Updated: June 2024
As a former call center manager for an internet marketing business and one of the largest online travel companies in the world (Avoya Travel), I was assigned the task of improving efficiency for my teams. One of the ways I found was to start testing the best call center software and phone systems.
There are many options to choose from and hopefully, this article helps you make a better-informed decision.
Here are my findings for the best call center software during my 10-year tenure as a Call Center Manager.
What Is The Best Call Center Software?
My top picks are Five9, Call Hippo, and 8×8, with a few alternative call center software thrown in for good measure.
Here are my top picks for the best Call Center Software and Phone Systems for 2024
1 – Five9
Five9
Five9 is a cloud-based call center system that helps manage all customer communications in one place. Agents have the ability to communicate with customers via phone, email, chat, SMS, and social media. With AI technology, many tasks as automated so customers get the help they need quickly.
Features
- A predictive dialer uses algorithms to predict when agents will be available to take calls
- Real-time reporting and analytics
- Integrates with a range of third-party applications, including Salesforce, Zendesk, and Microsoft Dynamics.
Hands-On With Five9
During my time at Avoya Travel, we used Five9 when welcoming clients home from their vacation and following up with them when they expressed interest in a vacation.
The main benefit we saw was that we could call hundreds of clients within each hour. Instead of having to leave a voicemail manually, Five9 would detect when a voicemail would pick up and leave a recording.
While this was happening, our call center agent was already moving on to the next call. This system wasn’t perfect as it wouldn’t always detect a VM, but you can easily select Voicemail in Five9’s system and it would move to the next call.
This was the main benefit I saw and was well worth the price in my opinion. We literally were able to do 10 times as many calls.
Five9 was also extremely reliable. On the rare occasion that there was a problem, Five9’s support team was able to resolve the problem the same day.
Dislikes
Pricing
- Digital: $149 per month
- Core: $149 per month
- Premium: $169 per month
- Optimum: $199 per month
- Ultimate: $229 per month
Five9 offers an incredible service in the call center industry. In addition to its excellent phone service, Five9 also can connect with customers via email, text, and social media.
Five9 empowers call center agents by giving them the tools they need to be more efficient, and more importantly, more effective.
Overall, Five9 is a powerful and flexible contact center software that can help businesses improve their customer experience and streamline their operations. I highly recommend it to low to medium-sized contact centers.
2 – CallHippo
CallHippo
CallHippo is a next-gen business phone system that’s easy to use, powerful, and reliable. With over 5,000 customers worldwide and their free trial, CallHippo can make a lot of sense for businesses on a budget.
Features
- The cloud-based business phone system that can scale for a growing business.
- Speech analytics help optimize your call center’s performance.
- Call tracking software optimizes marketing campaigns to gain insights into what is working and not working.
- Voice Broadcasting service sends an automated message to a large group at once.
Hands-on with CallHippo
With a funny name like CallHippo, one might not take them seriously for their call center needs. However, CallHippo packs a customizable system, an easy-to-use interface, and a seamless workflow for your call center agents.
One thing I did notice is that the call quality varies from time to time. Not sure if it was my internet connection(which can happen with any internet phone) or their system. However, other reviews show the same problem.
Dislikes
Pricing
- Basic: $0 Per user/month (Pay only for numbers)
- Bronze: $16 Per user/month
- Silver: $24 Per user/month
- Platinum: $40 Per user/month
CallHippo is definitely on more of the affordable side, so if you’re a business on a tighter budget, this could be the best option.
I recommend the Silver plan as it offers a great number of features for the low price of $24 per month, per user.
3 – 8×8
8×8
8×8 is an all-in-one integrated contact center platform with voice, video, chat, and APIs. 8×8 can help businesses better understand their customers’ needs and is trusted by more than 2 million businesses users worldwide
Features
- Omnichannel routing to get customers to the right agent via phone, email, chat, or social media
- Intelligent IVR automates the customer journey with self-service options and directs callers to the appropriate area
- The virtual agent provides 24/7 self-service support answers common questions and helps resolve simple issues
- Real-time analytics provide insights into customer behavior and performance
- Compliance with HIPAA, PCI DSS, GDPR, and a variety of other industry standards.
Hands-on with 8×8
8×8 Contact Center software helps improve overall productivity because agents can easily access customer information and collaborate with other agents. This will ultimately help them to resolve customer issues more quickly.
8×8 is a cloud-based solution so you don’t have to worry about the cost of hardware or software. The overall interface is pretty easy to as well.
8×8’s technical support is very helpful when transferring extensions over if you’re using a different provider.
One of the main things I like most is that all calls go to both the desk phone and the 8×8 mobile app, making missed calls a rare occurrence.
Dislikes
Pricing
- X2: $28 per user/month
- X4: $57 per user/month
- X6: $87 per user/month
- X7: $110 per user/month
- X8: $140 per user/month
With popular brands like McDonalds, the Kansas City Royals, Live Oak Bank, and Regus trusting 8×8 for their Call Center software needs, that should prove they offer a high-quality service to businesses.
Not only that, but 8×8 has a 4.5 out of 5 stars rating and nearly 6,000 reviews.
If you want a cloud-based call center software that can help improve your customer service, 8×8 Contact Center is a great option.
It is a scalable, reliable, and easy-to-use solution that can help you to increase customer satisfaction, improve agent productivity, and reduce costs.
For contact centers, I recommend at least the X6 package. Please reach out to 8×8 for more details.
4 – Dial My Calls
Dial My Calls
While not specifically marketed to contact centers, Dial My Calls offers an automated call, text messaging, and email service to businesses at an affordable price.
Features
- Mass texting
- Automated calling
- Bulk emailing
- Offers several integrations
- Syncs with existing contact lists
- Additional features and support
Hands-on with Dial My Calls
Dial My Calls is an excellent option for a call center that wants to add automation to their existing phone systems. Because Dial My Calls is not an all-in-one solution, the low price certainly reflects that.
Their interface is extremely beginner-friendly. During testing, the software worked flawlessly and we never experienced any issues.
Some users reported that their customer service has been on the decline, but we never were able to test that because the software never had an issue.
Dislikes
Pricing
- Standard Monthly Plan: $6.74 per month
- Premium Monthly Plan: $9.99
- Pay As You Go: Pricing starts at $10.00
If you’re looking for an all-in-one solution for your call center, Dial My Calls is not the answer. However, for what it does, it does extremely well. The low price is just the icing on the cake.
5- Just Call
Just Call
JustCall is a cloud-based phone system trusted by over 6,000 companies including Domino’s Pizza, Jaguar, and Walmart. JustCall packs impressive features to help scale your business and reduce overall operating costs.
Features
- Inbound and Outbound Call Center:
- Call Monitoring and Recording: Ensure your call center reps are staying on task and sticking to their scripts
- SMS and MMS Messaging: Basic and advanced messaging services that include texting campaigns, sms bot replies to help stay in touch with your customers who don’t want to answer the phone
- AI Platform Features: Agent assist and several other AI-based analysis helps improve the overall effectiveness of your call center agents
Hands-on with Just Call
JustCall has a very thoughtful layout and makes calls pretty easy. There’s going to be a learning curve for any new software, but doesn’t take too long to figure out.
One of my favorite features of JustCall is the “Local Time” option. As a Call Center Manager on the west coast, we had to start calling at 5 AM our time to EST customers.
Sometimes, we would even call international customers, so seeing their current time zone was essential to ensure we weren’t calling too early or too late.
Speaking of International calls, sometimes the dialer could not reach certain countries. I would try via my personal cell phone and it would work fine.
Other than that, the software works very well and we never had issues during testing.
Dislikes
Pricing
- Standard: $24 per month
- Premium: $48 per month
- Custom: Flexible pricing with a 10-user minimum (Contact JustCall for a quote here)
JustCall is a cloud-based call center software that helps businesses of all sizes improve their sales and customer service.
With features like call queues, screen sharing, and CRM integration, agents can focus on providing excellent customer service without having to worry about the technical aspects of calling.
Overall, JustCall helps agents be more productive, which is exactly the purpose of any call center software.
To get the most benefit though, the top-tier plan is the way to go because you will receive a dedicated account manager and dedicated technical support to help you along the way
Importance of Call Center Software
When running a call center or another phone-based business, investing in call center software can be an important step to optimize and grow your business.
Not only does Call center software improve overall efficiency for the agents, but it can also show highly valuable data on what does and doesn’t work during your call campaigns. While there is going to be an upfront cost, it is worth it in my experience as a Call Center Manager for over 10 years.
Final Thoughts
As I stated previously, several of these options are going to be very similar in terms of pricing, features, and the overall quality of the service.