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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
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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
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Create more powerful customer experiences while reducing cost and complexity so you can grow your customer relationships, empower your agents, and delight your customers. Serve customers where they are and when they want with true omni-channel communicat...Read more about Nextiva Contact Center
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Amazon Connect - Cloud contact center. Superior low-cost customer service using machine learning. In minutes, you can set up a contact center that can scale to support millions of customers. You can use Amazon Connect to create high-quality voice and inte...Read more about Amazon Connect
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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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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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Talkdesk is a cloud-based call center solution that helps businesses improve customer satisfaction while simultaneously reducing customer support costs. It uses interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution (ACD) and skills-based routing, c...Read more about Talkdesk
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Dialpad is an AI-powered cloud communication platform and business phone system that provides organizations with the latest in VoIP telephony technology to keep teams connected and productive. The platform comprises three integrated products; Dialpad Conne...Read more about Dialpad
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Even in today's digital age, almost half of all customer support needs are still handled by phone. Call centers are busy operations where managers and agents work long hours in a challenging environment. The right software changes that by ensuring smooth, ...Read more about DialedIn CCaaS
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
Bright Pattern is a cloud-based contact center software solution which helps businesses manage multichannel service including inbound and outbound voice, email, chat, and social media. Bright Pattern scales from 5 to 10,000 concurrent agents and provides c...Read more about Bright Pattern
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
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
Tenfold is a computer-telephony integration (CTI) solution that integrates Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics CRM with most major phone systems. Tenfold delivers CTI features like click-to-call, automatic call logging and call notes right on the popup ...Read more about TenFold
AVOXI Genius is a cloud-based call center solution that helps small to large enterprises streamline customer service operations and manage business communications. It comes with a centralized dashboard, which enables users to track inbound calls and monito...Read more about AVOXI
Welcome to Kixie, the sales engagement platform that revolutionizes the way you do business. Designed to supercharge your sales performance, Kixie offers ultra-reliable and easily automated calling and texting features that seamlessly integrate with leadin...Read more about Kixie PowerCall
UJET is a cloud-based call center application that integrates with customer relationship management (CRM) solutions. It offers both voice and chat channels for customers to reach their support agents. Users can connect with agents via the application, onli...Read more about UJET
CallTrackingMetrics is a cloud-based call tracking and contact center solution for businesses and agencies that helps with tracking campaigns, reaching new audiences through integrated text marketing and online forms and using intelligent analytics to moni...Read more about CallTrackingMetrics
wolkvox is the most innovative, reliable, easy to use and fast to deploy all-in-one cloud contact center solution on the market. With wolkvox you are offering employees and customers a platform to connect and manage voice, chat, SMS, email, social media a...Read more about wolkvox
ZIWO is a cloud-based call center workforce management solution that helps streamline customer interactions via virtual phone numbers, call tracking, call masking and more. It offers a variety of features such as key performance indicators (KPIs), online s...Read more about ZIWO
VoIPstudio is a cloud-based call center management solution designed for businesses of all sizes. It offers features that include automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), call logs, speech to text and remote offices. The solutio...Read more about VoIPstudio
TalkChief isn't just a business phone system; it's your partner in enhancing communication for call centers, startups, enterprises, and nonprofits. Designed to simplify interactions across remote teams and with customers, TalkChief focuses on user-friendly...Read more about TalkChief
FluentStream is a comprehensive communications solution designed to meet the unique needs of small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). FluentStream empowers organizations to optimize their communication processes, gain greater flexibility and control of their...Read more about FluentStream
NUACOM is a call center and business VoIP solution that helps manage business operations using softphones, IVR, auto-attendant, conferencing room, number porting and more. The centralized platform allows supervisors to maintain wallboard of agents' activit...Read more about NUACOM
Adversus Dialer is a cloud-based auto-dialer and customer relationship management (CRM) solution designed to help small and medium telemarketing, fundraising and appointment scheduling businesses. Key features include appointment scheduling, automated work...Read more about Adversus
Software Advice uses reviews from real software users to highlight the top-rated Telephony 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 computer telephony integration software for you and your business.
Last Updated on August 19, 2024Imagine you’re an agent at a busy call center: you’re fielding dozens of phone calls a day with customers you’ve never met, and you want to make a good impression on all of them. Don’t you want to be as prepared and efficient as possible?
One of the best ways to set up your call center team for success in the environment described is by investing in a system with computer telephony integration (CTI). CTI is an important category of call center software: It enables phone and computer systems to work together for the benefit of your agents and your customers.
In this guide, we’ll break down everything you need to know to choose the right CTI system for your company, such as:
CTI, or computer telephony integration, is also known as “computer-telephone integration” or “computer telephony.” These terms may sound intimidating, but their basic meaning is straightforward: CTI is technology that lets you use a computer to initiate, manage and enhance your phone calls.
CTI is often used as a jargon term for describing integrations between a phone system and a customer relationship management (CRM) system that has already been deployed. These integrations add features to enhance both systems and help agents better handle interactions.
An example of how they do this is “screen pops”—a window that pops up on an agent's computer screen when they have an incoming phone call. That window displays information about the caller, e.g., address and interaction history, which is pulled from the call center’s existing CRM program.
This is what a screen pop might look like in a typical CTI solution.
This phone system-computer coordination is made possible through CTI. Though it’s most common for CTI to be used for CRM integrations, it is also good for other types of integrations.
For instance, many organizations now use CTI to allow their accounting software to interface with their phone system. Agents can call customers with unpaid invoices directly from their accounting software through functionality called “click-to-dial” (more details on this below).
To recap: CTI software acts as a bridge for the exchange of data and functionalities between a company’s phone system and other existing programs, such as CRM or accounting solutions.
Vendors offer a variety of functional breadth and depth in their CTI solutions. Here are some of the most common capabilities:
Screen pops | In addition to what we’ve already described, screen pops can indicate the priority level of an interaction with a caller based on customer history data from your CRM program. They can also use a customer’s Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system answers to display the purpose of a call (e.g., sales or support). |
Click-to-dial | This function adds outbound dialing capabilities to the databases of contacts you'd find in a CRM or accounting system. Agents can skip manual dialing and simply click a phone number on their computer screen to place a call. |
Caller authentication | CTI software screens incoming calls and uses the phone number to find a match in your CRM system. It can confirm the caller’s identity before the call even starts. |
Phone controls | Users can manage their phone controls through the computer instead of dialing buttons manually. These include the ability to answer, hang-up, conference, forward and transfer calls. |
Logging and notes | Basic information is automatically logged in the CRM system while the call is in progress, such as the time/date of the call and agent handling it. Agents can also add manual notes directly into the CRM or accounting program. |
Coordinated voice/data transfer | If a call needs to be transferred from one member of your team to another, this function allows all onscreen customer information (e.g., screen pops) to be transferred when the line is reassigned. |
3CLogic and Zoho CRM integration showing the “click-to-dial” function
Here are some benefits that explain how CTI can empower call center agents and companies to have more productive customer interactions:
CTI can be implemented in one of two ways:
As a best-of-breed application
As part of a call center suite that has CTI capabilities built in, in addition to other applications (e.g., automatic call distribution or workforce scheduling)
It’s important to note that best-of-breed CTI software is a relatively niche offering. It could be a good option for companies with older phone systems who aren’t ready to buy a new one just yet, but still want to reap the benefits of CTI sooner rather than later.
The vast majority of buyers are better off with the second option: You’ll need an established phone system for calls to be able to work on your computers at all. It’s easier to implement a phone system that supports CTI from the start, rather than trying to retrofit or replace it later on.
Also worth noting: Some of the more basic CTI capabilities (e.g., click-to-dial and even screen pops, in some cases) can be achieved with a PBX system as an alternative to using CTI with a call center system.
Once you’ve decided on an implementation model, you can evaluate vendors. As we’ve explained, CTI is intended to be used with computer programs that call centers are already using, such as existing CRM or accounting systems. It’s important to ensure that any CTI vendor on your shortlist can interface with this existing software. You can usually find this information listed on vendors’ websites.