Contact Center Software

What is Contact Center Software?

Contact Center software is a centralized suite of tools and applications companies use to provide cloud-based customer support by voice, email, phone, chat, and social media in one platform. Contact Center solutions provide a variety of inbound and outbound support features, process and workflow automations, AI chatbots, and business system integrations to create a robust support hub. Contact Center software is beneficial for companies in many industries because it automates service processes, reduces operational costs, improves agent performance, and enhances customer experience.  

While many leading Contact Center vendors have now evolved to deliver full-scale CX capabilities, existing contact center software can still be integrated with third-party CX software solutions for enhancing end-to-end customer journeys and insights. Since support is an important element of the overall customer experience, contact centers are popular use cases for Digital Experience Management (DXM) solutions as well.

Key Capabilities of Contact Center Software

  • Omnichannel Support: Contact Center systems provide customer support tools across multiple communication modes, including phone, email, chat, and social media. The system synchronizes communication history across all available communication channels so that customers can receive streamlined support, no matter their chosen communication method.
  • Inbound and Outbound Support: Contact Center solutions typically offer inbound support tools to handle reactive, incoming customer inquiries and outbound support tools to send proactive communication.
  • Call Management: Contact Center software provides extensive tools for managing, routing, and properly handling calls to create a seamless process for both agents and customers, including call routing and call recording.
  • Integrations: Contact Center software integrates with VoIP tools to centralize voice communication and can also be integrated with CRM software to consolidate customer data and support history.
  • Workforce Management: Contact Center solutions typically have integrated Workforce Management tools to streamline agent scheduling and automate volume forecasting.
  • Artificial Intelligence & Automation: Contact Center software uses AI to automate processes, support agents with real-time insights, and streamline support, including:
    • Predictive Dialing
    • Agent Assist
    • Chatbots & Virtual Assistants
    • Intelligent Call Routing
  • Customer Journey Management: Many Contact Center providers include customer journey management tools and analytics to optimize customer experience and streamline operations.
  • Supervisor Tools & Agent Coaching: Contact Center software provides supervisor tools and dashboards for call monitoring and coaching, to improve agent performance.
  • Reporting & Analytics: Contact Center software offers reporting and analytics, including speech and text analytics, to help companies analyze interactions and improve support processes.

To learn more about Contact Center software, jump to our Contact Center FAQs.

Top 10 Contact Center Software

Zoho Desk / Centrical / PanTerra - Streams / Crexendo / VanillaSoft / Vonage / RingCentral Contact Center / Salesforce Service Cloud / LiveVox / Switchvox Cloud

WH Score
7.9
RingCX

RingCX

0reviews
Starting Price:$65 per user / per month
RingCX is an AI-powered contact center solution that offers a single, unified console for all communication channels - from voice to social media. Featuring real-time dashboards and conversational insights that are driven by AI, contact center teams now have an inbuilt virtual assistant within their...
WH Score
7.9
OfficeSuite UC®

OfficeSuite UC®

0reviews
Starting Price:$13.5 per user / per month
OfficeSuite UC® is a comprehensive platform for unified communications that gives enterprises a wide range of capabilities for collaboration and communication. This technology facilitates more effective team communication and collaboration by fusing audio, video, message, and conference technolo...
WH Score
7.9
Sprinklr

Sprinklr

0reviews
Starting Price:$249 per user / per month
Sprinklr is an AI-powered Customer Experience Management (CXM) platform that unifies customer support, sales & marketing, social media, and analytics into one platform that companies can use to enhance customer and employee experiences alike.  Sprinklr streamlines daily activities for custo...
WH Score
7.9
West Telecom

West Telecom

0reviews
Starting Price:N/A
West Telecom is a leading provider of advanced communication solutions, offering businesses a comprehensive suite of features and cutting-edge technology. With a strong focus on innovation and customer satisfaction, West Telecom delivers reliable and scalable phone systems that cater to businesses o...
WH Score
7.9
Liveops

Liveops

5reviews
Starting Price:N/A
Companies seeking out a new way to examine their business can enrich themselves with a full-spectrum, invigorating approach to customer engagement and realization with LiveOps’s multichannel-capable Cloud Contact Center. With unparalleled online flexibility, intelligent call processing, and mo...
WH Score
7.8
GoTo Contact Center

GoTo Contact Center

2reviews
Starting Price:N/A
GoTo Contact Center is an omnichannel contact center solution that caters to customer management across voice, chat, video, SMS and email. Especially built for small to medium-sized businesses, GoTo Contact Center delivers a comprehensive UCaaS solution that is scalable yet budget-friendly.
WH Score
7.8
Altitude

Altitude

4reviews
Starting Price:N/A
Altitude is a powerful contact center software that offers many features to help businesses improve customer service and increase sales. Altitude's platform is designed to be easy to use and customize, making it the perfect solution for businesses of all sizes.
WH Score
7.7
Gladly

Gladly

17reviews
Starting Price:$0 per user / per month
Radically Personal Customer Service 
WH Score
7.6
Avaya Experience Platform

Avaya Experience Platform

12reviews
Starting Price:N/A
Avaya One CCaaS delivers next-gen possibilities with their All-in-One Multichannel Contact Center Solution for businesses on the edge of innovation. Their services expand beyond traditional telephony models by enabling agents to receive customer contacts via text, IM, email or chat. As more and more...
WH Score
7.5
Twilio Flex

Twilio Flex

14reviews
Starting Price:$0 per user / per month
Twilio is a cloud communications platform that enables developers to build, scale, and operate communications within their applications. Twilio provides a set of APIs for voice, video, chat, and email communications, allowing developers to quickly add communication capabilities to their apps.

Contact Center Topics

Learn more about Contact Center Software

What's the Difference Between a Contact Center and a Call Center?

The difference between a contact center and a call center is in the communication channels that customers can use for service, answers, and requests. In a call center, customers can only contact agents by phone. In a contact center, customers can reach agents through a variety of communication channels including phone, email, text, chat, social media, web, and more. 

What's the Difference Between Contact Center Software and CRM?

Although Contact Center software and CRMs are both used to manage customers, they are a completely different set of tools. For one, Contact Center software provides tools and applications to support customer service teams and automate processes across various communication channels such as phone, email, chat, and social media. CRM software, on the other hand, stores contact data and history to help companies organize information and manage relationships.

Is There a Difference Between B2B and B2C Contact Center Software?

While the core technology is the same in B2B and B2C contact center software, the implementation and customization of the software to fulfill business needs will differ substantially. Support tools, necessary integrations, and agent training requirements are some out of many factors that will differ substantially between B2B and B2C businesses, so it is important to ensure contact center systems are properly set up and integrated to support core business support needs.

The right software for your business

Get your personalized recommendations now.