Best Call Center Software of 2023

Integration with existing systems: Some call center software vendors provide their customers with hundreds of third-party integrations with CRM, HR, marketing, and other business systems, as well as links to productivity apps, social media, collaboration tools, e-commerce, SMS, and other text messaging. These include Zendesk’s Marketplace, Content Guru’s app library for Storm, and RingCentral’s App Gallery. Nearly all call center software vendors have APIs that companies can use to link their apps and internal systems to the vendor’s products.

Businesses that don’t require as wide a range of third-party integrations can choose a call center package from vendors such as Channels that offer only a handful of packaged integrations but have an API for custom integrations. Whether your company needs many integrations or none, the call center software has to be tested to ensure it works as expected. All the call center vendors in our round-up except Content Guru offer free trials that range from seven to 30 days. All seven provide knowledge bases and other getting-started and self-help tools, but not all include telephone support or 24/7 support.

Scalability for future growth: A business’s communication needs can change rapidly, so its telephone system has to keep pace. Often only the higher-end plans sold by call center vendors such as Freshworks, Zendesk, LiveAgent, and CloudTalk have the call-management and call-volume features that most small businesses require. All four companies sell plans designed to meet the needs of midsize firms and enterprises. Pricing for the call center products from Content Guru and RingCentral are based on custom quotes, but their features indicate that the systems are designed to meet the needs of sizable organizations.

Scalability can also refer to how well call center software is updated to leverage new technologies and new twists on old ones. The use of AI is just beginning to impact the capabilities of telephony systems through the use of natural language processing and call recording analysis. There is some concern that smart chatbots could replace customer service workers; however, many industry analysts believe NLP and other AI innovations will complement the work done by humans rather than replace them entirely.

Customization and personalization: Call center software gives companies an opportunity to customize their messages to callers and other aspects of their phone interactions. For example, Zendesk’s Suite products include the ability to create triggers and automations based on business rules you set, such as when a ticket changes or after a specific length of time. The company’s high-end plans let you build custom analytics based on various metrics, and generate reports on agent performance and other aspects of call management.

In addition to supporting customized ticket tags and filters, LiveAgent allows you to create branded email templates, and to customize your contact form and chat and call widgets, including video calls. (The company also requires that you pay a monthly per-agent fee to remove its brand from windows, buttons, forms, templates, and elsewhere.) CloudTalk includes the ability to send customers personalized text messages for order confirmations and other reasons via reusable text templates. The company also lets you add custom sounds and greetings to your call recordings, including those in your IVR stating business hours and other information.

Reporting and analytics: Reports are the key to understanding how well your call center agents are performing and how effectively your calls are being managed. The AI-assisted analytics features in RingCentral’s RingCX and Contact Center Enterprise products include call transcriptions and summaries, real-time and historical reports, conversation analytics, quality management, workforce and performance management, and advanced surveys. The reporting available from Content Guru’s Storm product covers agent performance and efficiency, average handling times, first-call resolution over various channels, service levels, hit rates, and sales targets.

Other aspects of call center analytics and reporting are measuring customer satisfaction, subscription rates, cancellation rates, and daily, weekly, and monthly call volumes. The systems track inbound and outbound calls, and indicate the number of open and closed cases. They also measure hold times and the length of calls. Machine learning and other AI techniques are being used to analyze conversations, in real time and recorded, to spot keywords indicating a negative or positive experience.

Security and compliance: Security measures for call center software include access controls such as two-factor authentication and single sign-on, data encryption in transit and at rest, call recording and archiving to validate adherence to policies and procedures, a data retention and disposal policy, securing laptop and mobile devices, documented training in data security and consumer privacy, continuous monitoring, and an up-to-date incident response plan. Other considerations are third-party security practices, caller authentication, and PCI DSS protections for credit card transactions.

Under federal law, only one party must consent to recording a telephone call if the person is party to the conversation. However, several states require all-party consent to recording phone conversations, including California, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington. Call centers must comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and the European Union’s General Data Privacy Regulation (GDPR), among other privacy protections.