While there is a rise in alternatives to how customers communicate with businesses in today’s modern universe, phone calls remain the most common and preferred way customers get in touch with companies. The call center creates and builds a strong relationship between customers and companies.
However, managing a call center is not as easy a task as it seems. For numerous upcoming businesses, handling phone assistance may be a considerable burden. While it is frequently an excellent approach to assist consumers, it is also the slightest cost-effective, time-saving, and challenging support channel.
You’ll need essential call center software which provides a platform for your employees to handle their work perfectly if you want to provide excellent phone assistance to your consumers. Customers will be placed on hold if this program is not installed, and employees will find it hard to answer questions. Supervisors will be unable to control the mayhem since they will be unaware of call frequency.
Here are some of the unsurpassed call center management software you can use in your company.
Top Call Center Software Features
When deciding which software to use for your company, you need to consider the software with the best features that suit your company, which is effective and is less costly. You wouldn’t want software with unnecessary features that you don’t require; otherwise, that would make you incur some unnecessary extra cost. Here are some features to look for while choosing your call center software.
Call Routing
Call routing is directing calls to the precise individual as quickly as possible. While some software offers computerized call redirecting, others require employees to manually direct customer clients to the right person. Either way, it is critical to know how your calls are redirected. Numerous organizations are challenging to upgrade on the fly, so you consider setting up and adjusting your process to ensure you’re not trapped with a single conformation throughout your trial period.
Omnichannel
The functions listed above are geared toward phone conversations, but call center software shouldn’t be limited to just that. The majority of businesses employ an omnichannel or multichannel strategy, and their system ought to highlight this.
Instead of taking a different team to handle the website, live chat, social media, email, phone calls and queries, omnichannel allows you to manage everything in one location. This will enable you to observe a customer’s past with your organization, which is helpful because 70% of consumers demand connected operations, and 59 percent of customers value customized encounters regarding their previous contacts.
Cloud-based
With much more people working remotely, your platform must enable accommodation of a flexible staff. Cloud-based contactl center software eliminates the need for on-site systems and facilities, enabling your staff to manage it from any place. It also bypasses local restrictions, allowing you to have contact information in multiple regions – ideal for a worldwide market.
A cloud-based system likewise permits you to expand far more efficiently than a traditional phone system. This allows you to have more clients on additional lines during peak hours without paying to keep those lines idle during off-peak hours.
CRM Integration
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software is also essential, and call center software should be compatible. The integration allows you to make the best use of all of your consumer data rather than constantly transferring data between the two.
CTI (computer-telephony integration) pop-ups, which identify a client by their cell number and expose past interactions via the browser, are used by many call center solutions to provide context. Knowing how the software you’re considering logs calls and interfaces with supplementary systems (such as your CRM) is crucial to have enough context for your agents to be of aid.
Voicemail or External Routing
it isn’t easy always to keep 100% in touch with customers unless you are running a 24/7 company. A decent system should route to voicemail or a shallow call center if you have a contract with an external contact center. Call center software should include voicemail management in addition to routing. You should be able to personalize the greeting and select how you want to be notified. Email notifications might be helpful in this situation, mainly when voicemails are left for a specific extension.
Many call center solutions allow you to visually organize voicemails, displaying the time a message was left, caller ID, and any other information it has. This makes it much easier to answer voicemails the next working day because you may prioritize them any way you like – from oldest to newest, or by dealing with the ones from whom you expected callbacks first.
Interactive Voice Responses
Any contact center’s IVR (Interactive Voice Responses) system is a must-have. In most cases, automatic answers greet inbound calls. An acknowledgement of the ring with an estimated wait time, an attempt to redirect to the website, or a quick menu are examples of these responses.
Customizing a greeting menu is very useful for routing calls because it allows the caller to nail down the department before being connected. This is beneficial if you only have one phone line, but it can also be used in smaller departments where individual agents may specialize in different areas.
Top 10 Best Call Center Management Software
Some of the best call center management software include;
- Ring central (software with the most advanced IVR with speech recognition)
- Hubspot (call center software with advanced call logging)
- Cloudtalk (has the most advanced CRM and ecommerce integration)
- Nextiva (best for mobile and desktop app)
- Bitrix24 (installed with on-premise or cloud options)
- Zendesk (has the most advanced CTI, which allows for customization)
- Talkdesk (most modified software with voice analytics)
- Aircall (best to quickly transfer between agents)
- Ayaya Call Center (most advanced mobile-specific experience)
- Channels (best quickstart for new agents)
#1 Ring Central
Pricing: $49 a month
RingCentral software is a service that provides full CRM integration and omnichannel support. Expertise call routing, robust managing tools, and client supervising software are all priorities. Because it was built in the cloud, it bypasses a few of the problems that some software may have had with wanting to modify outdated systems.
Because the vast app library can be linked with many software, you already have, allowing you to customize your experience as desired. This is done by merging economy-leading cloud call center, unified communications (UC) solutions, and workforce optimization unified communications (UC) solutions into a single package to simplify call center management and allow organizations to focus on their core capabilities.
Workforce Optimisation Pro is among the things to reflect when utilizing RingCentral. This feature is built hooked on the cloud call center system and provides you with an opportunity to create timetables, monitor deadlines, and review calls. When you combine this to the performance supervisory dashboard, you get a solution that benefits your staff and consumers.
| pros | cons |
| Large selection of additional apps | Bit expensive compared to other software |
| Social media, chats, and email interactions | |
| Powerful outbound dialler capabilities | |
| Advanced IVR with speech recognition |
#2 Hubspot
Pricing: starts at $45/month
Hubspot is an easy-to-use call software that is both powerful and simple to use. HubSpot’s contact center software is designed to take advantage of its premier CRM and is linked to the company’s marketing and sales tools, as well as Aircall. That means, regardless of who the client communicates with, any front employee gets all the data they require to address the situation right in hand. Employees can give better customer service by having all of this information in one location.
Advanced automation features and analytical reporting are included in HubSpot’s help desk software to assist your team in constantly improve customer experience. A standard email inbox, self-service, and email inbox options are all available.
| pros | cons |
| Omnichannel support through Conversations inbox | often thought of as a CRM solution rather than a call center solution |
| Click-to-call | |
| Automatic call logging |
#3 Cloud Talk
Pricing: starts at $20 month
CloudTalk has a lot of customizability, making it ideal for companies with a lot of control over their call center solution. The ability to construct custom call queues and use ACD (automated call distribution) to route calls to agents under the given rules is one of these features. You can take it a step further and assign individual calls to a specific agent. If a member of your sales team has a long-standing relationship with a client, they might be directed to them directly.
Other customizable options include customized voicemails and greetings, which help avoid your company appearing generic and provide a consistent brand experience. Click-to-call, customer information, real-time, and a predictive dialer are all included. However, the cheaper tiers don’t have quite as many useful features.
| pros | cons |
| Click-to-call and predictive dialer | cheaper tiers don’t have quite as many useful features. |
| CRM and ecommerce integration | |
| Custom call queue creation |
#4 Nextiva
Pricing: $18.95 a month
Nextiva allows you to interact with many diallers in a short while using fewer employees. It’s a straightforward solution with standard structures like ACD, IVR, and call lineup to fit most enterprises. NextOS can be used with existing toolsets or on its own. It can also track customer mood and experience in real-time, delivering data to your staff to aid customer interactions.
| Pros | Cons |
| Real-time disaster recovery and call forwarding | Can hold customers in a queue for s long time |
| Mobile and desktop app | |
| Call recording and rating |
#5 Bitrix24
Pricing: Free; starts at $19/month
Bitrix24 is a desktop and mobile program that works with various social media platforms, such as Skype, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Viber, Telegram, etc.
Bitrix24 is a call center built on your Trello list and allows teams to interact on assignments. They offer various customer service solutions, including rentable email ques, phone lines and live chat, all of which are integrated into Bitrix24’s process automation and CRM software. Bitrix24 additionally provides an alternative for enterprises that are already required to choose or host their data storage.
| Pros | Cons |
| Omnichannel support | Includes substantial CRM automation, which may not be worth it if you have something else in place |
| On-premise or cloud options are available | |
| CRM automation |
#6 Zendesk
Pricing: starts at $49 a month
Zendesk is a contact center solution for organizations of all sizes, built on one of the most comprehensive customer care platforms. Agents may use Zendesk’s modern help desk capabilities to serve clients across all channels with automatic ticket generation.
Zendesk Talk has the advantage of allowing you to either begin from scratch or fit in what you’re already using. It’s cloud-based so that you get started right away, and it offers an app colonnade to let you customize your experience.
| Pros | Cons |
| CTI toolkit allows for customization | Mainly designed as a sales-calling platform and is best suited for outbound focused teams rather than inbound support or internal conferencing. |
| Omnichannel support | |
| CRM with dedicated call solutions |
#7 Talk Desk
Pricing: Available on request
TalkDesk is among the top contact center software alternatives for business-level enterprises because it can handle many calls and agents. It offers a comprehensible UI that lets agents navigate quickly, as well as Salesforce routing.
It’s also simple to acquire acumens and increase customer satisfaction and agent productivity with AI voice analytics, detailed reporting, and real-time context recording. It’s not just for incoming calls, with a sophisticated outbound programmable dialer and the ability to generate contact prospect lists in various methods.
| Pros | Cons |
| Agent-focused desktop | Requires high technical expertise |
| Automated workflows | |
| Voice analytics |
#8 Aircall
Pricing: $30 a month
Aircall, a cloud-based call center, can assist your customer service staff in transforming customer experiences. Some of the main features we discussed previously, such as IVR, cloud-based calling, call routing, and more, are included in this software. Skills-based routing, call queuing, queue callback, live call monitoring, and call whispering are included in the software.
Managers can give behind-the-scenes advice and have an immediate impact using the call whispering feature. This is beneficial to both the client experience and training.
| Pros | Cons |
| Ability to quickly transfer between consultants | Intuitive UX lacking |
| Simplicity and ease of use | |
| Call recording (Cloud) |
#9 Ayaya Contact Center
Pricing: Available on request
Avaya can be used in the cloud or on-premises, and it includes many of the functions listed above. It is designed to allow for individualized interactions with recurring consumers and has unique benefits for mobile callers, such as cutting toll-free expenses.
Many Fortune 100 firms, according to the Avaya website, go for Avaya product in running their customer service. That’s because it’s been a communications powerhouse for a long time. Because various additional capabilities are included in the base platform, be confident that you’re receiving an innovative product when choosing Avaya’s omnichannel call center solution.
| Pros | Cons |
| Omnichannel support | Some users have reported call quality issues but could likely be related to internet speeds while working remotely |
| Personalizable desktop for agents | |
| Mobile-specific experience |
#10 Channels
Pricing: $15 a month
Channels contact center software lets you reply to consumer calls through a mobile app. Channels can be integrated with other products in your tech stacks, such as Zapier, HubSpot, Shopify, and Zendesk, and call distribution rules can be created.
Your sales force can work on the go using the mobile app, and in-bound dials are not charged, so the costs of waiting for a call back are minimal. Inbound solutions such as call recording, IVR and reporting are available. It is, however, clearly intended as a sales-calling tool and is more suited for outbound-focused sides.
| Pros | Cons |
| Integrates with ecommerce platforms | designed as a sales-calling platform and is best suited for outbound focused teams rather than inbound support or internal conferencing. |
| Mobile app | |
| Quickstart for new agents |