WEB TECH TALKS: Best Call Center Software

Want to jump straight to the answer? RingCentral Contact Center is the best contact center software.

The world today is digital—but phone support places a crucial role in customer service.

That means having a good call center software to power your support.

According to a recent study, 48% of consumers say they prefer to communicate with companies on the phone. Furthermore, 75% of people say they want human interaction for customer support.

Call centers aren’t just for huge corporations anymore. Modern tech makes it possible for any business to set up a call center.

Compare Quotes From The Best Call Center Software

Get matched up with the call center software that fits your specific needs.

Software powers call centers today. That means no expensive hardware. In fact, might be able to use your existing phones and devices to manage your call center.

The 7 Best Call Center Software of 2020

After extensive research, I’ve narrowed down the seven best call center software solutions on the market today.

RingCentral Contact Center — Best overall contact center software.
Freshcaller — Simple contact center software for teams of all sizes.
8×8 Contact Center — Best contact center software for enterprise-grade security.
Five9 — Best all-in-one contact center software.
CrazyCall — Best call center software for outbound sales.
Zendesk Talk — Best call center software for support and automated ticketing.
Talkdesk — Best call center software for end-to-end customer experience.

As we continue you through this guide, I’ll give you an in-depth review of each provider on this list. We’ll discuss the features, benefits, pricing, and other considerations so you can make an informed decision for your business.

Best Call Center Software Reviews

RingCentral Contact Center – Best overall contact center software

• Great for sales & service teams
• 40+ robust features
• 99.99% guaranteed uptime
• Wide range of options
• Compare Quotes

RingCentral ranked first on our list of the best video conferencing services, and they also ranked high on our guide of the best VoIP phone systems. These are two of RingCentral’s best-known products.

But the RingCentral Contact Center is also a top option for any business seeking call center software.

It’s an ideal solution for both sales and customer service teams.

RingCentral Contact Center has more than 40 robust features like intelligence routing, CRM integrations, and workforce management tools. You’ll also benefit from administrative and management features like surveys, call recording, and analytics.

RingCentral is safe, secure, and reliable. They have a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%, and the software gives your agents the ability to work from anywhere.

Here’s an overview of the RingCentral Contact Center plans:

Basic

Inbound voice support
Standard IVR and ACD capabilities

Advanced

Omnichannel support and integrations (email, chat, SMS, social media)
Advanced IVR and ACD

Ultimate

Inbound and outbound voice
Predictive, progressive, and preview dialing
Campaign management

You’ll need to contact the RingCentral sales team to get a quote for your business.

But as you can see, they have options for everyone. Smaller teams that only need solutions for inbound calls can use the Basic plan. If you want omnichannel inbound call center support, the Advanced option will be best for you. For both inbound and outbound calling, you’ll need the Ultimate plan.

RingCentral is a trusted name in the VoIP phone and video industry. Their call center software is consistent with the high-level quality you’d expect from this provider.

Freshcaller – Most simple contact center software for teams of all sizes

• Free 14-day trial
• Cloud-based solution
• Wide range of features
• Used by 6,000+ businesses
• Compare Quotes

Freshcaller is call center software provided by Freshworks, which is another well-known, trusted, and established name in the world of business solutions.

Like other Freshworks products, Freshcaller is a cloud-based solution that’s both simple and modern. It’s easy for any business to use, regardless of its size and technical expertise.

More than 6,000 businesses use Freshcaller’s software for a call center. It’s used by inbound sales agents as well as customer support teams.

Pricing for Freshcaller is a bit unique. You’ll pay a monthly rate for the plan you select based on the features offered. But you’ll also pay per minute based on usage.

Let’s take a look at those plans first before we dive into the usage rates.

Sprout — $0

Best for startups and freelancers
Unlimited agents
Basic call queues
Custom greetings
Forward to phone
Custom ringtones

Blossom — $19 per agent per month

Advanced queues
Blind transfers
Import bulk contacts
BYOC (bring your own carrier)
Business hours
Call masking and recording
Custom voicemail, voicemail transcription, and voicemail drop

Garden — $40 per agent per month

Advanced call metrics
Agent extensions
Conference calling
Call monitoring
Routing during non-business hours
Virtual hold
European and Australian data cent
Click-to-call Chrome extension

Estate — $59 per agent per month

Abandoned call metrics
Service level monitoring
Omnichannel routing
Custom agent status
Answer bot
Agent activity reports
Call recording opt-in

From startups to growing teams and global companies, Freshcaller has an option for everyone.

Call rates are based on factors like device (browser vs. phone), country, and whether or not the call is incoming or outgoing. Incoming rates start as low as $0.016 per minute, and outgoing rates start at $0.022 per minute.

You can try Freshcaller for free with a 14-day trial.

8×8 Contact Center – Best contact center software for enterprise-grade security

• Customized solutions
• Omnichannel routing
• Real-time analytics
• Improve agency productivity
• Compare Quotes

The 8×8 Contact Center is an ideal solution for omnichannel routing. It’s a way for your company to enhance the customer experience from a single touch point.

Top features include skills-based call routing, queued callback, web callback and IVR (interactive voice response). 8×8 also has inbound chat, email, and social channel contact solutions for your call center software.

You’ll also benefit from real-time analytics and reports. This information is available from any device. It details customer journeys and wait times for every customer across all channels.

8×8 has tools to help you improve agency productivity. A private knowledge base, expert connect, simple interface, and comprehensive communication hub ensures that all customer communication is handled quickly and efficiently.

Your 8×8 Contact Center integrates with CRMs like Zendesk, Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and more.

8×8 is a top solution for large businesses and enterprises. It has advanced features with a global reach.

The 8×8 Contact Center has exceptional security. It’s compliant with HIPAA, FISMA, and more. 8×8 has tools to ensure privacy for sensitive data entry fields as well.

You’ll need to contact the 8×8 sales team for a custom quote on your solution.

Five9 – Best all-in-one contact center software

• All-in-one contact center solution
• Cloud-based solutions
• Work from anywhere
• 2,000+ business customers
• Compare Quotes

Five9 is an all-in-one contact center solution. It’s used by big brands like Lululemon, Expedia, Carfax, Omaha Steaks, and DHL. This company has been providing cloud-based solutions to businesses for roughly 20 years. Its 2,000+ business customers worldwide manage 5+ billion calls each year.

The Five9 Intelligence Cloud Contact Center gives your customer service agents the power and flexibility to work from anywhere.

Five9 is completely customizable. It’s built to meet the needs of your business, regardless of your size or industry. The software delivers crystal clear voice, strong security, and a 99.99% uptime rate.

The top features and benefits of an all-in-one contact center software include:

CRM integration
Open platform APIs
Call routing
Omnichannel support
Global voice
Self-service tools
Analytics
WFO
Predictive dialing

Five9 has a wide range of solutions based on the type of business you have. They provide call center software for sales, telemarketing, customer service, collections, outsourcers, small business, medium-sized businesses, and enterprises.

The Five9 contact center is fast, reliable, affordable, and easy to use. Contact their sales team to request a demo and get a custom quote.

CrazyCall – Best call center software for outbound sales

• 14-day free trial
• Plans start at $11/month
• Makes sales calls more efficient
• Great solution for sales teams
• Compare Quotes

CrazyCall is a top call center solution for sales teams. It offers features like auto dialing, call monitoring, call script, call transfers, click to call, and a callback widget.

All of the CrazyCall features and benefits are designed to make sales calls more efficient.

CrazyCall has other solutions for ecommerce shops, small businesses, and support teams, but the sales features are still the highlight of this software. It even has tools for lead generation on your website.

Here’s an overview of the CrazyCall plans and prices:

Starter — $11 per month per user

200 free minutes per user each month
45 days of data storage
3 active projects

Team — $22 per month per user

500 free minutes per user each month
365 days of data storage
Unlimited active projects

Professional — $45 per month per user

1,250 free minutes per user each month
Unlimited data storage
IP restriction
Tailored reporting tools
Unlimited calls to US and Canada

All plans come with a free phone number, API and integrations, and 24/7 customer support. The free minutes each month apply to 122 countries. Beyond that, calls to US landlines start at just $0.01 per minute.

You can try CrazyCall for free with a 14-day trial.

Zendesk Talk – Best call center software for support and automated ticketing

• Free lite plan
• Upgrades start at $19/mo
• Cloud-based solution
• Integrates with Zendesk Support
• Compare Quotes

Zendesk is best known for its customer service CRM. But it has a separate solution, called Zendesk Talk, for call center software.

This cloud-based call center solution is built directly into the ticketing system for Zendesk Support. Your agents will have access to the full customer history and additional features like call recording and automatic ticket creation.

The software is designed to improve your support process, while eliminating unproductive tasks. Your agents can focus on solutions, conversions, and customers, as opposed to workflow bottlenecks.

Top features of Zendesk Talk include:

Inbound and outbound calling
Custom greetings
Local and toll-free numbers
Browser-based calls
Call forwarding to phones
Call blocking
Conference calling
Group routing
Callback from queue
Inbound and outbound SMS
Advanced analytics
Real-time dashboard
Call recording and call record permissions

Similar to other call center software on our list, Zendesk Talk is based on a combination of your plan and usage.

Zendesk Talk has a wide range of plans for you to choose from. The list and features for each one are quite extensive. So rather than giving you a complete overview of those, I’ll just quickly cover the starting prices to give you an idea of the cost.

Lite — Starting at $0
Team — Starting at $19 per agent per month
Professional — Starting at $49 per agent per month
Enterprise — Starting at $89 per agent per month

Zendesk offers a paid partner edition starting at $9 per agent per month. This is for every agent taking calls with Zendesk Support. To estimate your usage rates, Zendesk Talk has a calculator tool that you can play around with.

Talkdesk – Best call center software for end-to-end customer experience

• End-to-end customer experience
• Omnichannel support
• Customized solutions
• Used by 1,800+ businesses
• Compare Quotes

Talkdesk has a wide range of products and solutions for businesses. The company offers tools and software for things like customer engagement, workforce engagement, and reporting.

The contact center software from Talkdesk is one of its best and most popular offerings. It’s marketed as an end-to-end customer experience solution.

It’s designed the meet the needs and expectations of the modern customer. These people have a certain expectation when they call your company. Talkdesk will help you improve productivity while reducing costs and increasing the customer experience.

Top features of Talkdesk include:

Outbound dialer
Customer self-service
Omnichannel support
Agent desktop and mobile agent tools
Call recording
Integrations with Salesforce, Zendesk, Slack, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, etc.
AI virtual assistant
Reporting and analytics

For the most part, Talkdesk is used by businesses across a handful of major industries. This includes retail, ecommerce, financial services, healthcare, travel, and hospitality.

Talkdesk has solutions based on call center type (sales, support, BPO) and business size (small, mid, enterprise).

Contact the Talkdesk sales team today for a quote. Join the 1,800+ businesses like Peleton, IBM, and Dropbox using this call center software.

How to Choose the Best Call Center Software For Your Business

As you can see from this list, call center software is extremely versatile. There are so many different features and benefits at your disposal. But with all of these options, how can you possibly know which one is best for your company?

There are certain factors that you should be evaluating when making your decision. This is the methodology that we use and recommend here at Quick Sprout.

Omnichannel Support

Any business in the market for call center software is likely communicating with customers across other channels as well.

Consider if you want to integrate those communication tools like email, live chat, and social media into your call center software. This will allow your agents to better serve the needs of your customers throughout each stage of the support process.

Call Center Type

What type of call center do you have?

Do you need software to support inbound calls only? Or do your agents need outbound dialing capabilities? Not every solution offers both.

The purpose of these calls will also have an impact on the software you choose. There are certain options that are better for sales, while others are better for customer support, troubleshooting, and ticketing.

Integrations

The best call center software will integrate with your CRM solution.

Some of the options on our list have their own full-service CRM systems as well. So you could potentially get an all-in-one solution from the same provider.

Pricing

It’s important that you have a clear understanding of how you’ll be billed for customer call center software. Not every company lists their prices online.

In most cases, you’ll pay based on a combination of usage and support agents. The majority of call center solutions have different plans for different the features you need. Make sure to find one that best fits your needs and budget.

Compare Quotes From The Best Call Center Software

Get matched up with the call center software that fits your specific needs.

Conclusion

Every business providing phone support for customers can benefit from call center software. From startups to enterprises and everything in between, these are the top seven call center software solutions on the market today:

RingCentral Contact Center — Best overall contact center software.
Freshcaller — Simple contact center software for teams of all sizes.
8×8 Contact Center — Best contact center software for enterprise-grade security.
Five9 — Best all-in-one contact center software.
CrazyCall — Best call center software for outbound sales.
Zendesk Talk — Best call center software for support and automated ticketing.
Talkdesk — Best call center software for end-to-end customer experience.

Whether you need assistance with sales, customer support, or both, there’s an option for your business on this list.

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WEB TECH TALKS

Thursday, July 30, 2020

Best Call Center Software