Best Call Center Software (2026)

• Overivew
• Types of Software
• Benefits
• Essential Features
• Top Software Providers
• How to Choose
• FAQs

What is Call Center Software?

Call center software is a cloud-based business communication platform designed to manage and optimize call center operations. It improves call volume management, optimizes call flows, allows customers to get better and faster assistance, and automates business processes.

Call center software unifies multiple communication channels, collaboration features, automations, and AI-based software tools into one application. A call center application is typically available via mobile, desktop, or browser.

 

Types of Call Center Software

There are five main types of call center software. They differ by functionality, deployment method, scalability, integration capabilities, and user experience. Let’s take a closer look at how they differ.

• Inbound: Inbound call center software receives incoming calls from current or potential customers. They most often provide customer service and support, make product recommendations, take orders, or make appointments.
• Outbound: Outbound call center software makes outgoing calls to current or potential customers, most often for sales or marketing purposes.
• Mixed: A mixed call center combines inbound and outbound functionality, enabling users to make and receive calls. This is the most popular type of call center solution.
• On-premise: Also called a “fixed” VoIP solution, on-premise VoIP software is hosted physically in your company’s office. Agents make and receive business calls on-premises, and your IT team typically manages the hardware and servers onsite.
• Cloud-hosted: Also known as a “cloud-based” or “hosted” call center, cloud-hosted software is managed remotely by your call center provider. They handle the servers and app updates, meaning that your users only need to download the software. Cloud-hosted VoIP is a low-hassle option for in-person and remote workforces.

 

Benefits of Using a Call Center Software

Businesses use call center software to automate processes, improve agent productivity, cut call center costs, improve customer service, and more. Below are the top benefits of implementing a call center platform for your operations.

 

More Features and Capabilities

Compared to a traditional phone system, call center software provides hundreds more dynamic features–all bundled in one app.

CCaaS platforms include routing, queueing, collaboration, integrations with other platforms, sales tools, workforce management, AI support, and analytics–each category with a handful of features that help agents and supervisors meet customer needs.

 

Increased Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty

Call center software allows your business to provide personalized customer support and decrease common sources of customer frustration.

• Decreasing hold times via optimized call queueing and automated callbacks
• Using CTI screen pops, asynchronous shared agent inboxes, and call notes to prevent callers from having to repeat information
• Using IVR data collection, warm transfers, and native/integrated CRM tools to properly prepare agents for each customer interaction

 

Decreased Agent Turnover

Call center software services not only improve the customer’s experience but the agent’s as well.

• Skills-based routing and interactive voice response systems match call center agents with the callers they’re best-suited to help, so agents have fewer frustrating interactions
• Queue callbacks enable agents to take their time with calls, without having to rush in order to keep queue wait times low
• Outbound dialers save agents from repetitive tasks like having to manually dial customers and wade through voicemail machines
• Workforce management tools automatically optimize agent schedules

 

Improved Team Communication

Call center solutions include a variety of features that facilitate smoother communication between team members.

• Workflow automations notify team members of relevant activity across the company
• Task-assignment tools keep agents on top of their to-do lists, without requiring direct messaging
• Call controls like parking and transfer enable agents to support each other during live calls
• Customer journey information, CRM integrations, and shared contact notes provide agents with full customer context–even when it’s their first time servicing that customer

 

Lower Operating Costs

Cloud call center platforms lower your operating costs in a variety of ways:

• Real-time analytics drive strategic business decisions that make staffing, channel usage, and feature selection more efficient
• Flexible pricing structures allow companies to pay for only the features and channels they plan to use
• Supervisor monitoring tools help supervisor manage large teams, while improving each agent’s performance and reducing staffing needs

 

Scalability

Call center providers offer their plans on a subscription basis, and sign up takes just a few minutes. Adding new users simply requires the administrator to add a new subscription, assign the user a phone number, pay the monthly subscription, and send the new employee login credentials.

This makes call center software systems easily scalable, for companies who plan to increase or downsize their workforce.

 

Call Center Software Essential Features

The right set of features can greatly improve the efficiency of your call center operations and streamline the workflow for agents. The below features are essential to quality call center management. Though the majority of them are standard, depending on the provider, you may need to purchase them as add-ons or scale up to a higher-tiered plan.

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Interactive Voice Response (IVR) is a self-service feature consisting of pre-recorded call menu options that customers interact with via touch-tone or speech. These customers provide information about the reason for their call and help them connect with the right agent/department.
• Automatic Call Distribution (ACD): automatic call distribution automatically routes callers according to pre-set call routing strategies. ACD is designed to increase call center productivity by eliminating the need for manual call transfers.
• Call Routing: Call routing strategies are the ways in which calls are routed to agents in order to maximize productivity. The main call routing strategies are: list-based routing, round-robin routing, skills-based routing, and simultaneous ringing
• Call Scripting: Call scripting provides on-call agents with a written script or flowchart that guides them through customer interaction. Many providers offer live call transcription with keyword detection, using this data to determine the conversation’s topic and sentiment. With this information, the system provides agents with suggested responses, relevant links, and knowledge-base articles.
• Automated Callbacks: Automated callbacks eliminate the need for callers to wait on hold for extended periods of time, instead receiving a callback from an available agent based on their preferred time and date.
• Auto Dialers: Automated dialing modes streamline outbound calling efforts, using campaign lists often provided by your CRM system. Most call center solutions will offer multiple dialing modes, including: power dialer, progressive dialer, predictive dialer, and preview dialer.
• Call Queueing: Call queuing allows multiple callers to wait on hold until an available agent is free to assist them. It helps to reduce the number of customer callbacks. Companies can create multiple queues and assign agents to each queue.
• Call Recording: This feature records agent and customer calls either automatically or on-demand, storing these recordings for later review or download. Both agents and supervisors can later review call recordings for quality assurance purposes, to assess customer service standards, agent efficiency, and more.
• Reporting and Analytics: Real-time and historical analytics provide insights into call center activity and efficiency through tracking KPIs. Reports can be completely customized, or admins can choose from a variety of pre-made report templates.
• Call Monitoring: Call monitoring allows a supervisor to listen in on a live call, whisper private guidance, barge into the call, or take it over entirely. It’s often used to evaluate new agents to provide better training, monitor individual agent performance, or better understand customer needs.
• Omnichannel Routing: Omnichannel routing automatically syncs the most recent customer-agent interactions and conversations across channels. Therefore, when multiple communication channels are used throughout a customer interaction, everyone can pick up right where they left off.
• Caller ID: Caller ID displays the name and contact information of an inbound caller, allowing agents to better prioritize their calls and to prepare to assist the customer before they speak with them.

 

The Best Call Center Software for 2026

1. Nextiva — Best all-in-one call center solution and customer support
2. Five9 — Best agent management features and IVAs
3. RingCentral — Best omnichannel pricing
4. Vonage — Best for building a custom solution
5. Dialpad — Best for AI, agent flexibility, outbound calling
6. Genesys — Best customer journey management and AI chatbots
7. NiCE — Best omnichannel self-service
8. GoTo — Best for multichannel queuing and international calling
9. 8x8 — Best for team collaboration features
10. Aircall — Best for a low-cost call center
11. Twilio Flex — Best for scaling and CRM integrations

 

Nextiva - Best all-in-one call center software

 

 

Nextiva is truly an all-in-one AI-powered virtual call center software for sales, service, and customer support departments. Channels include voice, SMS, chat, email, social media, and messaging apps like WhatsApp.

Each plan includes auto dialers, a built-in CRM system, and a workflow builder to automate routing and customer journeys. Live chat and chatbots support rich features like appointment booking and secure payments. Higher-tier plans include more interactive bots, custom omnichannel surveys, and customer experience analytics.

What We Like

• Unique channel offerings: In addition to the usual digital channels (such as Voice and chat), we also connected email inboxes and our social media channels like X (Twitter), Facebook, and Instagram.
• Flexible routing and call handling: Customize routing with omnichannel distribution styles like skills-based, longest-idle, or a custom order
• Feature-rich plans on all tiers: Nextiva’s low-tier plans offer a ton of value through rich features–auto dialers, campaign management tools, agent scripts, workflows, and bots
• Sales and customer support tools: Nextiva plans promote better customer service with built-in CRM functionality for strong customer profiles and journey history information. Paired with campaign lists and auto dialing styles, these tools work for sales or support use cases.
• Customizable and in-depth analytics: Analytics dashboards use Google Looker Studio for custom data management, including trends from customer surveys and interaction analytics. I found the analytics very user-friendly, with unique insights into customer experience, customer issues, and agent performance.

What to Know

Nextiva’s cheapest plan is $75 monthly per agent, more than alternatives like RingCentral. For those who want basic inbound/outbound calling and routing, Nextiva does not offer the best value here. The workflow automations posed a steep learning curve for me during my first few days using the platform. Nextiva only offers a video demo of their product.

Cost

Nextiva has three pricing tiers, starting at $75 per agent per month. Usage-based and concurrent pricing models are also available. Choose from single-channel software with voice or digital, or an omnichannel infrastructure on the higher-tier plans. They do not offer a free trial, so be sure this is the right solution before you sign.

Read our review of Nextiva pricing and plans for more information.

 

Five9 - Best Agent Management Features and IVAs

 

 

Five9 is an omnichannel cloud-based call center software powerhouse offering voice and digital channels, interaction analytics, AI-powered agent support tools, and user-friendly automated workflows for nearly every kind of customer interaction.

The software’s AI uses call transcriptions to summarize calls, determine a customer’s intent and issues, identify trends on conversation topics, and more. You can build no-code engagement workflows that trigger notifications and route interactions on any channel. Self-service features like IVR and IVA integrate customer data for more customized and relevant interactions.

What We Like

• Workforce management: Leverages machine learning to optimize employee engagement and workforce management. Features like employee forecasting, live agent shift bidding, and real-time adherence monitoring eliminate workflow bottlenecks and optimize available agents.
• Advanced AI: Uses ChatGPT’s large language models to power live transcriptions and post-call summaries, which can serve as call records and provide better real-time customer service. Integrates AI for live speech suggestions, automated call summaries, and insights about customer experience and the reasons for customer issues.
• Intelligent virtual agents (IVA): Five9’s drag-and-drop designer builds smart self-service IVAs, which I easily deployed across SMS and web chat.
• Supervisor tools: The supervisor dashboard gives an easy view of manager tools–employee performance overviews, and call analytics. I found the panel intuitive and quickly learned how to jump between these capabilities.
• Interaction analytics: Five9’s conversation analysis software considers not only customer keywords, sentiment, and emotion–but also the tone of the caller's voice. It is by far the most comprehensive transcript analysis tool I tried.

What to Know

Five9 is the priciest solution on this list. Despite the high cost, the low-tier plans don’t include advanced features like AI and CX analytics. All plans include SMS texting, but the digital only plan does not include voice. The app opens new tabs for certain features, channels, or pages. This is annoying and can lead to a cluttered and disorganized user experience.

Cost

Five9 offers five plans, starting at $119 monthly per user, with an annual commitment. Choose from digital-only or omnichannel options. While Five9 does not offer a free trial, it provides an app demo to get a feel for the user experience.

To learn more, see our review of all Five9 pricing.

 

RingCentral: Best Pricing for Omnichannel CCaaS

 

 

RingCentral offers two contact center solutions–the AI-powered RingCX, and a more traditional RingCentral Contact Center. Both platforms integrate smoothly with RingCentral’s industry-leading UCaaS platform and phone system.

Both plans include voice calling, SMS, live chat, email, and virtual agents for voice and digital channels. Core features include skills-based routing, outbound auto-dialers, real-time reports, and multichannel surveys. Bundle add-ons for advanced AI features like call summaries, call scoring, and keyword trend analysis.

What We Like

• AI tools for agents: RingSense offers AI-enabled agent support through real-time call transcripts, speech and action suggestions, post-call summaries, and automated notifications when customers engage in noteworthy activity.
• Coaching support: It supports supervisors by identifying trends in customer behavior and giving agents feedback: automated call scoring, AI agent coaching, and keyword tracking to pinpoint customer issues.
• Customer insights: Create advanced and rich surveys across all 20 or 30 channels, with speech analytics for a multi-angle view of customer satisfaction. I liked how I could choose each question’s answer style, and how the surveys automatically adapted to each deployed channel.
• Customer self-service: Virtual agents for live chat and SMS. The interactions feel conversational and interactive, likely because RingCentral IVA is powered by Google Dialogflow.

What to Know

While RingCentral Contact Center offers a great starting price of $65, advanced call center features like agent assistance, call summaries, and advanced surveys incur an additional charge. RingCentral’s plans each include over 20 communication channels, which may be too much for companies that just want a voice call center.

Cost

RingCentral offers three options–from $65 to $145 monthly, per agent. RingCentral's AI Receptionist add-on starts at $59 per month while the Conversation Intelligence add-on starts at $60 per month.

To learn more, check out our RingCentral pricing review.

 

Vonage: Best for building a custom solution

 

 

Vonage offers a fully customizable omnichannel solution with advanced features such as AI-powered analytics, gamification tools, and multiple deep integrations with third-party apps like Salesforce.

Vonage customers leverage GenAI to build custom message and voice bots with knowledge lookup, next best action, call summarization, sentiment analysis, and more. Vonage APIs for authentication, reporting, and agent availability can be used to further tailor the platform to your specific business needs.

What We Like

• AI Studio: No-code studio allows users to create virtual agents to handle common inquiries across voice, SMS, and social media channels with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface
• Bring your own channel: Enables your business to leverage Vonage routing and agent capacity management, workforce management, etc. on native digital channels
• Gamification: Drive employee engagement by organizing challenges, giving feedback, measuring progress, and rewarding achievements
• Flexible pricing structure: Vonage offers two bundled plans with all the essentials as well as many paid add-on features so that businesses only pay for the tools they need
• Dynamic routing: This feature is powered by Salesforce to route calls based on the latest CRM data, customer priority, and history with a particular agent. Customers are informed where they are in the queue and how their call is being routed

What to Know

Vonage offers a solid basic CCaaS platform, but many advanced features are only available as add-ons which can drive the price up. For this reason, Vonage is not the best platform for scaling a contact center. Features such as virtual assistant, speech analytics, and screen recording, for example, are paid add-ons. CRM integrations cost extra as well.

Cost

Vonage does not publicly list its pricing for call center software and is entirely quote based. Vonage’s UCaaS platform, Vonage Business Communications (VBC) ranges from $10.49 to $24.49 per user, per month, for 20 users. It is likely that Vonage Contact Center (VCC) also provides affordable base pricing, but as stated above, many features cost extra. VCC has two pricing plans- Priority and Premium. Premium includes features like post call surveys and whisper coaching, along with several Vonage APIs.

To learn more, check out our Vonage pricing guide.

 

Dialpad: Best for AI, Agent Flexibility and Outbound Calling

 

 

Dialpad Ai Contact Center is an omnichannel cloud-based solution with email, SMS, live chat, social messaging, and video. The platform has unique and powerful AI capabilities, such as scorecards and agent feedback, video meeting transcription, and key moment detection.

The solution supports supervisors with call monitoring, call recording, and agent screen recording. Plans have IVR, digital virtual agents, call distribution, and call queues with automated callbacks.

What We Like

• AI CSAT: Automatically collects and analyzes conversations in real-time to provide AI-powered CSAT scores and updates, predictive analytics, performance reports, and post-interaction SMS surveys.
• Supervisor support and customer self-service features: The platform has useful phone system features like call whisper and barge, queue callbacks, call distribution, and IVR and IVA menus across channels.
• Live-agent assistance: Dialpad’s proprietary AI system, DialpadGPT, provides real-time call transcription and script suggestions for agents, using information from your knowledge base and CRM system.
• Unique AI coaching features: I was impressed by the quality of post-call feedback from the AI scorecards feature. After each interaction, the scorecard provided evaluations using different metrics and rating styles, such as my tone, pace, and my ability to respond to customer questions.

What to Know

Dialpad’s contact center lacks the ability to customize the interface panels a bit more, as alternatives. We found voicemail transcriptions to be inaccurate and unreliable at times. Removing licenses from a Dialpad account took a few days longer than we expected. Teams looking for WFM features, like automated shift scheduling and forecasting, should look to an alternative.

Cost

Dialpad offers three plans, ranging from $80 to $150 monthly per user with an annual commitment. All plans include video meetings and let you choose from voice-only, voice plus one digital channel, or complete omnichannel cloud contact center.

See our detailed Dialpad pricing review for more info.

 

Genesys: Best for Customer Journey Management and AI Chatbots

 

 

Genesys Cloud CX is an omnichannel contact center software with customer self-service, 350+ pre-built integrations, virtual agents across all channels, and predictive engagement analytics. Choose from voice-only, digital-only, or omnichannel plans with email, webchat, and SMS.

It includes quality management tools like real-time call monitoring, screen recording across all interactions, and AI-generated agent feedback. High-tier plans include AI speech and text analytics.

What We Like

• Low-cost: At $75, Genesys’ Cloud 1 offers great value for those seeking a voice-only call center with traditional, simple features like IVR, queueing, and call recording.
• Easy-to-use call flows: The drag-and-drop designer is simple and requires no coding experience. I set up my IVR system in under 30 minutes, connecting agents, queues, and skill-based routing.
• Quality management: Features to help supervisors support agents and offer feedback. The supervisor dashboard organizes evaluation forms, call recordings, caller surveys that give feedback, and speech and text analysis.
• Speech and text analysis: The on-call interface has an easy-view panel for AI-based speech and text analytics on all interactions. It automatically determines the customer’s sentiment and provides coaching suggestions when you’re on call.

What to Know

Genesys’ analytics don’t offer the same depth or customization options as alternatives. For example, they don’t track customer keyword usage or trends in satisfaction scores. Connecting with other systems can be complicated even for those with coding experience, and AI is an add-on: Genesys’ dynamic AI features, like knowledge bases and the live-agent CoPilot, are add-ons that will increase the price.

Cost

Genesys Cloud offers four plans that range from $75 to $240 monthly per user, with an annual commitment. They offer voice-only and omnichannel plans, plus a demo version to try everything out. AI and self-service virtual agents are available as add-ons.

For more information, check out our Genesys review.

 

NiCE: Best Omnichannel and Customer Self-Service

 

 

NiCE CXone is a comprehensive call center solution that provides over 40 communication channels, automated self-service, employee engagement tools, and customer journey optimization. Choose from digital-only and voice-only plans with just the core routing features, or add advanced tools like AI forecasting, agent performance insights, quality management tools, and omnichannel analytics.

Voice of the Customer (VoC) analytics capture sentiment across interactions, self-service and IVR menu choices, and surveys to provide a 360-degree view of customer experience. The analytics engine identifies trends and root causes to help you improve service.

What We Like

• AI-based self-service, IVR, and chatbots: The Enlighten Autopilot feature lets you augment self-service tools like IVR and IVAs with knowledge base content, pulled from articles and webpages. Paired with NiCE’s Natural Language Understanding (NLU), this creates helpful self-service systems for your customers.
• Live-agent support and conversational analytics: Enlighten AI measures 100% of omnichannel customer interactions in real time, giving agent response suggestions for instant improvement.
• 360-degree view of agent and customer: NiCE’s conversation analytics identify metrics and trends for each interaction, breaking them down by agent and customer. From the supervisor's perspective, this helped me see each agent’s strong points as areas for improvement.
• Coaching support tools: The call monitoring dashboard let me track agent activity and easily jump between active calls. Screen recording let me revisit agent interactions afterward, to see where the agent’s performance could have improved. I created self-evaluation and feedback forms to streamline some aspects of coaching.

What to Know

Expensive voice-only plan: Teams seeking a call-only solution without digital channels will find substantially cheaper options with other providers, like Genesys. While NiCE CXone’s Enlighten solutions add advanced AI capabilities and self-service tools, these tools are overwhelming as I try to understand how to handle multichannel interactions. NiCE’s user interface is clunky and outdated, lacking a spacious and modern feel. NiCE customer support took several days to respond to our technical needs.

Cost

NiCE CXone offers five plans ranging from $110 to $249 monthly per user with an annual commitment. Low-tier plans include voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel options, while high-tier plans add advanced features like AI and the Enlighten suite.

For more information, check out our NiCE pricing guide.

 

GoTo Contact Center: Best for Multichannel Queuing and International Calling

 

 

GoTo Contact Center provides easy-to-user agent and supervisor workspaces, including an intuitive drag-and-drop dial plan editor for inbound call flows. They unify voice calling, SMS, webchat, and social messaging channels like Facebook and Instagram Messenger.

Customize inbound routing with skill assignment and ring strategies for queues. Design automated call and SMS campaigns for customer service and marketing. Attach surveys and questionnaires to calls and digital interactions.

What We Like

• SMS and voice queuing: GoTo offers queues for both SMS and voice, with automated callbacks that make it easy for me to manage multiple conversations simultaneously. SMS also includes delivery status to check campaign success rates.
• AI messaging assistance: The AI assistant gave me suggestions to respond to inbound messages. I could customize the AI suggestions by tone, campaign, and customer information.
• International calling: Plans include unlimited calling to over 50 countries, all included for the same monthly rate. This provides strong value for teams that place calls internationally.
• Simple ACD setup: I enjoy GoTo’s dial plan editor, with an intuitive drag-and-drop tool to customize IVR and virtual agents with queues, ring groups, voicemails, and CRM integrations like agent skill level.

What to Know

GoTo is one of the least AI-enhanced call center software systems we tried. While alternatives have AI for WFM, quality management, and live-agent assistance, GoTo does not have these AI features. While some alternatives integrate email in mid-tier or low-tier plans, GoTo only includes support for email as part of the highest-tier Contact Center plan. I felt that GoTo’s virtual agents and IVR menus don’t engage with users as realistically as self-service tools from other providers.

Cost

GoTo offers three pricing tiers–Customer Engagement, Complete CX, and Contact Center. Unfortunately, the provider does not publicize pricing information for any plans. However, each plan includes unlimited calling to over 50 countries, video meetings, and SMS. Higher-tier plans add email, webchat, and social media messaging.

To learn more, read our GoTo Connect pricing review.

 

8x8 Contact Center: Best for Agent Collaboration

 

 

8x8 offers voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel CCaaS with email, web chat, SMS, video, and social media messaging for X, Instagram Messenger, and Facebook Messenger. All plans include IVR, queueing, call recording, CRM integrations, analytics, and customer journey visibility.

The contact center platform promotes team collaboration with internal messaging and video meetings for up to 500 participants. Meetings have interactive features like polls and breakout rooms, with the option to live stream on YouTube. Higher-tier plans add CX analytics and coaching support tools, with add-ons for auto dialer capabilities.

What We Like

• Chat and video for team collaboration: Agents can host internal and customer-facing video meetings for up to 500 users, with interactive features like polls, hand-raising, and virtual backgrounds.
• Automated queue and web chat callbacks: Automate callbacks from queues and web messaging, with post-call surveys for follow-up.
• Mix-and-match plans: Mix-and-match any of 8x8’s UCaaS and CCaaS plans for users, avoiding paying extra for features that some team members won’t use
• Customer data gathering: Gain customer insights in multiple ways–through surveys, with the CX analytics add-on, and through speech and text analytics. While the surveys are basic, they’re easy to make and administer.

What to Know

8x8 lacks many AI features, such as live-agent assistance and real-time call transcription. Most advanced features are add-ons, Many of our favorite 8x8 features, like rich web chat services and intelligent IVR, are paid add-ons. No native virtual agent.

Cost

8x8 offers one UCaaS plan and two contact center plans. 8x8 does not publicize pricing options or a free trial for these plans, but they offer a demo video.

Check out our 8x8 pricing guide for more information.

 

Aircall: Best Low-Cost Basic Call Center Software

 

 

Aircall is a call center software focusing on voice calling, SMS, and email. The platform doesn't include advanced features like workforce management and live-agent assistance–but it does include useful call tools like automated queue callbacks and an outbound power dialer.

Accessible on desktop or mobile, Aircall has inbound and outbound tools to support a wide variety of use cases. The Power dialer boosts sales efforts, while the advanced routing and queueing support inbound customer service. Real-time queue analytics and monitoring help supervisors keep tabs on a larger team of agents. Agents can collaborate with a shared inbox, shared contacts, and the ability to assign calls to each other.

What We Like

• User-friendly interface: Aircall’s interface is spacious and comfortable, both on mobile and desktop. We quickly figured out how to use the call features, collaboration tools, and analytics.
• Value for the price: Aircall provides tremendous value for the price. The software costs the same as most UCaaS platforms but offers some call center features, like an outbound power dialer and automated queue callbacks.
• Collaboration tools: Agents can’t message each other directly, but they can assign tasks and contacts to each other, commenting on each to delineate support queries.
• Intricate call routing: Create queues with automated callbacks, build a multi-level IVR, and route calls according to multiple metrics: Agent availability and CRM data like agent skills, customers’ recent touchpoints, and recent purchases.

What to Know

Aircall doesn’t offer social media or live chat, meaning we couldn’t build the chatbots, IVA systems, or compare the comprehensive 1:1 support that we did with others. Aircall’s core plans don’t include call transcript analysis or customer-experience insights, and even the paid versions are not comprehensive. While using the product, we found the Aircall frequently signed us out of the software, forcing our users to log back in repeatedly throughout the day. The app only stores analytics data for the past six months.

Cost

Aircall offers three monthly plans ranging from $30 to over $50 per user. All plans include voice calling and SMS but lack some channels–like web chat, video, and social media messaging. The provider offers a seven-day free trial.

See our Aircall pricing guide for more information.

 

Twilio Flex: Best For Scaling and CRM Integrations

 

 

Twilio Flex is a customizable CPaaS platform that allows users to build a bespoke contact center solution that works with the tools they are already using, adding on features and communication channels as needed.

Twilio Flex combines the flexibility of APIs with the ease of out-of-the-box CCaaS solutions. Twilio users can opt to collaborate with Twilio’s team of experts in both design and deployment, or can build their own self-service IVR workflows using Twilio’s no-code Studio.

What We Like

• Customizable platform: Twilio integrates with nearly any CRM, and users can tailor any aspect of the user interface, connectivity, self-service experience, and reporting
• IVR flows: Users build call flows with granular level customizations such as triggers, data gathering, conditions with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface
• Flexible pricing: Companies can choose to pay per hour if they have a lot of users, or per user if they have fewer users, but work more hours
• TaskRouter: Twilio’s Taskrouter is an intelligent skills-based router matching tasks to agents and controlled by the companies own code
• Flex Conversations: Users build omnichannel support systems with interactions in SMS/MMS, WhatsApp, Chat, Email, and Facebook Messenger organized under one pane of glass

What to Know

Twilio Flex works best in conjunction with other systems such as CRMs. For new startups and small companies that haven’t built up a database yet, Twilio may not be a great fit.

Companies without a dedicated development team may also become frustrated with Twilio’s many options, plugins, and customizations. Additionally, deployment may take longer with Twilio than more “plug and play” style competitors such as RingCentral or Dialpad.

Cost

Twilio Flex offers a free trial with 5,000 active user hours. After that, users can choose between per hour ($1 per active user hour), or per user ($150 per named user, per month) pricing.

For more information, please see our Twilio pricing guide.

 

How to Choose the Right Call Center Software

When comparing call center software providers, it’s important to consider features, communication channels, pricing, platform security, SLA, and uptime–all related to your business needs. Use the following guidelines to choose the best call center platform for your company.

 

Routing and Queueing Features

If your company receives a large number of inbound calls, you should choose a call center solution with advanced routing and queueing capabilities.

In particular, look for a provider with these features:

• Advanced queueing with callbacks: Helps you organize inbound calls without making customers wait
• Omnichannel routing: Routes inbound contacts across a variety of channels–including SMS, chat, and email–while making it easy for agents to track these multichannel interactions
• Skills-based routing: matches inbound callers with the best-suited agent
• IVR and IVA: IVR is voice-based and IVA is text-based, but both provide customers with self-service options to indicate their needs, helping you match them to the right agent

 

Communication Channels

Most call center solutions offer multiple communication channels: voice, SMS, live chat and chatbots, video, email, and social media. However, some providers only offer a smaller selection of these channels, and some offer certain channels on select pricing tiers.

Consider the channels that your customers would use and the size of your call center staff, then determine which channels are most important to you. Choose a provider and pricing tier that offers only those channels, and avoid paying for channels you won’t use.

 

Analytics and AI

Analytics and artificial intelligence tools make it easier for administrators and agents to do their jobs.

Reports and dashboards help administrators determine call volumes, review agent performance, see which channels are most popular with customers, and more. AI tools, like speech suggestions and customer sentiment analysis, train sales and support teams to provide better service. These insights help drive business decisions that save costs, improve agent efficiency, and boost customer satisfaction.

 

Pricing and Plans

Considering the features and channels listed above, you want to select the call center provider and pricing plan that offers the most value for your company. Compare all the providers who offer the features you want, then take a closer look at the plans they offer. Choose the pricing tier that includes your prioritized features without too many extra features you won’t use.

In general, choose the pricing tier that includes your prioritized features without too many extra features you won’t use. This way, you can select a provider and pricing tier that meets your budget.

 

Platform Security 

Though no provider can guarantee to prevent all security breaches and data hacks, the right security standards can make them far less likely to happen.

Look for call center software providers that include the following security standards:

• Two-factor authentication (2FA)
• Third-party security certifications like ISO-27001 and SOC2 compliance
• Frequent third-party security audits
• End-to-end encryption
• GDPR, PCI, and HIPAA compliance
• SRTP, TLS, and AES encryption

 

Service Level Agreement (SLA)

A Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a contract between the service provider and customer that protects both parties by clearly outlining the expected service and guarantees. It is essential for ensuring reliable performance and managing risks.

Common information included in the SLA is:

• Guaranteed uptime
• The features/functionalities the software must provide to the customer
• Penalties if guarantees in the SLA are not met
• Security and compliance details
• Billing details, contract length, and other costs
• Any exclusions that exempt the provider from penalties

 

A Guaranteed Uptime of Over 99.9%

Uptime is the amount of time that the call center software is functional and able to provide the services outlined in the SLA. It’s an indication of how much downtime you could experience per year without the provider incurring a penalty.

If a provider doesn’t offer a minimum guaranteed uptime of over 99%, walk away immediately.

Let’s take a look at how much downtime you will get with each uptime guarantee:

• 99% uptime guarantee gives you 3 days, 15 hours, 39 minutes, and 29 seconds of downtime a year.
• 99.9% uptime guarantee gives you 8 hours, 45 minutes, and 56 seconds of downtime a year.
• 99.99% uptime guarantee gives you 52 minutes and 35 seconds of downtime a year.
• 99.999% uptime guarantee gives you 5 minutes and 15 seconds of downtime a year.

 

FAQs