For any company, its customer service is a major driving force behind its growth.
And with the right contact center software, you can improve the customer experience while making your support team’s job easier. You’ll be able to resolve queries and reach out to potential customers across multiple channels with ease.
But with a wide variety of contact center software available today, which one should you go for?
In this article, we’ll highlight the top eight contact center tools for 2021 and go over five key features to look for in contact center software. We’ll also cover the key differences between a call center and a contact center.
This article covers:
(Click on a link below to jump to a specific section)
- What is Contact Center Software?
- Top 8 Contact Center Software
- 5 Important Features of Contact Center Software
- Call Center vs. Contact Center Software: 3 Key Differences
Let’s get started.
What is contact center software?
Contact center software is a tool that provides a central point from which you can manage customer queries across different channels such as live chat, phone call, or social media.
The primary purpose of contact center software is to help contact center agents provide efficient and reliable help desk support to customers.
Now, keep in mind that a contact center is different from a call center.
A call center only communicates via calls, but a contact center offers customer support via multiple channels like email and live chat.
While traditional call center software is telephone-based with limited components, a modern contact center solution is more extensive. You can use it for incoming calls, outgoing calls, intelligent routing, and various other forms of customer engagement.
(Skip ahead to read how contact center software differs from call center software).
And today, SaaS (Software as a Service) solutions help you manage most business aspects due to their advanced features. From storing data to resolving a customer issue, most customer management software is based on the cloud.
Top 8 contact center software
Let’s check out some of the best contact center software available today:
1. UJET
UJET is a cloud contact center platform that integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
The cloud contact center tool provides chat and voice channels for customers to raise tickets and for agents to attend to each ticket.
A. Key features
- UJET provides agents with key customer details before they take calls for quick solutions.
- Share photos, videos, and screenshots with users and customers in real-time.
- UJET offers integrations with other productivity software like Salesforce and Zendesk.
- Customer support is available via online live chat or over the phone.
B. Pricing
Contact sales for pricing details.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.7/5 (540+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.5/5 (100+ reviews)
2. Zendesk
Zendesk is a cloud-based customer support program that offers various tools and features for workflow management. The system offers a customizable front-end portal and live-chat support to form a unified communication platform.
A. Key features
- An advanced ticketing system helps agents keep track of requests, questions, etc.
- Enhance your company’s image with Zendesk’s business logos, themes, and brand images.
- An answer bot will respond to customers even when your agents are offline.
- Offers 100+ APIs for you to integrate with.
B. Pricing
Zendesk’s pricing plans starts at $49/user per month.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.2/5 (2500+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.3/5 (2500+ reviews)
3. Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a contact center platform and artificial intelligence-based software provider for businesses of all kinds. It uses skill-based routing to route calls to the most qualified agent as per the needs.
A. Key features
- Improve customer engagement with features like call monitoring, call recording, and real-time reporting.
- Capture your agent’s screen activity during calls to get a complete picture of every customer interaction.
- Integrates with several different programs like InfusionSoft, Desk.com, Zendesk, and Shopify.
- Offers customer support via a knowledge base, email, and phone.
B. Pricing
Talkdesk’s pricing plans starts at $65/user per month.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 (1200+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (40+ reviews)
4. Nice InContact
Nice InContact is a cloud contact center software solution used by small businesses and large organizations. It connects you to your customers via several channels like inbound calls, outgoing calls, email, live chat, social media, and more.
A. Key features
- Offers various call routing functionality, like IVR (Interactive Voice Response), CTI (Computer Telephony Integration), and ACD (Automatic Call Distribution).
- Provides workforce optimization facilities like hiring and workforce management.
- Integrates with popular CRM applications like Salesforce and Oracle Service Cloud.
- Has a handy agent scheduling feature that makes shift planning simpler.
B. Pricing
Contact support for pricing details.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.3/5 (1100+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.2/5 (400+ reviews)
5. Aircall
Aircall is a cloud-based contact center software that helps you streamline customer support operations. It supports live chat, voicemail, queueing, recording, shared call inbox, contact management, and many more features.
A. Key features
- Specially designed for teams working as a virtual contact center.
- Create employee groups based on location, responsibilities, and skill set.
- Monitor individual as well as team metrics for call center analytics.
- Integrates with several third-party applications like Salesforce, Pipedrive, and Slack to improve CRM and quality management.
B. Pricing
Aircall’s pricing plans start at $30/user per month.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.4/5 (370+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.6/5 (60+ reviews)
6. Five9
Five9 is cloud contact center software or contact center as a service (CCaaS).
This cloud solution helps you maintain all your omnichannel customer interactions, including voice, live chat, email, social media, and many more.
A. Key features
- Five9 uses intelligent omni-channel routing to direct customers to the right agent.
- Monitor and analyze the contact center performance with real-time metrics and analytics.
- Gain insights into customer experience by silently monitoring agent conversations.
- Integrates with leading CRM software like Salesforce and Zendesk.
B. Pricing
Contact support for a custom quote.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 3.9/5 (240+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.2/5 (60+ reviews)
7. Genesys Cloud
Genesys is a cloud based solution for enterprise-grade communication, collaboration, and omnichannel contact center support. The suite offers speech-based IVR, voice bots, chatbots, workforce management, and many other tools.
A. Key features
- Supports modern technologies like microservices and artificial intelligence (AI).
- Built-in email management tools to interact with customers via emails.
- Create multi-level call flows with a drag and drop builder.
- Use bots to automate interactions over multiple channels.
B. Pricing
Genesys’s pricing starts at $75/user per month.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.3/5 (460+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.1/5 (60+ reviews)
8. LiveAgent
LiveAgent is a powerful customer support platform that combines multiple channels into a single platform.
This cloud based contact center offers live chat, email support, and social media integration (Facebook and Twitter).
A. Key features
- Skill-based routing helps connect customers to the right agent or department.
- Increase outbound sales with a predictive dialer.
- Automates team workload allocation using the Automated Ticket Distribution feature.
- Help desk ticketing system that works with Gmail and Slack.
B. Pricing
LiveAgent’s pricing starts at $15/user per month.
C. Customer ratings
- G2: 4.5/5 (1300+ reviews)
- Capterra: 4.7/5 (200+ reviews)
5 key features of contact center software
Let’s take a look at some of the important features when choosing a contact center platform:
1. Multi-channel support
As a contact center, you’re looking to engage with your customer through various channels.
That’s why it is essential to consider how well your contact center software integrates with other communication channels.
Modern consumers are more likely to contact your team via live chat or email instead of traditional voice channels. Moreover, a unified communication platform can reduce customer friction and improve loyalty.
Additionally, your software should log incoming calls on your dashboard, allowing agents to follow up via email or chat. This feature lets everyone see the context of previous conversations — regardless of which channel it took place on.
As a result, you’ll be able to create a consistent customer experience. This also increases agent productivity as they’ll have detailed context about the customer right at their fingertips.
2. Call routing
Call routing is a contact center software feature that directs the customer to the right agent or department. There are three types of routing that your company can use:
A. Skill-based routing
Skill-based routing directs your customer to the most relevant agent, depending on the agent’s area of expertise.
B. Intelligent routing
Intelligent routing uses your agent’s performance history to deal with a specific problem. This reduces the time your agent takes to understand an issue.
C. Priority routing
Priority routing allows you to prioritize callers depending on the issue. So instead of going to the back of the queue, urgent calls come through first.
3. Interactive voice response (IVR)
An Interactive Voice Response (IVR) feature lets your customers speak with an automated machine before interacting with your support team. Although an IVR is not a complete solution, it still provides basic information regarding the issue.
Additionally, you can also manage your agent’s workload with an IVR. When an agent is available, the system can assign them to the customer with all the information collected by the IVR.
4. Predictive dialer
Predictive dialer or auto dialer is a contact center software feature that lets you make several automated outbound calls without using agents. Predictive dialing eliminates the need for agents to dial phone numbers manually, saving them time.
5. CRM integration
A customer can become frustrated when agents repeatedly ask them the same question. In the worst-case scenario, the customer might entirely leave the support channel, leaving a bad impression.
But if your contact center tool integrates with your CRM software, agents can have some context of the customer’s issue or previous conversations and provide much better support.
Your agent can quickly refer to past conversations and take it from there. This way, the customers don’t have to repeat themselves, and the agent reduces the AIT (Average Interaction Time).
Call center vs. contact center software: 3 key differences
You can use call center software and contact center software for various business objectives, so deciding on the best one for your needs might be difficult.
To help you compare the two, we’ll highlight a few key differences between them:
1. Voice vs. digital service channels
The primary difference between a call center solution and a contact center is the varying customer service channels.
With the help of call center software, your customer service team will communicate primarily via phone calls.
On the other hand, contact center software supports:
- Live chat: Instead of speaking to an agent over the phone, customers can visit the company’s website and have a live interaction with agents in a chat box within the browser.
- Chatbot: Customers can communicate directly with brands online, often on company websites or mobile apps in real-time. They’ll receive automated responses to their queries instantly.
- Inbound and outbound calls: Contact center software uses VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) to let customers call the contact center and speak to an agent. Agents can also make outgoing calls to customers.
- Social media: Agents can communicate with customers over social media platforms like Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook.
Your contact center agents can operate many of these channels on their desktops. The demand for text channels, especially live chat, is rising; this digital and omnichannel support provides an immensely improved user experience.
2. Customizable customer engagement
Whenever a customer contacts your firm, they share personal information about their choice and preferences.
Usually, contact center software combines all that personalized customer information. It then displays this data in a single console, whereas most call center software doesn’t.
You can use this information to customize interaction with your callers in the future while also suggesting new products. This is handy in reducing the ART (Average Response Time).
Contact center software helps improve agent performance, which in turn boosts customer satisfaction.
3. Self-service automation
The differences between contact center and call center software don’t just end with the range of channels and customized customer interaction.
Contact center software also provides several self-service automation features that lower the time contact center agents spend on customer engagement.
One such self-service automation functionality used by contact centers is chatbots that encourage quick resolution of user queries. It also improves customer satisfaction as it lets them find their own solutions quickly.
Final thoughts
Technology is changing, and so is consumer behavior. Now, customer service is more than just resolving a customer’s issues.
Excellent customer service helps you gain trust, improve your brand awareness, increase sales, and attract new customers. And for this, you’ll need good contact center software to provide great customer support.
Go through the tools we covered here to see what fits your needs best. Once you have found the right contact center software, you’ll be able to streamline customer service in no time!
Andy is a technology & marketing leader who has delivered award-winning and world-first experiences.