It’s time for IT managers to rethink 8x8. Too many people view the company as a cloud-only provider of UC, contact centers, and video applications. Yet, there’s much more to 8x8.
In the Eastern Management Group’s new SIP awards, "
2019 SIP Trunking Customer Satisfaction," 8x8 towers above the industry average, ranking #1 in “Recommend-To-A-Friend” – the survey’s capstone measurement.
More than 3,000 IT managers evaluated their SIP provider in six categories covering overall product satisfaction, vendor experience, and customer delight. We performed side-by-side comparisons of 29 SIP trunk providers – accounting for the majority of all SIP sales.
In the survey, customers heaped praise on 8x8 for SIP trunking, and it ranked #1 in multiple customer satisfaction measurements. It received several four-star ratings (out of four) and was named a Top 10 Leader overall. Keep in mind, this is SIP trunking!
8x8 Plays in a Big Market
8x8 participates in the global $14 billion (2019) SIP trunk market. This is a useful adjunct business (to UCaaS) for several reasons:
- Demand for SIP trunking is growing at 7% yearly
- Premises PBX users can buy 8x8 SIP trunks and save money
- 8x8 can deliver branch office connectivity rather than a competitor
- 8x8 SIP customers are candidates for other 8x8 cloud services, like UCaaS, contact center, and video and audio conferencing
Whether this last point reflects an explicit 8x8 strategy is worthy of a mention. According to the Eastern Management Group study "Worldwide Hosted PBX Market 2019-2025," 35 million premises PBX seats are purchased each year. Not only are these sales opportunities for 8x8, but our studies show that IT managers always evaluate cloud options before making a premises PBX decision. If 8x8 already provides these customers with SIP trunks, then 8x8 is likely to be considered for UCaaS to replace a premises PBX.
The Value of 8x8
The company’s portfolio of SIP trunking and UCaaS makes 8x8 an end-to-end service provider – a potent single source of supply for customers. In the traffic world, 8x8’s Network Quality Manager software monitors network traffic and quality of service of all customer VoIP calls. This helps identify distortion, noise, or latency by correlating call issues with WAN performance to help find problem areas. Significant features of the 8x8 SIP service are:
- Monitor VoIP call performance
- Troubleshoot VoIP call performance
- Set baselines for performance reviews
- VoIP and network dashboards
- VoIP gateway and performance alerts
- Performance reports
- Trunk monitoring
With 2019 revenues of $352 million (up 19% Y/Y) and a GAAP gross margin of 63%, 8x8 is a formidable communications provider in all markets.
8x8's strong SIP trunk customer satisfaction scores should enhance the company’s presence as it sells to large multi-location customers. Major accounts like Thryv (small business software) and Halfords (car parts and accessories) have recently been added to 8x8’s customer list.
Clearly, a lot is going on at 8x8 – in an industry full of activity.