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CloudAgent is a cloud-based call center solution that enables businesses to engage and interact with customers via multiple channels including voice, chat, email, SMS messages and social media platforms. Professionals can utilize the preview dialer to view...Read more about CloudAgent
recommendations
CallTools offers an advanced predictive dialer and inbound call center management solution that streamlines and optimizes call center operations. With list management tools that include list scrubbing, recycling, and export capabilities, CallTools enables ...Read more about CallTools
recommendations
Five9 is an all-in-one cloud contact center solution for inbound, outbound, blended and omnichannel contact centers world-wide. Powered by Practical AI, Five9 enables agents to provide customer experiences across phone, email, chat, mobile, social an...Read more about Five9
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Readymode is a cloud-based, all-in-one, predictive dialing platform for call centers and outbound sales teams. The platform includes automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, scheduling, performance analytics, and call center scripting. The ...Read more about Readymode
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Zendesk is a cloud-based help desk management solution offering customizable tools to build customer service portal, knowledge base and online communities. The solution offers a customizable front-end portal, live chat features and integration with applica...Read more about Zendesk Suite
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CallShaper is a cloud-based call center management solution suitable for small to midsize businesses. Key features include lead management, real-time reporting, agent monitoring and tablet support. CallShaper enables users to create click-to-call form...Read more about CallShaper
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Amazon Connect is a cloud-based contact center service that offers omnichannel customer service using machine learning, interactive voice response, and call routing. The service caters to businesses of all sizes looking to enhance their customer experience...Read more about Amazon Connect
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80% of customers believe they’re delivering a great customer experience, but only 8% of customers agree. Businesses like yours need better visibility to determine the quality of their customer interactions and the right tools to make it even better. Inter...Read more about Intermedia Contact Center
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Dialpad is an AI-enabled customer communications platform that includes a phone system, video conferencing, cloud contact center and virtual contact center. The platform is designed for businesses of all sizes and industries such as retail, insurance, tech...Read more about Dialpad
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Nextiva Contact Center is an AI-enabled solution that helps businesses manage customer interactions. The platform includes features to improve agent productivity, foster customer loyalty and provide a unified customer experience. It caters to a range of in...Read more about Nextiva Contact Center
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TCN is a cloud-based call center solution that caters to various industry verticals, including health care, automotive, and business process outsourcing (BPO). TCN is available for multiple channels such as inbound, outbound, blended, email, and mobile SMS...Read more about TCN
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Convoso’s all-in-one contact center platform generates and converts leads faster using multiple communication channels. The cloud-based solution offers multiple dialing modes (predictive/power/preview) along with two-way texting, outbound emailing, smart v...Read more about Convoso
recommendations
DialedIn is a cloud-based Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solution designed to optimize outbound, inbound, and blended call center operations for businesses of every size and in every industry. Developed with customer feedback at its core, DialedIn is ...Read more about DialedIn CCaaS
Glassix's mission is to empower businesses with the potential of Conversational AI and Omnichannel Customer Communication, driving unmatched scalability and success. Revolutionizing Customer Journeys: With its AI Omnichannel capabilities, Glassix transfor...Read more about Glassix
Phonexa is an enterprise-grade tracking software for performance, affiliate and partner marketing. The Phonexa Suite is the underlying tech that carries through the consumer lead and call lifecycle, helping performance marketing teams drive ROI for brands ...Read more about Phonexa
Squaretalk is a cost-effective, scalable, and simple-to-use cloud communications platform that gives your sales and support teams tremendous tools to boost efficiency and productivity. Your sales and support representatives will be able to work effectivel...Read more about Squaretalk
LiveAgent is an online Help Desk solution for eCommerce businesses at the small and midsize levels. The platform offers live chat application, ticket management, online self-service portals and change and license management, all as either in-suite or stand...Read more about LiveAgent
PhoneBurner is an outbound dialer and call center solution that empowers agents to conduct wildly efficient yet highly personalized outreach, and engage up to 4x more contacts in live conversations. The system offers functionalities that include power dia...Read more about PhoneBurner
Nextiva is a customer experience management platform that consolidates all customer interactions into one AI-powered solution. The platform enables seamless conversations across traditional, digital and social channels, allowing businesses to engage custom...Read more about Nextiva
XCALLY is an on-premise and cloud-based contact center solution that handles multiple channels including voice, chat, SMS, email, fax and others. It caters to inbound, outbound and blended call centers of all sizes. Primary features are contact management,...Read more about XCALLY
Primo Dialler is a cloud-based call center solution that offers a predictive dialer, integrated voice response (IVR) and reporting functionalities. The solution caters to industry segments such as insurance, debt collection, energy and telemarketing. ...Read more about Primo Dialler
Gladly is a customer service platform for B2C companies to maximize the lifetime value of their customers. Rated the easiest-to-use help desk software, Gladly is an all-in-one platform for agents to respond to customers across all channels from a single sc...Read more about Gladly
Ringover is the no.1 business phone system that gives you unlimited calls to 110 countries, video conferencing, SMS and group messaging, call recording, call whispering and more features focused on improving your teams productivity. No expertise needed. In...Read more about Ringover
Shelf is a cloud-based platform that helps modern businesses thrive with on-demand answers to the questions that block customer and employee success. Shelf’s proprietary MerlinAI listens for questions and instantly suggests the best answers in search, cha...Read more about Shelf
VICIdial is an open-source, cloud-based contact center solution suitable for small to large call centers in a variety of industries. Key features include inbound and outbound calls, call routing, email integration, online chat and call recording. VICI...Read more about VICIdial
Software Advice uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Call Center products in North America.
Learn how products are chosen“Usability” includes user ratings for Functionality and Ease of Use.
“Customer Satisfaction” includes user ratings for Customer Support, Likelihood to Recommend and Value for Money.
Reviews analysis period: The reviews analysis period spans two years and ends the 15th of the month prior to publication.
This detailed guide will help you find and buy the right call center software for you and your business.
Last Updated on January 27, 2025Call center systems share characteristics with both standard business phone systems (also known as PBX systems) and customer service/help desk solutions. At the same time, call center software offers a number of dedicated features for both agents and supervisors that can't be found in other types of business communications solutions.
This buyers guide will cover the major differences and points of overlap between these software categories to help you understand which best fits your needs. We'll also highlight the specific functionality that can only be found in a true call center solution.
Here's what we'll cover:
Simply put, this is an umbrella term for applications dedicated for use in either a formal or informal call center. The closely related term "contact center software" is in many cases a synonym, but also refers to features used in call centers that handle a number of communication channels in addition to voice (e.g., email, instant messaging, SMS text, social media, and live chat).
Call center software supports the agents whose job it is to assist customers over the phone, or via one of those other channels. It also supports the supervisors who oversee the call center's operations.
Here are some common functionalities you can expect to find in a typical call center software package:
Parks incoming calls in a queue, where callers wait until an agent is available. Most call center systems are capable of a special mode of ACD known as skills-based routing, which distributes calls to agents based on rules that factor in agent skills and performance metrics. Simpler modes of ACD can be found in standard business phone systems. | |
The technology underlying the voice menus that allow callers to complete actions over the phone via voice or keypad input. IVR systems share similarities with auto attendants, but are much more flexible, enabling callers to do things such as paying a bill or checking an account balance. IVR systems are defining components of inbound call center solutions. Businesses that only need to direct callers to the right extension don't need IVR; a standard business phone system and an auto attendant will suffice. | |
A jargon term for integrations between phone systems and customer relationship management (CRM) systems. CTI integrations add features both to CRM systems and call center systems. CRM systems gain click-to-dial functionality, where agents click on a customer's phone number in a database of contacts to dial out. Contact center systems gain "screen pop" (screen population) functionality, or displays that instantly appear on contact center agents' screens when they receive an inbound call. Screen pops pull data about the inbound caller from the CRM system to help the agent better manage the interaction. | |
Applications that automatically dial numbers from a list or at random. There are 3 major types: • Progressive dialers automatically dial a new number when an agent becomes available. • Predictive dialers dial multiple phone numbers at once and distribute the answered calls to agents based on availability and wait time. • Preview dialers are progressive dialers that allow agents to see details about the upcoming call in the dialing list and choose to accept or reject it. | |
Enables forecasting of staffing requirements based on historical data. | |
Performance analytics and reporting | Captures and analyzes information about agent interactions (frequently via integration with a call recording application for easy retrieval of problem calls). This information is fed into agent scorecards and reports on team-wide statistics such as abandonment rate and average time in queue. |
Enables supervisors to program agent scripts for sales calls and customer service calls. Also allows supervisors to control operational rules for calls and generates fields that feed data from calls into the CRM system. | |
These are three standard call control features used by call center supervisors: • Monitor allows supervisors to listen in on calls without the agent or caller knowing. • Whisper allows supervisors to coach agents without the other party on the line hearing. • Barge allows supervisors to immediately join the calls they've been monitoring. |
Call center systems are built on the same technology as business phone systems, and offer many of the same features. Additionally, help desk and customer service solutions can be viewed as a specialized category of contact center software.
Here are the major differences:
Standard business phone service providers don't offer applications such as IVR, dialers, and skills-based routing.
Call center systems are only appropriate for employees who are working in sales or support teams, though some systems include features for front office employees. Many call center vendors also offer standard phone systems and can deploy both, if needed.
Licenses for call center systems are, on average, significantly more expensive than licenses for standard phone systems.
Help desk and customer service solutions offer "trouble ticketing" functionality, i.e., when a customer contacts support, a ticket is created to help agents track the issue until it's resolved. This functionality can be added to call center systems, but it requires integration with a CRM system.
Help desk and customer service solutions are only appropriate for inbound contact centers. They don't offer features for managing sales campaigns in outbound contact centers.
We've already seen that there's significant overlap between call center systems, business phone systems, and customer service systems. Different categories of buyers will need different types of solutions:
Small offices needing call queueing can usually make do with a standard business phone system. (See examples here.)
Outbound call centers focusing on sales will need a dedicated call center system such as the examples listed on this page.
Inbound call centers focusing on support can use either:
A call center system integrated with a separate CRM system for trouble ticketing functionality.
A customer service or help desk system with built-in trouble ticketing functionality.
Collections agencies need to work with vendors specializing in deployments for this industry segment. These vendors offer tools to help maximize debt recovery rates and to ensure that call centers operate in compliance with applicable regulations.
Virtual contact centers, i.e., contact centers that rely heavily on remote workers, will need solutions that offer robust mobile apps and softphones.
Contact center software has evolved as customers’ expectations and needs have shifted with the rise of mobile devices and social media. The following trends are particularly important to consider when selecting a solution:
Multi-channel contact centers: As more customers seek to engage businesses through other channels than voice (e.g., SMS text, live chat, and email), contact center software has evolved to enable agents to interact via these additional channels. Interactions across all channels in a multi-channel system feed into a unified agent queue.
Social media: Contact center software vendors are increasingly offering modules that allow agents to manage interactions via social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. New analytics tools also help businesses data-mine social media for signs of potential customer issues before phones start ringing.
Virtual queuing/web callback: Traditionally, callers had to wait on hold to maintain their place in an ACD queue. Now, a new technology known as web callback or virtual queueing allows callers to "virtually" hold their place in the queue after they hang up in order to receive a callback later. While this technology has proven popular with consumers, it's still not a standard offering in call center systems. If this is a must-have feature, you'll need to shortlist vendors that offer it.
Speech/text analytics: Call center reporting traditionally focused on metrics such as call length and call abandonment. Now, systems are emerging that can analyze audio data to detect anger, frustration and other emotions in callers' vocal tones. The results of this analysis can be used to identify trends in the performance of agents and the contact center as a whole.
Text analytics is used to scour textual interactions (e.g., emails, SMS text messages, and instant messages) for certain keywords that indicate frustration or satisfaction on the part of the customer. While powerful, these tools are still relatively rare offerings compared to standard applications such as ACD and call recording.