed 8×8 XCaaS™ (eXperience Communications as a Service™) with 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams to deliver enhanced experiences for both students and contact centre agents during the latest UK university Clearing period, the system employed by UK universities at the end of the academic year to fill courses.

With over 10,000 students, the University of Worcester takes on thousands of calls every year during the Clearing period. Prior to deploying 8×8, the university’s third-party contact centre system operated separately from their on-campus phone system, resulting in a siloed approach, often leading to down time and urgent system maintenance requirements. Likewise, the university was looking to transition away from legacy desktop handsets and towards an integrated service, accommodating all communications across the contact centre, phone calls, and chat functions. 

With 8×8 XCaaS, which includes integrated cloud contact centre, business phone, team chat, video meetings, and SMS capabilities, the University of Worcester has access to a reliable single-vendor solution that maximises administrative oversight and business insights. For example, dedicated contact centre stats provided the team with accurate analytics on Clearing activity, helping them to better manage agents and call volume. Further, by moving to a modern microservices-based cloud communication platform, which includes a contact centre solution certified by Microsoft Teams, all agents were enabled to operate seamlessly, no matter where they were located.

As a result of implementing 8×8 XCaaS with 8×8 Voice for Microsoft Teams, the university’s Clearing queue managed thousands of calls between July and October, with no down time throughout the period. On Clearing day, wait times averaged just 11 seconds.

“We chose 8×8 XCaaS because of its single-vendor cloud communications and contact centre platform, and integration with Microsoft Teams,” said Ged Attwood, Head of IT Operations at University of Worcester. “For us, 8×8 stood out thanks to its easy deployment, intuitive functionality, and reliable system maintenance. The Clearing process is a high-pressure time, but thanks to 8×8 our agents were able to focus entirely on dealing with the students and providing an excellent service, rather than worrying about carrier downtime or clicking the wrong button.”

“For anyone who has been involved in the UK Clearing process, they know what an incredibly important and potentially stressful time of the year it can be – for students and contact centre agents alike,” said Jamie Snaddon, Managing Director, EMEA at 8×8, Inc. “By working with the University of Worcester during one of their busiest times of the year, we have helped them streamline operations for their contact centre agents while ensuring they can continue providing exceptional services to students.”

8×8 XCaaS is built on the resilient, secure, and compliant 8×8 eXperience Communications Platform™, which offers the highest levels of reliability with the industry’s only financially backed, platform-wide 99.999 percent uptime SLA across an integrated cloud UCaaS and CCaaS solution.