The best contact center software
The best software for contact centers include:
- Talkdesk
- Zendesk
- Genesys
- Tenfold
- Talk Cisco Unified Contact Center
- Avaya
- Five9
Other top-rated contact center software include Aspect Unifies IP, Fuze, VirtualPBX, MiContact Center, Eclipse CMS, Noble Systems, Contivio.com, Nextiva Contact Center, ContactWorld for Salesforce, Presence Inbound, etc. The list of contact center software is endless. There are many service providers offering contact center solutions.
What is a contact center software?
Understanding the software used in contact centers
Contact center software give businesses the capabilities of managing a huge volume of incoming and outgoing communications across a variety of channels. Part of this communication includes the call center services, which mainly focuses on handling and managing inbound calls. Contact centers are usually part of the overall customer relationship management (CRM) strategy and process of an organization.
These services have the ability to store and track the data on individual callers. This means that the call history and previous interactions can be accessed whenever the customer contacts the company. This saves the amount of time it takes the agent to serve a client.
Contact center software can be used in many industries and businesses regardless of their size. They instantly increase customer satisfaction and improve their experience as well.
Cloud-based contact centers and on-premise contact centers
Contact centers can either be cloud-based or on-premise. Today, many organizations have adopted the new technology that is cloud contact centers. The decision is logical, cloud-based contact centers are way cheaper, offer a wider variety of features; they are more efficient, and can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection.
The on-premise services, on the other hand, are the traditional form of contact centers. They are hardware-based, and the technology needs to be on the business premises, hence the name on-premise. This form of a contact center is very expensive to purchase, install, maintain, and upgrade. It does have some advantages, but a lot of businesses are more away from it.
Omnichannel contact center software
A lot of the contact center software and products are omnichannel, which means they support multiple channels. Cloud-based solutions go beyond the capabilities of conventional call centers by being omnichannel.
Omnichannel solutions can handle and integrate communications from whichever channel a customer decides to use. Unlike conventional call centers, these channels are not only limited to phone calls but expand to video, email, fax, VoIP, live chat, SMS, and social media platforms.
The features and capabilities of contact center software
The basic features of contact center providers are based on voice communications. Such features are offered by almost all contact center service providers. These include:
- Outbound calling
- Validate callers
- Call forwarding
- Interactive voice response (IVR)
- Click to call
- Call tracking
- Call scripting
- Warm transfers
- CRM software integration
Apart from these basic voice communication features, a lot of the top contact center providers offer workforce optimization features. These features provide important insights and metrics. This data can be used by supervisors to gauge the performance of contact center agents and make decisions that will improve the efficiency of the contact center and the businesses as a whole. These features include:
- Inbound call routing
- Quality monitoring
- Call recording
- Call analytics
- Predictive dialing
- Real-time reporting
- Historic reporting
- Customer interaction analytics
There are also more advanced features that top contact center vendors have started to offer. These advanced capabilities include:
- Multichannel integration; the contact center software provide the ability to collect, save, and share client data across different communication channels such as SMS, fax, email, live chat, video, phone call, and social media.
- Digital agents and chatbots designed to handle simpler and routine requests.
- Intelligent call routing.
- AI help for live agents. The AI tech goes through customer history and other available data and makes suggestions that help the contact center agent.
Advantages of using contact center software
Some of the immediate perks of using contact center software include:
- Allows contact center agents to have access to client data history
- Reduces the average handle time (AHT). The time it takes an agent to serve the caller.
- It eliminated manual searching.
How much does contact center software cost?
Cloud-based contact center providers are cost-effective. There are service providers that offer limited free trials. The advantage of cloud-based packages is that they are usually subscription-based. A basic subscription would range anywhere between $10 to $20 per agent per month. The more expensive packages can go up to $200 per month.
On-premise solutions are usually not charged on a monthly basis. They charge a one-time licensing fee, and after that, you will be charged for software upgrades and other maintenance costs. Service providers for on-premise solutions do not usually advertise their rates but can provide a quote upon request.
What is the best contact center software?
Top-rated contact center software review
As stated, there are many contact center software out there that provide top-notch services. Our review looks at five contact center providers that are very popular.
Talkdesk Enterprise Cloud Contact Center
The main aim of Talkdesk is geared towards improving the customer experience of a business. The service adapts to the ever-changing needs of the support and sales teams in an organization, thereby leading to customer satisfaction, increased productivity, and cost savings.
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Talkdesk features
Talkdesk users enjoy the following contact center software features:
- Validate callers
- Agent dashboard
- Call forwarding
- Outbound response
- Click to call
- Predictive dialing
- Warm transfer
- Interactive voice response
- Call scripts
- Call tracking
- REST APIs
- CRM software integration
- Multichannel integration
- Natural language processing (for IVR)
- Automatic speech recognition (ASR)
- Communication forecasting
Talkdesk users enjoy the following workforce optimization features:
- Inbound call routing
- Omnichannel inbound routing
- Quality management
- Recording
- Call analytics
- Historical reporting
- Live reporting
- Customer interaction analytics
- Customer surveys
Talkdesk users enjoy the following omnichannel support features:
- Voice
- Video
- SMS
- VoIP
- Live chat
- Screen share
- Co-browse
- Mobile applications
- Social media
Talkdesk users enjoy the following predictive analytics features:
- Chatbots
- Intelligent call routing
- AI assistance for live contact center agents
Genesys PureConnect
As an all-in-one solution, Genesys PureConnect provides a broad set of omnichannel communications solutions in one comprehensive platform. The main aim of Genesys is to offer an all-inclusive architecture that is flexible and can be fully controlled. PureConnect is available in both on-premise and cloud-based.
The selling point of PureConnect is that it allows businesses to do more with less. That is, users are able to offer better customer experience, increase performance, all at a reduced cost. The service also has room for extensive customization.
Genesys PureConnect features
Genesys PureConnect users enjoy the following contact center software features:
- Validate callers
- Agent dashboard
- Call forwarding
- Outbound response
- Click to call
- Predictive dialing
- Warm transfer
- Interactive voice response
- Call scripts
- Call tracking
- REST APIs
- CRM software integration
- Multichannel integration
- Natural language processing (for IVR)
- Automatic speech recognition (ASR)
- Communication forecasting
Genesys PureConnect users enjoy the following workforce optimization features:
- Inbound call routing
- Omnichannel inbound routing
- Quality management
- Recording
- Call analytics
- Historical reporting
- Live reporting
- Customer interaction analytics
- Customer surveys
Genesys PureConnect users enjoy the following omnichannel support features:
- Voice
- Video
- SMS
- VoIP
- Live chat
- Screen share
- Co-browse
- Mobile applications
- Social media
Genesys PureConnect users enjoy the following predictive analytics features:
- Chatbots
- Intelligent call routing
- AI assistance for live contact center agents
Five9 Virtual Contact Center
The main focus of Five9 is to enable users to make more calls and also be more effective. Five9 contact center software has smart dialers designed to give the contact center agents more time with potential clients that are live. The service boasts of improving agent productivity to up to 300%.
Five9 Features
Five9 Virtual Contact Center users enjoy the following features:
- Quality management
- Click-to-Call
- CRM integrations
- Reporting & analytics
- ACD
- IVR/ Voice Recognition
- CTI
- Preview dialer
- Progressive dialer
- Predictive dialer
- Power dialer
- Blended call center
- Call logging
- Call recording
- Call routing
- Call scripting
- Social customer care
- Mobile customer care
- Email customer care
- Chat customer care
- Workforce optimization
- Campaign / Lead management
- Knowledge base
- Escalation management
- Compliance management
- Inbound call center
Tenfold
Tenfold focuses on providing its users with a detailed collection of customer data and history, including services, sales, and marketing. All this can be accessed by the contact center agents in real-time. Previous interactions and contact points with clients are all recorded into their existing CRMs, such as email, texts, chat, and business calls. This avoids the need for manual entry of such data.
Since the agent has all these data on their fingerprints, Tenfold saves the customer from the frustrating experience of having to repeat the same information over and over again.
Tenfold aims to improve customer experience and customer satisfaction by:
- Reducing the Average Handle Time (AHT)
- Immediately recognizing callers with incoming and outcoming screen-pops
- Streamlining data capture workflow and case management
- Giving complete contexts to the contact center agent
Tenfold aims to increase productivity by:
- Offering click to call
- Automatically log calls
- Eliminating manual searching
- Supporting custom objects, cases
- Notes, Next Steps & Dispositions
- Support Blind & Warm Transfers
- Streamline workflows
Tenfold features
Tenfold users enjoy the following features:
- Click to Dial
- Automatically cog calls
- Immediately recognize callers
- Streamline case management and data capture workflow
- Reduce Average Handle Time (AHT)
- Eliminate manual searching
- Notes, next steps & dispositions
- Support blind & warm transfers
- Support custom objects, cases, opportunities
Zendesk Talk
This software is built on the Twilio cloud platform, which integrated with the Zendesk Support system. Zendesk software allows customer support teams to use the same platform to provide phone support and manage the other channels.
Like a lot of the cloud-based contact centers, Zendesk is subscription-based. Their options include team, professional, and enterprise-level services. The solution will cost $19 per person per month for the basic plan and increases to $89 per person per month. There is an option for a free trial. Zendesk Talk also offers a free lite version.
Some of the features of Zendesk Talk include warm transfers, incoming and outgoing calls, call recording, automatic ticket creation, IVR, call monitoring, real-time call analytics, and integration with Zendesk Support.
