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In the current market scenario, companies have understood the need to rethink their customer service models, processes, and even the age-old contact center solutions to stay competitive. This is primarily due to strict regulations in favor of customers and rapidly shifting customer preferences. Digital care technologies with artificial intelligence (AI) are used to handle today’s sophisticated contact centers.
Contact center software is an application suite for managing, expediting, streamlining, and optimizing contact center operations. The software provides faultless technical support to provide the best possible service to customers.
Most contact center software is packed with features like call tracking, IVR, call barging, automated, call distribution, call routing, analytics, reporting, video support, predictive dialing, and so on, all of which can provide an AI-powered customer experience.
Cloud-based and on-premise deployment are the two main options. Popular cloud platforms offer the advantages of outsourcing software and maintenance costs and are accessible from anywhere with an internet connection.
On the other hand, traditional on-premise solutions are frequently hardware-based and necessitate more frequent upgrades and maintenance costs. One advantage of having a contact center on-site is that it can be located wherever the business needs it.
Omni-channel or multi-channel products are now standard in the Contact Center industry. These cloud-based products have broadened their scope to include more than just traditional call center operations. It is possible to handle and integrate customer communications across all possible touchpoints. Channels using omnichannel software Voice, VoIP, email, fax, video chat, SMS/text, and social media platforms are examples of these.
Even though CRM and contact center software are very different, they complement each other and work best together. Let’s look at some differences between the two:
| Key Difference | Contact Center Software | CRM(Customer Relationship Management) |
| Definition | Contact Center Software is an application to manage all voice communications. Advanced call routing can be highly beneficial for answering incoming calls. | CRM software helps businesses in keeping track of all interactions with customers. Everything you need to know about your customers is available here. |
| Use | Improves agent productivity without compromising on customer service. Inbound and outbound call center campaigns alike rely on it heavily. | A CRM keeps track of your customer’s journey by pulling information from various sources. It is used to record all the customer interactions. |
| Key Features | Call recording, routing, queuing, computer telephony integration, analytics, and reporting. | Lead management, analytics, and reporting, interaction tracking, workflow automation |
| Front-end vs. backend | It is the front-end solution and directly impacts customer communications. It is used to make inbound and outbound calls. | CRMs are essentially backend tools, is a complete database that records customer interaction. |
| Metrics | A call center’s metrics can show how well its agents serve their clients, such as Average wait time, first call resolution rate, rate of answered calls, CSAT. | Customers, sales, and revenue are central to CRM metrics. The goal is to use data to help sales teams achieve their objectives. |
We chose Talkdesk, ZenDesk Support, NICS CX zone, Genesys, 8×8 Contact Center, Dialpad, Avaya, RingCentral, Twilio, and Five9 as our top picks for contact center software based on their features and user popularity. Here are some additional details about them.
Talkdesk is a cloud-based enterprise contact center that helps businesses improve customer satisfaction and agent productivity. It is simple to set up, use, and update, and it includes a slew of advanced features and integrations to help you get more done.
Talkdesk includes ACD, IVR, Ring Groups, and other intelligent routing features. Quality management features like call recording, monitoring, and barging are also included. It is equipped with advanced voice capabilities as well as a power dialer. It comes with customizable reports and a live dashboard.
RingCentral Contact Center supports different features, such as omnichannel support for SMS, inbound and outbound voice, social media, email, and live chat. Intelligent routing, including skills-based and omnichannel routing, is also included in the platform.
Automation, WFM, predictive and progressive dialing, optimization, and supervisor and agent tools and analytics are all included in some plans. You can also integrate RingCentral’s platform with pre-built CRM systems and external CRM systems.
NICE inContact CXone is a contact center software that manages customer interactions across various communication channels in the cloud. It has multiple beneficial features, like omnichannel routing, automatic call distribution (ACD), workforce optimization, and interactive voice response (IVR).
NICE’s solution enables businesses to provide exceptional customer experiences by acting smarter and responding to consumer expectations quickly.
The Genesys Cloud CX platform is an omnichannel platform. Business leaders can manage interactions and metrics in real-time, including supervisory actions such as real-time performance management. Its features include ACD, WFM, IVR, speech analytics, call recordings & quality evaluations, outbound campaign management, and Genesys Cloud CX for CRM.
The 8×8 Contact Center is hosted in the cloud. It provides omnichannel services and customer analytics, such as advanced speech, engagement, and interaction analytics. Each agent license also includes integrating with CRM applications and connecting to third-party systems via open APIs. The key features are skill-based routing, integrated voice, email, webchat, social media, and queued & web callback.
Dialpad Contact Center is hosted in the cloud. It provides ease of use, open APIs for application integrations, and various call features such as conferencing, management, recording, transfer, and automated routing. Dialpad’s products span video meetings, cloud call centers, sales coaching, dialers & enterprise phone systems–and are all infused with the latest AI technologies to help every business make smarter calls.
Twilio Flex is a cloud-based communications platform that supports voice, chat, text, email, and social media. It also provides Flex Insights, which includes call summaries so that agents do not have to replay an entire call to understand a conversation. Flex Insights also provides an Analytics Portal for custom dashboards, reporting, and analytics.
Inbound, outbound, blended, and omnichannel contact centers are all supported by the Five9 Cloud Contact Center software. It includes a useful AI feature that can integrate inbound and outbound communication functions, such as predictive dialing. It also includes call forwarding, routing, recording, and analytics.
Avaya’s OneCloud contact center as a service platform is relatively new to the contact center market. It is based on Avaya’s original on-premises platform, but organizations can use it for cloud, hybrid, or on-premises contact centers. Voice, email, text, and webchat are among the available channels. Its features include intelligent routing, call and screen recordings, AI-enabled self-service interactions and automation, and employee engagement tools.
Zendesk Talk is a contact center platform that works in tandem with the Zendesk Support ticketing system and can be integrated with Salesforce, SugarCRM, and other third-party applications. The platform’s key features include omnichannel support, knowledge management, and support for internal service desks.
Because of this support, businesses can use a single tool for both internal and contact center support. Answer Bot, a Zendesk-specific AI chatbot that interacts with customers, is also available.
Customers’ expectations for excellent & prompt services desire for immediate answers have led to an increase in the use of contact center software. Because of the increasing integration of cutting-edge technologies such as cloud, big data, and artificial intelligence into contact center software to improve customer service, the market for contact center software is also expected to grow rapidly.
Increased investment in these capabilities by industries such as consumer goods and retail, financial services, and healthcare is also helping to drive growth in the contact center software market.
The global contact center market is expected to grow significantly in 2022. Cloud-based customer service platforms have become increasingly popular because of their ability to be accessed from any location. The market is expected to be substantially impacted by the rapid advancements in cloud computing technology.
On-premise solutions have become prohibitively expensive, resulting in a shift toward cloud-based software, which has helped the market grow. Traditional call centers, for example, lack the scalability and flexibility that cloud-based software provides while also failing to provide immediate assistance and better customer service.
The evolution of contact center technology has evolved drastically over the past few years, going from simple operations to full-scale CRM management. Contact centers must now handle web inquiries, inbound and outbound phone calls, email inquiries, and live chat to unleash multi-channel support. Organizations can use contact center software to respond to customer inquiries received via various channels, including social media, the web, analytics, and mobile devices.
To remain competitive, contact centers have incorporated the most recent technology. To keep up with today’s ever-changing technological landscape, they must constantly upgrade their current systems and find the best solutions for their specific needs.
Choosing the best and most cost-effective solution is a daunting task when there are so many options to choose from, all promising functionalities, features, and tasks. Hope this guide can help you make an informed decision before making a purchase.
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Get your copy of the ultimate guide to lead generation through telecalling (scripts included)