Genesys Cloud CX: Pricing, Plans, Features & Alternatives

Contact center agents juggle numerous tasks throughout the work day, like customer queues, multichannel support ticket inboxes, CRM data entry, internal team conversations, order status updates…the list goes on.

Unfortunately, lackluster contact center software often forces agents to do all this with minimal insight into previous customer support interactions or account history.

When agents aren’t properly supported, everyone pays the price–administrators, supervisors, and worst of all, customers.

The solution? An omnichannel platform, like Genesys Cloud CX.

This article outlines Genesys Cloud CX, its features, pricing, pros and cons, alternatives, and which businesses will get the most out of it.

Jump to ↓

• What Is Genesys Cloud CX?
• Genesys Cloud CX Benefits
• Genesys Cloud CX Key Features
• Genesys Cloud CX Pricing & Plans
• Genesys Cloud CX Pros & Cons
• Genesys Cloud CX Alternatives
• Who Should Consider Genesys Cloud CX?
• Genesys Cloud CX FAQs

What Is Genesys Cloud CX?

Genesys Cloud CX is an omnichannel CCaaS solution that unifies voice and text-based communication channels into a unified interface, using AI insights, conversation flow builders, team collaboration tools, and detailed analytics to provide faster, more personalized customer support.

Because Genesys CX (formerly Genesys PureCloud) is an API contact center platform, users can further customize it with additional communication and analytics APIs from third-party providers.

Genesys Cloud CX Benefits

Here’s how your contact or call center can benefit from Genesys Cloud CX.

Cross-Channel Customer Journeys

Customers can contact your company through live channels–VoIP calling, email, SMS texting, web chat, and social media–or use self-service options like IVR, chatbots, or voice bots. Agents can easily switch between channels during sessions while maintaining contact with the customer.

All customer omnichannel interactions are recorded, transcribed, and logged, so other agents can access the data needed to provide contextualized customer service.

Personalized Customer Experience

Configure channel-based routing rules and self-service conversation flow maps.

Customize personalized customer journeys across channels by leveraging key data like sentiment, goals, and account status.

In outbound marketing, group leads and customers by variables like location, preferred contact method, and contact time.

Employee Support

An intuitive agent workspace leverages one-click channel switching, abundant customer data, and AI-supported intelligence like canned responses to help agents provide smooth support.

Collaboration tools like instant chat messaging with user presence (status) updates, @mentions, and direct messaging keep agents on top of internal communications.

Real-time and historical performance reports record, transcribe, and identify conversation trends and insights for each customer session, helping employees identify and improve upon their own counterproductive behaviors.

Contact Center Insights

View real-time and historical reports for all contact center activity: KPI visuals and statistics for routing, bot-flow efficiency, channel usage, call queue activity, agent customer-service success, and more.

Genesys Cloud CX Key Features

These are our favorite telecommunications features in Genesys Cloud CX.

Digital Channels

Genesys Cloud CX supports the following communication channels, unified in an omnichannel interface for easy agent management: 

• Voice
• Business SMS texting
• Email
• Live web chat
• Social media
• Self-service (chatbot, voice bot, IVR)

Voice

Make calls in countries around the world using the Internet, right from the agent workspace, with Genesys’ cloud-based phone system.

Voice tools:

• Global Number Options: Purchase local numbers with area codes all around the world for a local presence with international customers, or use number porting to continue using pre-existing business phone numbers
• On-The-Go Mobile App: The Genesys Cloud Communicate iOS and Android mobile app lets agents make voice calls from their business phone number on their smartphones via a softphone interface
• Outbound Dialer: Predictive, Preview, and Manual dialing modes help manage a high outbound call volume

Live Web Chat

Web chat widgets, embedded on your website and mobile app, let customers access real-time live agent or chatbot self-service support when they need it.

When chatbots transition conversations to live agents, agents gain full context into the customer’s journey–including conversation transcripts, pages visited, time spent on each, and actions they’ve taken.

Agents can share URLs, documents, or escalate channels with one click. Customers can step away from a conversation and pick up right where they left off upon return.

Email

Send bulk emails for marketing purposes, or use one-on-one email functionality to provide personalized customer support.

Email tools:

• Website-Embedded: Include a link to your customer contact email address on your website, or use Genesys’ pre-built web forms to let customers submit contact requests via email.
• Email Queue: A list of all of an agent’s inbound emails, with key information about each query. Agents can click into any email for an overview and take quick action.
• Multiview Interface: Agents can reply to emails in the left-hand column while accessing other tickets and relevant customer support tools like CRM information, canned responses, and grammar suggestions
• Email Workflows: AI and natural language understanding (NLU) determine a customer’s email issue, sending automated responses to simple email queries, or suggesting templates for agents to use. More complex issues get forwarded to agents for individual responses.

• Email Classification/Prioritization: Automatically classify and prioritize emails based on keywords and sender significance, managing large email workloads

SMS

Send inbound and outbound SMS text messages in bulk or one-on-one–you can even feature SMS as part of an automated marketing campaign.

Use SMS APIs alongside CRM software like Salesforce, marketing, scheduling, and contact center tools for a variety of rich messaging services and automation:

• Bulk texting
• Appointment reminders
• Abandoned-cart follow-up
• Announcements
• Surveys

Social Media Messaging

Chat with customers and provide social media customer service on Facebook, Facebook Messenger, and Twitter within the agent inbox–or escalate social media tickets to voice, message, or email.

Social media tools include:

• Sentiment Analysis: Genesys AI identifies the most urgent social media mentions and cases, prompting quick agent action where it’s most needed

Automation And AI Tools

The following AI tools streamline ticket routing, customer journey tracking, and agent support.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)

Route tickets to the first available agent, or customize advanced ACD options:

• Virtual Agent Groups: Group agents based on cohort, company role, location, and expertise, to share responsibility for relevant inbound calls. Choose how you want these ring groups to be notified–simultaneous ring, round-robin ring, or routed to the first available agent.
• Skills-Based Routing: Route incoming tickets to the best-suited agent, based on agent expertise and specialty

Predictive Engagement

When configuring marketing actions and sequences–like product promotion campaigns, major announcements, or new outbound offers–Genesys CX predictive engagement estimates the impact on your contact center resources and recommends adjustments to your routing and other contact center resources.

In anticipation of marketing changes, predictive engagement can:

• Estimate how each marketing action will impact contact center traffic and available resources (bots, agents, teams)
• Recommend changes to maximize AI and live agent efforts
• Align customer engagement goals and strategies across all channels, tools, and automations

Predictive Routing

Genesys’ predictive routing AI strengthens queueing and routing by evaluating the optimization potential of each queue in your system, testing alternative options for KPI improvements, and offering specific suggestions for how admin can achieve improved KPIs.

Simple KPI Comparison Tests: An administrator identifies critical KPIs and initiates a 14-day comparison test, after which Genesys recommends queue and routing adjustments to optimize those KPIs

Predictive Scheduling

Genesys AI also takes into account customer demand and workforce estimates to assist with scheduling:

• Predict Future Staffing Needs: Suggestions about hiring needs for each position
• Build Schedules: View and overlay agent schedules by day or month, with hour-by-hour breakdowns to anticipate which contact center needs will need extra support

Automated Outbound Campaigns

Create multichannel marketing campaigns, configuring automated flows, outreach sequences, and agent workloads.

Automated outbound marketing tools include:

• Proactive Notifications: Trigger outbound messages based on customer actions–like new sign-ups, abandoned carts, product order confirmations, and customer service surveys–using each customer’s preferred channel

• Advanced List Management: Sort customers into lists based on: preferred contact channel, priority status, sign-up date and “new customer” status, location, company size, and more. Choose unique engagement strategies, sequences, and contact methods for each group.

Self-Service Tools

Genesys Cloud CX contact center solution offers three primary self-service tools, available 24/7 across channels, apps, and websites:

• IVR (auto-attendant)
• Call bots
• Chatbots

Architect Bot Flow Builder

This low-code, drag-and-drop flow building tool configures automated (and sometimes agent-assisted) customer conversations that leverage all available customer data and communication channels.

Create an unlimited number of bots across touchpoints, assigning them to different numbers, webpages, or swapping them out depending on your needs.

Tools within Genesys Bot Flow Builder (applies to IVR, chatbots, and voice bots) include:

• RCS-Integrative: Integrate all of your company’s outbound marketing tools and rich communication services (RCS) options into your bot or IVR flow, like surveys, carousel messages, links, coupons, announcements
• Diverse Capabilities: Let bots automate simple customer service actions, including collecting customer information, verifying identity, and booking appointments
• Import bots: Import any voice bots built using outside NLU providers like Amazon, Google Cloud, or Microsoft
• Deploy Across Multiple Channels: Once you create a bot conversation flow, assign it across multiple numbers and digital channel touchpoints.
• Adaptive/Personalized Flows: Within your flow, create menu options that adapt to each customer’s journey and sentiment. Genesys AI tracks customer journey and sentiment before and during bot interaction, allowing AI to serve unique transactions, menu, and service options to customers with particular journey data

• Business Controls: Define controls like business hours, holidays, and emergency messages, without disrupting menu flow

• Customer Recognition: AI uses a customer’s IP address and login information to identify them, adding the IVR conversation to their customer journey, so they don’t have to repeat themselves down the line

• Utterance Predictions: to improve IVR and voice bots’ natural language understanding (NLU), input a list of expected customer responses, to help your bot detect what customers say. Bots also compile lists of common responses to expand this list

• Bot Templates: Use Genesys-created bot templates, or create your own from scratch

IVR (Auto-Attendant)

Create an auto-attendant voice menu, attached to a company phone number, that provides customers with routing options to navigate using their voice or dual-tone multi-frequency (DTMF) selections.

Voice Bots And Chatbots

Voice bots and chatbots are speech-recognizing and text-recognizing automated menus that understand customer queries and provide basic services, like:

• Answering basic questions
• Handling transactions
• Verifying customer identity
• Booking appointments
• Routing the customer to the right agent+providing agents with bot interaction transcripts and context

Agent Support Tools

The following Genesys CX tools reduce agent workload, improve the overall agent experience, and make it easier for agents to improve customer relationships with better, more personalized support.

Agent Scoring For Customer Matching

Predictive engagement analyzes agent strengths, scoring each agent based on their ability to help incoming customers based on each customer’s needs.

Once a high-scoring agent matches with a customer, the ticket appears in the agent’s Conversations tab.

Conversations Tab For Multichannel Ticket Management 

The Conversations Tab, where agents can accept and easily click between dozens of conversations at once, houses all of an agent’s tickets across channels.

When an agent clicks on a conversation, the central panel displays the most recent conversation and a chat box, as the menu’s right-hand side updates with the customer’s information, insights, and an interaction toolbox.

Interaction Toolbox

During customer interactions on any channel, the agents’ right-hand menu provides a toolbox of customer data, relevant analytics, suggestions, scripts, and other tools like:

• Customer Information: Customer name, address, email, phone number, social media, and any notes left by other agents. Agents can click on the customer’s image to open up a complete customer profile.

• Customer Journey: Customer journey mapping of most recent b usiness website activity , including time spent on any page, AI actions taken, offers received, and more
• Predictive Web Engagement: AI analyzes conversations to determine each customer’s progress toward achieving your company’s goal (purchase a product, sign up for a subscription, mark their issue resolved, etc.)
• Quick Actions: One-click options for agents to customer ticket actions, like canceling or confirming an appointment, escalating to a voice call, rescheduling, or transferring
• Conversation History: A customer’s previous conversations across channels, both automated and in-person
• Screen Sharing: With one-click screen sharing, agents can share their screen to show customers a demonstration, article, or document
• Canned Response Suggestions: From Agent Assist, explained further below

Agent Assist

Agent Assist uses AI and NLU to analyze conversations in real-time, combining with each customer’s data and journey to generate agent scripts, suggested actions, and canned responses.

Agent Assist provides agents:

• Knowledge base answers to customer questions
• Action or offer suggestions, like discounts or coupons
• Canned responses and support scripts

Agent Assist reduces average handle time, increases customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores, and helps new agents learn customer interaction skills quickly.

Personalized Employee Hub

The Genesys CX Employee Hub’s personalized dashboard aggregates everything an employee needs to manage daily tasks, complete training, monitor feedback and evaluations, improve skills, and grow in their career.

Employee Hub dashboards include:

• • Daily Schedule: Color-coded by task type and broken down to the minute
  • Quality Management Evaluations: Information about the evaluator, date, and score–along with evaluation summaries by week or month
  • Performance Scores and Trends: Tracks best daily, weekly, and monthly performance scores
  • Assigned Learning Content and Coaching Sessions: Lists all assigned training materials with summary and deadline date
  • Gamification: Agents can view their performance in comparison with other employees based on punctuality or important KPIs, like average hold time and calls-transferred ratio
  • Recent Customer Session Summaries/Data: Featuring the session recording, transcript, statistics like the ratio of customer talk to agent talk, session length, start time, and end time

Mobile Schedule Management

In the Genesys Temo Mobile app, agents can:

• Access Work Schedule and Calendar: View and set daily schedules, access work and personal events within a shared calendar, and log into their Genesys dashboard directly from the app’s calendar or daily timesheet

• Make Schedule Requests: Manage break timing, request PTO, call in sick, request to switch shifts, and set future schedule preferences

Analytics, Reporting, and Insights

Genesys Cloud CX provides dozens of customizable analytics dashboards, reports, and viewing options for complete contact center oversight. 

Use these analytics and reports for real-time channel monitoring, departments, and agents. Track changes over time with historical reports to anticipate demands and identify weak points in customer service or sales pipelines.

Real-Time Call Center and Session Monitoring

View real-time reports to manage the contact center and individual tickets, gaining insights into performance over hours, days, months, or years.

Contact center KPIs include:

• Customer sentiment scores and % change
• Logs of all customer sessions
• Total time spent in sessions
• Active agents
• Active tickets
• Ticket successes, failures, and success rate
• Hold time
• Queue length, and more

Conversational analytics, generated in real-time during each session, support agent growth and feedback, as administrators can refer to specific analytics–like quotations or fluctuations in customer sentiment–during evaluations.

Conversational analytics insights for each ticket:

• Full call recording and transcription
• Positive and negative events
• Agent behavior trends
• Shifts in custom sentiment
• Quality summary

Automations Insights

View metrics about the performance of routing tools, bot flows, and other automations:

• Routing KPIs: Queuing KPIs like average handle time and transfer rates, across routing systems
• Routing Suggestions: Genesys AI identifies teams or departments with the most potential for improvement, then tests alternatives and offers improved call routing options, estimating the KPI gains with each implemented improvement
• IVR and bot Flow Performance: Identify navigational or transactional customer issues within your bot flows using metrics like navigation success rate, common customer paths, and most commonly used automated menus

Collaboration Tools

The Collaboration menu tab provides an interface for agents to navigate and manage all internal communication with team members. 

• Direct Messages and Groups: Send one-on-one messages or create group chats for projects, departments, or social relations

• One-Click Call and Video: One-click internal voice or video calling inside the chat interface
• Information: Open up team members’ profiles to view availability, company title, specialties, skills, and hobbies

Genesys Cloud CX Pricing & Plans

Genesys offers 3 Cloud CX plan tiers, ranging from $75 to $150 monthly, each with an increasing number of accessible new features for maximum scalability.

Their first tier, Genesys Cloud CX 1, offers basic voice features and analytics. Cloud CX 2 pulls in digital text channels, and Cloud CX 3 offers full workforce management and advanced analytics tools.

They provide a 30-day free trial for Cloud CX 3.

Genesys Cloud CX Pros & Cons

The below table provides a list of Genesys Cloud CX pros and cons based on its overall ease of use, current user reviews, and out hands-on research.

Genesys Cloud CX Alternatives

Here are some of our favorite Genesys contact center alternatives.

Who Should Consider Genesys Cloud CX?

Companies looking to automate agent workloads will benefit the most from Genesys Cloud CX, due to its customizable bot-flow and routing tools, predictive intelligence, and the detailed analysis it generates for each customer interaction.

Teams with large agent call volumes benefit from Genesys Cloud CX’s agent support because it provides real-time performance analytics, gathers complete data for every customer session, and arms agents with insightful AI tools and customer information.

With Genesys Cloud CX, agents can self-evaluate while administrators monitor the whole contact center. If an admin wants to view a particular session, even amongst hundreds per day, Genesys Cloud CX provides a full recap, making for contextualized coaching and feedback.

Genesys Cloud CX is a feature-rich contact center solution that makes it easier for admin to support agents and agents to support customers.

Genesys Cloud CX FAQs

Below, we’ve answered some of the most common questions about Genesys Cloud CX.