Cloud-based call centers have transformed the way companies interact with customers and leads.
Traditional onsite call centers have given way to software as a service (SaaS) call centers that offer internet-based VoIP calling, omnichannel agent dashboards, and tons of other advanced features–without the hassle of hardware storage and maintenance.
But what exactly is a SaaS call center, and how can it help your company?
This article will outline the SaaS call center, including what it is, its main benefits, key features, and top providers.
What is a SaaS Call Center?
A SaaS call center is a cloud-hosted software phone system providing inbound and outbound VoIP calling with virtual features like call management, routing, analytics, and omnichannel communication.
Paid by subscription, SaaS call centers use the internet for calling and messaging, providing a dashboard unifying multiple communication channels: voice, email, web chat, SMS, and video meetings. These channels help agents collaborate internally, serve customers, and create outbound marketing messages.
The Difference Between an On-Premise and SaaS Call Center
The difference between an on-premise and SaaS call center is that on-premise call centers require physical onsite hardware, while SaaS call centers require only the internet because communication software is hosted in the cloud, by the provider.
| On-Premise Call Center | SaaS Call Center | |
| Hosting location | Physical setup in the office building | Cloud-based |
| Setup time | Several days to several weeks | Instantaneous |
| Maintenance responsibility | Company using it | Service provider |
| Channels |
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| Key Features |
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| Cost | $150 to $250 monthly per user, plus $1000 setup | $75 to $150 monthly per user |
| Best For | In-person companies seeking basic phone service and local numbers | Remote or in-person call centers seeking flexibility and easy setup |
Traditional on-premise call center hardware, software, and infrastructure take up office space and require frequent IT-staff maintenance. Purchasing licenses and adding new agents is a time-consuming and costly process, involving the installation of new phone lines. All user extensions are rooted to a singular company landline number and address.
On the other hand, SaaS call center software saves time, space, money, and effort because the provider handles maintenance, setup, and upgrades. SaaS models save users up to $200 per agent, per month compared with traditional call centers, and that doesn't include setup and maintenance costs, which are minimal or non-existent for SaaS call centers.[*] Users can upgrade features and communication channels, add remote team members, purchase local numbers around the world, set up omnichannel routing features, and integrate with other software tools–all in just a few clicks.
Benefits of a SaaS Call Center
Compared to an on-premise call center, hosted call center software enables better customer service, more features, and lower costs. A SaaS call center is easier to manage and set up, and the software-based dashboard makes it easier for agents and supervisors to do their jobs.
SaaS call centers provide the following benefits:
Customizable Virtual Features
While on-premise call center systems include basic routing and call management features like voicemail, phone number extensions, and call hold and transfer, most SaaS call center plans include dozens of customizable tools and routing features like IVR systems, drag-and-drop chatbot flow builders, device switching, call recording and transcription, voicemail-to-email forwarding, and more.
Omnichannel Communication
Call center software offers an omnichannel solution where agents can monitor, reach, and serve customers across digital channels. Customers can choose how they contact your company–email, phone with HD voice, SMS, or webchat– and omnichannel contact center dashboards organize these tickets in agent inboxes, with notifications.
Agents can contact customers or collaborate internally through any channel with a few clicks and even flip instantly between channels mid-call, while retaining full visibility into customer conversation history, profile, and information.
Better Customer Support
SaaS call center software makes customer support quicker, smarter, more flexible, and more personalized. Customizable self-service features like chatbots and IVR menus let customers access information and take action 24/7, handling simple tasks on their own when an agent is unavailable or unnecessary.
Routing and queueing features like IVR trees, ring groups, and tagged conversations ensure that each customer reaches the right initial destination. Self-service features like these are especially important to the younger generation, 87% of whom highly value convenience.
Since call center agents can access the customer’s conversation and action history, agents don't have to ask the customer to repeat themselves and can use or switch to the customer’s preferred channel at any time.
Increased Mobility
On-premise inbound call centers restrict agent and administrator mobility. Phones connect by wire to the on-premise PBX system, and the company can only provide extensions for the phone number assigned to their street address. Since phones connect to wall jacks, agents must remain near their desks while on a business call.
SaaS call center software frees businesses and agents to work remotely or wherever they have internet. Providers offer virtual phone numbers with area codes in hundreds of countries, including local, toll-free, and vanity numbers, so large and small businesses can purchase unlimited global numbers regardless of where their headquarters are located. Companies can establish a local presence wherever they do business, leading to higher customer answer rates and message open rates.
Companies can add new agents anywhere in the world and assign them a phone number in moments, making remote work much easier. Softphone applications enable agents to make business calls from their computers or phones, freeing agents to make calls on the go.
Lower Cost
On-premise phone system costs add up quickly. Desks, monitors, and handsets for agents, a PBX switch system that takes up space, licenses for each agent, plus the costs of additional routing and customer service tools like automatic call distribution, IVR, and call recording. IT staff maintenance incurs even more salary costs.
With a cloud phone system, the only required expense is the monthly service subscription–most providers don’t even charge setup costs. With multiple pricing tiers and feature offerings, you can purchase a plan containing just features you will actually use.
Providers offer mobile, desktop and browser apps with full feature access, including softphone functionality so agents can use their iOS, Android, or computer to make calls from a business phone number. No additional hardware or office space is required. Since agents can make calls from anywhere, you can hire agents who live anywhere your provider offers service–typically up to 180 countries.
Easy Setup
Setting up a SaaS cloud contact center or call center is easier and faster than a traditional landline call center because most of the setup process is automated or handled by the provider.
To set up new agents, simply purchase a virtual phone number and a license–a process that takes minutes. Once assigned a number and given login information, agents can begin making calls from a computer or desktop. You can port in pre-existing numbers too, although this process involves more documentation and back-and-forth.
Setting up advanced routing features like IVR trees, automated call distribution (ACD), ring groups, and even automated chatbots is smooth, with intuitive setup menus or drag-and-drop flow builders to customize triggers, menu levels, and automations without writing any code.
Improved Agent Experience
SaaS call center software features help agents perform well.
SaaS contact center solution agent tools:
- Visual voicemail: Access voicemail in a virtual log, with transcription and the ability to search by caller or keyword. This enables agents to quickly scan emails without having to listen to the whole recording. Set voicemail-to-email or voicemail-to-text for automated delivery on those devices.
- Customer information and history: Call center software integrates with your CRM system to house customer information, journey history, and conversation history. On incoming calls, the screen auto-populates with customer profile information for full agent context.
- AI-assisted suggestions: A feature often reserved for top-tier plans, AI transcribes conversations and identifies keywords that indicate sentiment, topics, and action items. It uses these to generate live agent suggestions like responses, answers to questions, and relevant knowledge base articles.
- Internal collaboration: With collaboration options like chat groups and impromptu video meetings, tea members can consult each other quickly to touch base
- Smart routing: Tag and route incoming tickets to the correct agent using call center IVR, ring groups, language- or skill-based routing, business hours, and customer location
Easier Collaboration and Task Management
SaaS call center omnichannel dashboards strengthen agent collaboration and task management.
Within the dashboard, agents can initiate a quick teammate 1:1 chat with just a few clicks, even when on a live call. One-click video meetings support brief face-to-face collaboration enhanced with screen sharing.
Teams can create task-based group chats to access shareable to-do lists, simultaneously edit files live, create threads, pin important messages, and even jump into an ongoing video meeting.
Note that while some providers include these features with contact center software, some providers sell separate business communication platforms that exclusively provide these collaboration features plus more advanced capabilities like whiteboards and video engagement tools.
Flexible Scaling
SaaS call centers support smooth scaling internally and with customers and clients.
No matter where your headquarters are located, hire remote agents around the world, spread across multiple time zones or wherever your customers are located.
Do global business utilizing provider VoIP networks with thousands of mobile and PSTN carriers across hundreds of countries, accessible through SaaS or APIs. Many SaaS call center providers include unlimited calling in dozens of countries.
Live transcription and translation of voice and video help your team overcome language barriers for fluid customer interactions.
Key SaaS Call Center Features
Find the following routing, call management, and analytics features in SaaS call center plans.
Interactive Voice Response
An IVR or auto-attendant system is an automated phone menu that routes incoming callers to the appropriate destination via self-service DTMF or voice options. Connected to a business number, IVR systems direct customers to an agent, department, voicemail, informational message, or special promotion.
Use premade templates, save multiple IVRs to swap in and out depending on the use case, or assign different IVRs to different business numbers.
IVR setup is intuitive and creative. Build custom IVR paths via a drag-and-drop flow designer, connecting multiple levels of menu options via type-to-text or voice recording. Leverage functions from within your company’s app, such as sending automated texts, facilitating payments, booking or canceling appointments, or providing personal information from accounts and databases.
Advanced Reporting and Analytics
A library of reports and dashboards that track call center performance, statistics, trends, and insights. Administrators can create custom reports with favored KPIs or schedule routine custom-report emails.
Some examples of SaaS call center reports:
- Real-time queue dashboards: Live queue statistics like tickets resolved, failed tickets, average ticket duration, first call resolution, call volume, number of live agents, and more
- Usage reports: Channel usage by user or department, including each agent’s total volume of calls made, messages sent, and video meetings participated
- Performance reports: Agent and department communication metrics like customer satisfaction score, customer sentiment, agent vs customer talk time, on-call silence, ticket resolution rate, and more
- Call quality reports: Information about audio quality and lag, video quality, and message delivery rate
- Customer data: Customer feedback and survey responses, most popular customer destinations, and most used customer channels
Omnichannel Inboxes and Dashboards
Virtual call centers provide channel flexibility for customers and agents. Customers have the option to contact your company through not only VoIP telephony, but SMS, web chat, video meetings, email, and social media.
The agent dashboard aggregates and organizes all of an agent’s tickets across channels–in separate inboxes or a unified multichannel inbox–for easy management and response through browser or mobile apps.
Omnichannel call centers transfer customer history, identity, and information across channels, so all agents retain full context, minimizing requests for customers to repeat information they’ve already given.
Utilize multiple channels for customer support, help desk and marketing use cases. Create chatbot flows for customer self-service via webchat embedded into your website, or automated SMS conversations. Bots resolve simple customer issues and gather customer context to route to agents, who can take over the conversation in any channel.
CRM Integrations
Integrate your SaaS call center with popular customer relationship management software–like Zendesk, Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zoho–to empower sales teams and support teams with deep customer information that can drive personalized outbound campaigns and support.
Users can access the following customer details in the dashboard, pulled from your CRM:
- Customer journey map and recent website activity
- Recent purchases
- Customer sentiment history
- Lead status
- Contract amount and value
- Basic contact and company information
- Preferred contact methods
- Multichannel conversation history
CRM integrations unlock powerful outbound workflow automations and marketing campaign options. Use your CRM system to group customers by lead status, priority, or a custom grouping. Trigger outbound calls and messages based on abandoned carts, first-time sign-ups, purchases, low satisfaction scores, and more, reaching select audience groups with specialized content. Design templates that insert customer information–name, company, product order, and more–to give a personalized feel to bulk messages and outbound voice messages.
ACD, Ring Groups, and Call Routing
Automatic call distribution (ACD) and call routing features, part of cloud-based call centers, tag and qualify incoming calls through multiple methods in order to direct them to the right agent.
While IVR systems are a common and effective means of distributing phone calls, you can set up call distribution and call queueing based on other details such as:
- Business hours
- Agent work times
- Caller location and language
- Call subject
- Agent skill
Ring Groups are groups of agents, phone numbers, or extensions that receive inbound calls simultaneously when one number is dialed. This way, the first available agent can take the call, minimizing wait time. Administrators can customize ring order style: simultaneous ring, round robin, or ringing the longest-idle agent.
Use omnichannel routing rules to determine how calls are distributed among qualified agents. For example, route incoming calls to the longest idle agent or the agent with the shortest queue. Efficient inbound routing is especially critical for phone calls, as 86% of customers prefer to use the phone when seeking customer service.
Call Recording and Transcription
During voice calls, conference calls, and video meetings, view live on-screen transcription that clarifies who is speaking and what they say. Calls are recorded and stored, along with the transcription, in the provider’s cloud storage.
Live recording and transcription enable other advanced features, like real-time translation, sentiment analysis, and agent speech coaching. AI uses transcription to identify keywords, key moments, and action items during the conversation, organizing these important details into post-call summaries.
What to Look For in a SaaS Call Center
When choosing a SaaS call center for your company, it's helpful to consider factors like cost, the plan options, features and channels, and each platform's user experience. Choose a platform that meets your budget, offers the routing and queueing capabilities you want, and has a user-friendly interface.
Look for the following in a SaaS call center:
- Key communication channels: While many call centers may only want voice calling, you may want software that supports digital channels like SMS texting, email, live chat, and social media messaging
- User-friendly dashboard: When comparing providers, use tutorials and free trials to get a first-person understanding of the platform's dashboard and interface. The interface should feel intuitive and comfortable for agents, providing quick access to communication channels and call handling tools.
- Cost-effective plan: Before choosing a provider, determine the call center features that are most essential for your customer-service needs. When choosing a provider and pricing tier, try to find one that provides all your "must-have" features without an abundance of features you don't plan to use.
- Intuitive routing and queueing: Choose a call center software with essential call routing tools like IVR, call queues, and skills-based routing. If possible, use the free trial period to practice building an IVR call flow. Look for a provider that offers drag-and-drop call flow designers, which make it intuitive and easy to set up a routing system.
- Call monitoring and supervisor support tools: If your company has a supervisor responsible for managing a team of agents, choose a call center software with call monitoring tools. Look for a supervisor dashboard with listen, whisper, barge, and takeover capabilities. This dashboard lets a supervisor jump in and out of agent conversations with a few clicks, to ensure high-quality customer service.
- Customizable, real-time analytics: Choose a platform with user-friendly analytics. Analytics reports should include a variety of KPIs and metrics including call volume, agent performance, call activity trends, and sometimes advanced AI insights like customer sentiment scores and keyword usage. Look for an option that allows you to customize the analytics dashboard how you want.
- Integrations with software you use: Examine the list of integrated third-party apps that each call center supports. Choose a solution that integrates with your other platforms–CRM tools, communication apps like Slack or Google Workspace, ticketing software, UCaaS platforms, and more.
- Sales features: Sales call centers should prioritize platforms with outbound calling tools like auto dialers and CRM integrations
Top Providers Offering SaaS Call Center Solutions
Here are today’s top SaaS call center providers.
| Provider | Pricing | Key Features | Best For |
| Five9 » | 4 plans starting at $119 monthly per user | -Workforce management tools
-Multichannel customer context, history, and live switching -Proactive customer outreach |
Workforce management tools like channel usage forecasting and predictive scheduling |
| Talkdesk » | 4 plans from $85 to over $225 monthly per user | -Agent Assist with real-time action recommendations and suggested answers
-Outbound predictive dialer for smart, efficient customer outreach |
Automated customer outreach and engagement |
| Nice CXOne » | Custom quote-based plans from $71 to $249 monthly per user | -Enlighten XO self-service builder to design AI-enhanced smart chatbots and IVR
-Enlighten AI quality and coaching insights to analyze and improve agent behavior |
Live agent support and coaching |
| Genesys » | 4 plans from $75 to over $240 | -Create a searchable knowledge base to empower customer self-service and agent support
-Long-term workforce forecasting, scheduling, and planning |
Knowledge base and content management |
| Nextiva » | Custom quote-based plans from $50 to $120 monthly per user | -Customer experience scores that track customer and prospect mood
-Conversation analysis with insights about subjects, related knowledge base content, priority, and tone |
AI-supported customer insights and sentiment analysis |
| Dialpad » | Custom quote-based plans from $15 to $150 monthly per user | -Live transcriptions with sentiment analysis and action items
-CSAT and live customer sentiment on 100% of customer calls -Real-time agent coaching |
Easily navigable agent workspace |
| Twilio » | 2 payment options: $150 monthly per user flat rate, or $1 per active user hour | -Drag-and-drop custom report creation
-Omnichannel dashboard with email, voice, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and WebChat |
Flexible pay-per-use pricing options |
| RingCentral » | Custom quote-based plans starting at $65 monthly per user | -Advanced IVR with visual flow designer
-Click-to-call browser extension with no dialing -Screen recording -Advanced voice recording |
Custom IVR flows |
| 8x8 » | 3 quote-based plans | -Co-browsing for customer support agents to help customers via shred browser
-Video conferencing with 500 participants -Post-call surveys |
Customizable agent workspace |
| Aircall » | 3 plans from $30 to over $50 per user | -Ring groups for team-handled incoming calls
-Flexible call distribution rules -Call recording |
An affordable voice-only call center |
Five9
Five9 is a SaaS provider that special in contact center functionality, customer experience tools, and AI-powered features. Five9 has options for digital only, voice only, omnichannel, inbound, outbound, and blended contact centers. All plans come with 24/7 customer support, workflow automations, an agent desktop, and screen recording.
In upper tier plans, Five9 offers a powerful workforce engagement platform with real-time dashboards, gamification, and multi-channel forecasting and scheduling.
Pricing
Five9 offers three different pricing plans start at $119 per user, per month. At the lowest tier, Five9 users choose a digital only or voice only platform, all other plans are omnichannel with quote based pricing. Five9 also offers several add-ons such as extra storage, IVR with speech recognition, operational intelligence, and secure pay.
For more information, please see our Five9 pricing guide.
Key Features
- CRM Connectors: Pre-built, out-of-the-box integrations with popular third-party CRMs such as Salesforce, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Oracle, and Zendesk
- Video Chat: Calls can easily be escalated to video calls, or customers can choose to show a video of their issue for faster resolutions
- Auto Dialer: Includes 6 modes of automated outbound dialing- predictive, progressive, power, preview, manual touch mode, and certified caller (STIR/SHAKEN)
- Social Media Management: NLP analyzes social media messages for business issues, sentiment, value, etc., prioritizatizes messages, and routes to an appropriate agent
Best For
Medium sized and large contact centers will benefit most from Five9 thanks to its advanced WFO/WEM tools such as multi-channel and multi-skill forecasting, and real-time adherence tracking. Five9 is also great for teams that do a lot of proactive engagement thanks to a robust auto dialer.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a cloud-based contact center solution with both digital, voice, and industry specific solutions. The Talkdesk Conversations mobile app enables agents to handle inbound and outbound calls and digital interactions from any location. Talkdesk also offers more than 70 out-of-the-box integrations, with access to Talkdesk APIs included in all plans.
Talkdesk Copilot leverages AI and machine learning to deliver real-time transcriptions, next best actions, smart scripts, and more.
Pricing
Talkdesk offers three CX Cloud plans ranging from $85 to $165 per user, per month. Five industry specific plans are also available for $225 per user, per month. Talkdesk also offers many add-ons such as Copilot, customer experience analytics, mood insights, and an AI transalator.
For more information, see our Talkdesk pricing guide.
Key Features
- Talkdesk Ascend AI: Leverages agentic and generative AI to provide virtual agents that perform specific tasks within a predefined framework
- Custom Reporting: Admins mix and blend more than 900 metrics and values to create custom reports and dashboards and define new measures
- Studio & Routing: Allows companies to create omnichannel customer journeys using a no-code visual routing designer
- Workforce Management: Includes automated scheduling, forecasting, and a conversational chatbot that updates schedules automatically
Best For
Thanks to its customizable industry specific plans, Talkdesk is best for contact centers in the financial services, healthcare, government and retail sectors. Although more expensive than some competitors, Talkdesk's industry specific plans include a 99.999% uptime SLA as well as industry specific workflows and integrations, claims management, and enhanced security.
NICE CXone
NICE CXone is an all-in-one CCaaS platform with omnichannel AI forecasting, quality management workflows, and AI-driven analytics. NICE CXone offers pricing plans for every budget and focuses on integrating human and virtual agents across touchpoints.
NICE also offers scalable self-service functionality with a no-code automation workflow builder, chatbots, voicebots, AI-driven intent mapping, and knowledge base integration.
Pricing
NICE CXone offers 7 pricing plans ranging from $71 per user, per month for the digital only plan, up to $249 per user, per month. Add-ons include AI-powered self-service, interaction summarization, and proactive engagement.
For more information, see our NICE CXone pricing guide.
Key Features
- Experience Optimization (XO): Uses interaction data across 30+ channels to prioritize top automation opportunities. AI feature mirrors top-performing agents to build more effective self-service workflows
- Agent Augmentation: AI-powered assistant provides knowledge and suggestions to agents in real-time such as conversational context and knowledge base articles
- Workforce Engagement: AI-driven forecasting, mobile scheduling app with auto approvals, adherence and time utilization insights
- End-to-End Customer Service Workflows: Self-optimized workflows powered by AI memory enable companies to design experiences where AI and human agents collaborate
Best For
NICE CXone is an affordable option for small teams that need a digital only solution. NICE CXone's digital solution starts at only $71 monthly per user and this includes over 30 digital channels. On the other hand, larger businesses that want to improve customer service can benefit from upper tier CXone plans that include AI-powered live agent support and coaching, as well as workflow automations.
Genesys
Genesys is a CCaaS platform with voice only and omnichannel options. Genesys provides AI-powered expereince orchestration capabilities with flexible and transparent pricing.
All Genesys plans are natively enables with AI capabilities such as virtual agents, voicebots, predictive routing, and social listening. Companies use "AI Experience tokens" to access certain features so that they only end up paying for what they use. Plans include 250 named and 350 concurrent tokens per organization, per month.
Pricing
Genesys offers 4 features bundled plans ranging from $75 to $240 per user, per month. The CX1 plan is a voice only plan and all other plans are omnichannel plans with both digital and voice channels and omnichannel routing.
For more information, please see our Genesys pricing guide.
Key Features
- Social Listening and Engagement: Monitors Facebook, Messenger and Twitter for messages referencing the company's products or services with the ability to actively engage
- Speech-Enabled IVR: Companies designate words and phrases associated with a call flow to provide callers the ability to verbally select options instead of using the telephone keypad
- Agent Copilot: Provides contextual suggestions and actions that agents should take during each customer interaction
- Native Bots: Companies create architect flows that govern digital and voice bots allowing them to interact conversationally with customers
Best For
Voice only call centers can take advantage of Genesys' affordable CX1 plan that only costs $75 per agent per month and includes speech enabled IVR, call routing, and AI experience tokens. Omnichannel contact centers that need content and knowledge management will also benefit from Genesys, particular brands that want to be more active on social media platforms.
Nextiva
Nextiva is a SaaS solution that offers UCaaS and CCaaS capabilities along with a robust social media and reputation management platform. Nextiva's platform is reliable, secure, and user friendly, with 24/7 live customer support offered to all users.
Nextiva's platform combines inbound and outbound voice capabilities with social media messaging, SMS/MMS texting, email, live chat, and video conferencing. Nextiva also offers toll free numbers and users can get up to 10,000 toll-free minutes included depending on the plan.
Nextiva's contact center solution offers transcription, summarization, a full workflow engine, and advanced AI bots to guide customer journeys.
Pricing
Nextiva offers 4 UCaaS plans ranging from $20 to $60 per user, per month. Nextiva CCaaS plans range from $129 to $199 per agent, per month.
For more information, please see our Nextiva pricing guide.
Key Features
- Intelligent Routing: Customize call flows to route based on workflow, attributes, or skills or implement flexible and advanced ACD routing
- Secure Payment Assist: PCI-compliant agent assisted IVR payment module prevents the agent from ever seeing or hearing the customer's credit card number
- Social Media Management: Allows companies to schedule posts, track for @mentions, and engage with potential customers on up to 30 social media accounts
- Voice Analytics: Tracks and analyzes customer trends using historical and real-time call data. Features include wallboards, gamifications, scorecards, scheduled reporting, and more
Best For
Nextiva is best for SMBs that are looking for a communication solution with some advanced features, but don't need a full service contact center platform. Nextiva is also a great pick for teams that want to implement social media and review management without having to purchase a separate application. Finally, Nextiva is a great choice for businesses that need to prioritize affordability and customer support.
Dialpad
Dialpad is an AI-driven customer communications platform that offers products specifically for SMBs, support teams, and sales teams. Dialpad specializes in built in AI-powered tools and analytics such as call transcription, live coaching cards, and sentiment analysis.
All Dialpad plans offer real-time dashboards with individual agent metrics, call history, and historical data allowing supervisors to access insights anytime.
Pricing
Dialpad offers three UCaaS plans starting at $15 per user, per month. Dialpad Support ranges from $80 to $150 per user, per month and Dialpad Sell ranges from $39 to $150 per month.
For more information, please see our Dialpad pricing guide.
Key Features
- AI Recaps: Delivers AI-curated summaries of calls, meetings, digital interactions, etc., right to a designated inbox
- Real Time Coaching: Instantly connects all knowledge resources such as CRMs, knowledge bases, etc. Leverages AI and ML to find answers to complex customer questions and display them to the human agent in real time
- AI Scorecards: AI tool grades every customer interaction based on a pre-built templated scorecard or a customized scorecard with specific evaluation criteria
- AI Moments: Allows users to track specific items during a call such as the name of a competing brand or a commonly asked question
Best For
Dialpad is best for sales teams as it offers numerous advanced features specific tailored to sales along with affordable pricing. These features include monitor, whisper, and barge, along with voicemail drop, in-queue callback, and more. Dialpad's platform is also very reliable with a 99.999% uptime which is key for sales teams.
Twilio
Twilio is a cloud-based CPaaS platform that combines communication APIs, artificial intelligence, and first party data. Twilio is one of the most customizable SaaS solutions out there. Twilio's flagship product, Twilio Flex, enables companies to pay by the hour, or with a flat monthly rate. Companies are able to tailor every individual interaction with detailed customer profiles, CRM integrations and customized self-service options that are designed using Twilio Studio or with the help of Twilio experts.
Companies use Twilio to connect with customers on any channel including email, WhatsApp, voice, and SMS/MMS text. Users can send pictures and video over digital channels and can connect with any outside data source.
Pricing
Twilio Flex offers a pay-per-hour plan with is $1 per active user hour and a monthly plan with is $150 per user, per month. Twilio also offers APIs for voice, messaging, email, authentication and identity, and customer data.
For more information, please see our Twilio pricing guide.
Key Features
- AI-Powered Recommendations: Twilio's platform will make recommendations to agents during an interaction, such as telling them how to answer a question based on the company's knowledge base
- Real-Time Data Integration: Real-time data from any outside source such as Salesforce, Zendesk, social media profiles, etc., is used to provide agents with a holistic view of the customer in order to offer more personalized service
- Click-To-Dial and Click-To-Text: Companies can set up click-to-dial or click-to-text for their customers on websites, promotional text messages, etc.
- Mobile App: Twilio agents can interact with customers across channels using the Twilio Flex mobile app
Best For
Twilio is best for companies that are looking to implement self-service, want to offer more personalized customer service in general, and have some IT knowledge. The Twilio Flex platform is meant to be more of a "plug and play" solution than Twilio APIs, but even Twilio Flex has a bit of a learning curve due to all of the customizations and options. Twilio Flex is also great for teams that want to integrate it with more niche third party apps.
RingCentral
RingCentral is another SaaS provider that offers both UCaaS and CCaaS options. RingCentral is known for its feature-rich platform that is highly secure thanks to single sign on, end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, and a plethora of compliance certificates including HIPAA/HITECH.
RingCentral also offers a robust video conferencing platform, conversation intelligence specifically designed for sales teams, and up to 10,000 toll-free minutes depending on the plan.
Pricing
RingCentral UCaaS platform, RingEX offers three bundled plans ranging from $20 to $35 monthly per user. RingCentral's contact center solutions starts at $65 monthly, per user.
For more information, please see our RingCentral pricing guide.
Key Features
- Video Conferencing: Includes breakout rooms, whiteboards, video recording, AI summaries, transcripts and translations, closed captioning, and more for up to 200 participants. HIPAA compliant with E2EE
- RingSense: Uses data from video and voice recordings to make predictions and qualify/prioritize leads for sales teams. Syncs with popular CRMs such as Salesforce and Zoho
- Team Messaging: Includes file sharing and calendar sharing. Users can share images, tasks, events, etc. One-and-one and topic-based group messaging
- IVA: RingCentral Contact Center users can build a custom intelligent virtual agent (IVA) trained on their existing content that will improve over time. RingCentral IVAs can interact with customers across channels
Best For
Due to its many advanced features and high level of security, RingCentral is best for larger enterprises, healthcare offices, or those in the finance or government sectors. RingCentral is also a great option for teams that need video conferencing as it has one of the best video conferencing platforms next to Zoom.
8x8
8x8 is a business communication platform offering unified communications and contact center packages as well as communication APIs for high volume SMS, messaging, voice, video, and authentication. 8x8 offer free international calling on all plans in over 48 countries.
8x8 also offers a native Microsoft Teams integration with intelligent customer assistant, quality management, and interaction analytics.
Pricing
8x8 no longer lists its prices publicly and is completely quote based. It offers a UCaaS plan (8x8 Work), a contact center plan (8x8 Contact Cneter), and an all-in-one CX plan (8x8 Engage). Users can also purchase 8x8 APIs and build a custom solution.
For more information, please see our 8x8 pricing guide.
Key Features
- Intelligent Customer Assistant: AI-powered virtual agent solution with end-to-end automation, graphical click-and-add scripting, and over 50 integrations
- Omnichannel Routing: Connect with customers on any channel and connect them to the best possible agent. Includes multilingual support and translations for messaging and webchat
- 8x8 Meet: Video calls for up to 500 participants with virtual backgrounds, advanced moderation controls, and post meeting insights
- Role-Based Controls: Admins and supervisors assign users roles based on their job description and grant access to call recordings, video meetings, billing, analytics, etc. accordingly
Best For
Due to its high price tag compared to competitors along with its many advanced features and 99.999% uptime guarantee, 8x8 is best for large enterprises. Global teams will also benefit from 8x8's unlimited international calling. Finally, remote and hybrid teams may choose 8x8 for its video conferencing and workforce engagement capabilities.
Aircall
Aircall is a customer intelligence and communication platform with affordable prices and easy set up. Aircall offers unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada as well as SMS text messaging in the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, France, and Germany.
Aircall offers tools for support teams such as smart routing and queue callback, as well as features for sales teams such as call coaching, call whisper, power dialing, voicemail drop, and mandatory tagging.
Pricing
Aircall offers three plans from $30 to over $50 per user, per month. Add-ons include AI Assist, advanced analytics dashboards, and an integration with WhatsApp.
For more information, please see our Aircall pricing guide.
Key Features
- AI Assist: Paid add-on that automatically coaches team members, tracks keywords and trends, and scores calls. Powered by artificial intelligence and machine learning
- AI Voice Agent: Virtual agent that can answer calls after hours or as a backup when all agents are busy. Collects caller information and can answer common questions in natural language
- Live Monitoring: Unified interface that displays all KPIs in real-time such as time to answer, missed calls, etc. Metrics are segmented by calls, users, and numbers
Best For
Aircall is best for smaller sales and service teams that want a user friendly and affordable solution. Aircall lacks some of the more advanced collaboration features like video conferencing, whiteboard, and team chat, but it has all the essentials along with some key AI-powered tools such as call scoring, trending topics, and transcription.
