If you’re looking for a reliable alternative to NICE CXone as your contact center solution, this post covers other options we recommend.

Luckily, there are some solid alternatives if NICE isn’t the system for you. Let’s get started.

 

Best NICE CXone Alternatives

  • Five9 - Best customer service and feature set for increasing agent efficiency
  • Nextiva - Best for self-service and journey orchestration
  • Talkdesk - Best for small to mid-size blended call centers
  • Genesys - Best for inbound calling with many digital channels
  • RingCentral - Best for collaborative contact centers + video
  • Dialpad - Best for AI features, and sales teams

 

 

Five9: Best for Increasing Agent Efficiency

Nate Reviews Five9

Five9 is a cloud contact center named a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant due to its cutting-edge conversational AI tools.

Five’s platform allows businesses to engage with customers on any channel with the help of automation and workforce engagement tools designed to streamline call center operations and increase customer satisfaction.

 

Five9 is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • Workflow automation: Five9’s intuitive platform allows users to create low code/no code workflow automations connecting customer data across the cloud.
  • High quality customer support: Five9 offers world class 24/7 customer service to all users.
  • To build a customer self-service system: Five9 includes a number of tools for self-service such as voicebots, chatbots, and intelligent virtual agents (IVAs).
  • Omnichannel communication: Platform streamlines numerous communications channels, uniting VoIP calling, SMS, Whatsapp, text messaging, etc.
  • Digital-first IVAs: Users can build intelligent virtual agents that serve as self-service chatbots or voicebots.
  • Call center quality monitoring: Supervisors can silently monitor live calls, offer agents “whisper coaching”, or barge in on calls. The QM status of each agent is color-coded and visible to other supervisors.
  • Call and screen recording: Includes synchronized voice/screen playback and digital channel transcription.

 

Price

Five9 offers three pricing plans outlined below:

  • Core/Digital Plan ($149 per user/month): Includes voice or digital channel functionality with recording, auto dialing, agent desktop, and workflow automation
  • Premium ($169 per user/month): Adds on essential quality management features
  • Optimum ($199 per user/month): Adds on enterprise workforce management features
  • Ultimate ($229 per user/month): Adds on interaction analytics

To learn more, check out our Five9 pricing guide.

 

Five9 Pros and Cons

  • Auto dialing capabilities: Five9 includes a preview, predictive, power, progressive, and TCPA dialer with all plans
  • Automations: Five9 automations enable users to automate almost any repetitive task from follow-ups to after contact work.
  • AI-powered agent assist: Five9’s Agent Assist provides agents with real-time guidance cards, checklists, reminders, tips, and more.
  • Price wall for WEM: Workforce engagement tools are only included in upper level pricing plans
  • Video conferencing: Five9 does not offer a native video conferencing platform
  • Expensive: Five9 pricing starts at $149 per user/month, but that plan only includes the essentials–advanced features are only offered as add-ons

 

Nextiva: Best for Customer Self-Service and Journey Orchestration

Nate Reviews Nextiva

Nextiva offers a contact center software with voice-only, digital-only, and omnichannel plans bundling voice, SMS, live chat, email, and social media messaging. Each plan includes IVR, automated chatbots, and an autodialer to streamline outbound sales efforts. Integrate with CRM platforms or Nextiva’s in-depth customer profiles to build your own.

Nextiva improves customer service with a drag-and-drop workflow engine for routing and bots, secure payment processing, and advanced customer experience analytics. The platform supports supervisors with screen recording and automated workforce scheduling.

 

Nextiva is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • Sales efficiency: Nextiva includes progressive and predictive dialers that use AI to automate outbound calls, making sales agents more efficient
  • A built-in CRM system: Nextiva includes built-in list and campaign management for leads and sales, plus a built-in CRM system with a unified customer history
  • Voice-only or digital-only: Choose between voice-only or digital-only on Nextiva’s lowest-tier Core plan
  • Routing workflows: Use the drag-and-drop designer to customize how IVR systems and virtual agents route calls to queues or agents
  • Customer self-service: Design advanced IVR systems and chatbots that use conversational AI to answer FAQs, schedule appointments, and more
  • Agent supervision: Nextiva supports supervisors with agent screen recording and AI-assisted workforce scheduling
  • Customer insights and conversation analysis: Analyze call transcripts and interactions for advanced customer experience metrics

 

Price

Nextiva offers three contact center pricing plans:

  • Core ($99 per user/month): Voice or digital-only center with auto-dialers, CRM, agent scripting, IVR and chatbots, and workflow engine
  • Premium ($119 per user/month): Omnichannel contact center with secure payment assist, screen sharing, advanced bots
  • Ultimate ($139 per user/month): Adds workforce scheduling, quality monitoring, advanced CX analytics and performance management features

For more information, check out our review of Nextiva pricing.

 

Nextiva Pros and Cons

  • Intelligent call routing: Nextiva offers several different styles of intelligent task routing: skills-based routing, relationship-based routing, longest-idle, or based on a list
  • Multiple ways to get customer insights: Gain customer feedback through advanced customer experience analytics or custom surveys, which you can administer on any channel
  • Rich services: Agents and bots can provide unique services like secure payment processing, speaking in multiple languages, booking reservations, insurance enrollment, and appointment scheduling
  • No native integrations: While some alternatives support dozens of integrations with third-party platforms, Nextiva only offers CRM integrations as a paid add-on
  • Pricy: Nextiva’s cheapest plan is $99 monthly per user, while some alternatives offer low-tier plans in the $70 range

 

Talkdesk: Best for Small to Mid-Size Blended Call Centers

Nate Reviews Talkdesk

Talkdesk is a call center software provider that offers intelligent routing features, real-time analytics, and workforce management capabilities. Where Talkdesk really shines is with its industry-specific packages.

Talkdesk has two packages for the Financial services sector: Banking and insurance. Both packages feature industry-specific virtual agents, pre-built workflows and integrations, and the option to add on both WFM and customer experience analytics.

 

Talkdesk is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • A small call center solution: Talkdesk is more affordable than NICE CXone with a “voice only” option, making it a better choice for small businesses
  • High-quality customer support: Talkdesk customers have praised the provider for its onboarding support, ticket tracking, and customer-agent communication
  • A highly secure platform: Talkdesk has more than 30 security certifications including HIPAA, GDPR, and the industry’s only ISO 22301 Business Continuity certification
  • Generative AI-powered analytics: Managers use generative AI to draw insights from customer interactions
  • Real-time dashboards: Users create custom dashboards that compare performance with SLAs and key metrics
  • Mobile app: Agents can handle outbound and inbound calls from mobile devices with Talkdesk Conversations mobile app for Android and iOS
  • IVR call routing: Route calls based on caller data, IVR selection, business hours, agent skills, etc.

 

Price

Talkdesk offers three pricing plans:

  • CX Cloud Essential ($75 per user/month): Includes inbound/outbound/hybrid voice functionality along with IVR and API access
  • CX Cloud Elevate ($95 per user/month): Adds on chat, email and SMS channels along with screen recording and quality management
  • CX Cloud Elite ($125 per user/month): Adds on custom reporting and the choice of WFM, customer experience analytics, agent assist, or proactive outbound engagement

To learn more, see our Talkdesk pricing guide.

 

Talkdesk Pros and Cons

  • Affordable: Starting at $75 per month/user, Talkdesk is one of the more affordable CCaaS providers
  • Integrations: Over 70 out-of-the-box integrations included for all users
  • Onboarding support: Talkdesk offers high quality onboarding support to all users
  • Limited availability of mobile app: Mobile app is only available for the Elevate pricing plan and up
  • Limited availability of advanced AI features: AI-powered WEM tools and analytics are only available to Elite plan users–and they must choose between WEM or customer experience analytics
  • Uptime SLA: Although Talkdesk offers advanced reliability features such as FedRAMP and 100% uptime SLA, they are only included with upper tier pricing plans

 

Genesys: Best for Inbound Calling with Various Digital Channels

Nate Reviews Genesys

Genesys is a cloud-based CCaaS provider offering voice, digital, and combined voice/digital call center systems that enable companies to build customer self-service solutions, engage across channels, and leverage AI-powered automation and analytics.

Genesys is a great choice for SMBs due to its affordable prices, user-friendly interface, and 24/7 customer support.

 

Genesys is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • To improve customer service: Genesys includes a number of tools for customer service including AI-powered chatbots, knowledge management, co-browsing and screen share
  • Fast and easy adoption without IT assistance: Genesys has an intuitive interface that makes it simple and quick to build routing flows, create voice bots, and connect with customers across channels
  • To motivate agents: Genesys includes several WFM and WEM tools to motivate and improve employee performance such as gamification and automated workflows for after-call work, time-off approvals, and trades
  • SMS and social media messaging: Communicate with customers on any digital channel with automations, asynchronous conversations, and unified agent dashboards
  • Virtual assistants and predictive engagement: AI-powered assistants reach out to every customer and respond to questions using natural language processing
  • Work forecasting and scheduling: Create call volume forecasts in minutes and generate, adjust, and publish work schedules accordingly
  • Live chat: Create a web chat system for customers with quick reply and file sharing capabilities

 

Price

Genesys offers three CCaaS pricing plans:

  • Genesys Cloud CX 1 ($75/user/mo.): Includes inbound/outbound voice calling with Interactive Voice Response and real-time and historical reporting
  • Genesys Cloud CX 2 ($95/user/mo. for digital only or $115/user/mo. for digital and voice): Adds on SMS, messaging, digital outbound campaigns, etc.
  • Genesys Cloud CX 3 ($135/user/mo. for digital only or $155/user/mo. for digital and voice): Adds on workforce engagement tools such as forecasting, scheduling, and gamification

For more information, read our Genesys pricing guide.

 

Genesys Pros and Cons

  • Flexibility in pricing plans: At each pricing tier, users can choose whether they want just voice, or both digital and voice channels
  • Affordable (especially for voice only): Genesys offers a very affordable bare bones plan without digital channels that only includes essential CCaaS features such as voicemail and smart IVR routing
  • User-friendly interface: Supervisors are able to setup call flows, update agent queues/skills, build bots, etc. without IT assistance
  • Limited WEM availability: WEM tools only included in upper tier pricing plans
  • Some hidden fees: Users must purchase the Genesys AI Experience as an add-on ($40/mo.) to access predictive engagement, digital and voice bots, agent assist, predictive routing, etc.
  • Security/reliability: Although Genesys has multiple security compliance certifications, it does not offer advanced security features such as E2EE or an uptime SLA

 

RingCentral: Best For Collaborative Contact Centers

RingCentral Contact Center is a reliable and secure cloud phone system and contact center platform that provides users with a plethora of advanced features (including AI-powered speech analytics) and integration options.

RingCentral Contact Center users also have access to RingCentral robust video conferencing platform, which includes features such as video recording, waiting room, AI-powered live transcription, and noise cancellation.

 

RingCentral is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • Scalability: RingCentral has an affordable contact center solution with limited analytics, but users can scale up to add users and advanced features quickly and easily
  • Workforce engagement: WEM tools can be purchased as an add-on by any RingCentral user and are included in upper tier pricing plans
  • Video conferencing: RingCentral includes its native enterprise-grade video conferencing platform for all contact center users
  • Feedback and coaching: RingCentral includes built-in supervisor tools including call monitoring, whisper, and barge
  • AI-powered keyword tracking: Admins can create custom concept or key phrase trackers in addition to built-in trackers for common sales categories
  • Auto dialing: RingCentral Contact Center offers preview, predictive, and progressive auto dialers as an add-on
  • Real-time AI agent assist: Leverages AI and NLP to offer agents suggested replies or automate tasks while they are communicating with customers

 

Price

RingCentral offers two pricing plans

  • RingCX (starting at $65/user/mo.): Includes unlimited domestic inbound and manual outbound minutes with video, 20+ digital channels, IVR, call recording, post-call speech analytics, etc.
  • RingCentral Contact Center: Includes 30+ digital channels, adds on-screen and digital recording, journey analytics, etc.

Learn more by reading our RingCentral pricing guide.

 

RingCentral Pros and Cons

  • Reliable and secure: RingCentral offers a 99.999% uptime guarantee along with advanced security features such as data encryption and multi-factor authentication
  • Affordable option for SMBs: RingCentral offers a starter contact center plan at just $65 per user/mo., one of the lowest prices in the industry
  • Integrations: RingCentral has one of the largest integration ecosystems in the SaaS space with over 300 integrations
  • WEM features: Some of RingCentral’s WEM features (real-time agent assist, advanced surveys, etc.) are only available as add-ons
  • Customer support: Some RingCentral users complain that customer support is difficult to reach and resolutions are slow
  • Steep learning curve: RingCentral’s platform is highly customizable, but along with many options comes a steep learning curve and a lengthy onboarding process

 

Dialpad AI Contact Center: Best For Workforce Management,  Engagement, and Hybrid Sales Teams

Nate Reviews Dialpad

Dialpad AI Contact Center is a virtual contact center platform that allows agents to communicate with customers across channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Apple Business Chat under one pane of glass.

As its name suggests, Dialpad AI focuses heavily on AI, ML, and NLP innovation and includes many AI-powered tools such as live caller sentiment analysis, real-time analytics, and flexible call routing.

 

Dialpad is a Good Alternative if You Need:

  • A helpdesk solution: Dialpad includes several tools to help agents provide helpdesk support such as AI-powered popup cards
  • Reliability: All Dialpad AI Contact Center plans come with a 99.9% uptime SLA
  • Flexibility and scalability: All Dialpad Contact Center users have the option to add digital channels and/or advanced features like live assist, AI scorecards, etc.
  • Automated voicemail and callback: Allows customers to specify which number they want to be called back on and at what time
  • Real-time speech analysis: Analyzes ongoing calls tracking for customer sentiment, keywords, challenging questions, etc.
  • Custom wallboards: Displays real-time data and insights in an intuitive dashboard with gamification and goal setting capabilities
  • Video meetings: Robust video conferencing platform with screen sharing, meeting lock, waiting room, etc. Up to 150 participants with 5-hour meeting duration

 

Price

Dialpad AI Contact Center offers three pricing tiers:

  • Essentials Plan ($80 per user/mo.): Includes, IVR, automatic call distribution (ACD), call recording, video meetings, etc. with the option to add on more advanced features
  • Advanced Plan ($115 per user/mo.): Adds on real-time and live assist, custom moments, digital virtual agent, etc.
  • Premium Plan ($150 per user/mo.): Adds on all digital channels, AI scorecards and AI CSAT

Find more information in our Dialpad pricing guide.

 

Dialpad Pros and Cons

  • Customer service: All plans include live customer support and premium support is available as an add-on
  • Agent assistance: Includes numerous tools to increase agent efficiency such as automated post call work, call scripting, and live coaching capabilities
  • DialpadGPT: Contact Center users have access to proprietary generative AI that creates content based on large datasets
  • Digital channels: Dialpad only includes digital channels in the highest pricing tier (other users can purchase digital channels together or separately as an add-on)
  • Lack of customizations: Dialpad does not allow for as many customization options as competitors
  • Lack of self service functionality: Dialpad does not offer features like chatbots and voicebots

 

Which NICE CXone Alternative Should You Choose?

The best NICE CXone alternative for your company is the one that provides the features and channels to meet your business needs, without wasting money on advanced features you won’t use.

Here’s a quick breakdown of our top choices:

  • Automated customer service: Five9 and Nextiva make customer service more efficient with self-service tools and intelligent bots
  • Call centers or digital-only centers: Talkdesk and Genesys offer cost-effective voice-only and digital-only plans for companies seeking to specialize
  • Agent assistance and coaching: Dialpad and RingCentral use AI for live-agent support and supervisor assistance