As our contact center customers migrate to Cloud, many of them have asked for our opinions on which CCaaS solution they should adopt. That’s why we’ve gathered our expertise to provide you with a list of the top 6 CCaaS solutions in the market, their price points, use cases, and suggestions for how they can fit into your contact center strategy.
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based solution designed to provide your contact center agents with the tools they need to tailor customer experiences. CCaaS solutions often offer services such as customer self-service, customer data analytics, and business process automation. While CCaaS services do overlap, it’s important to understand each offering and their differences in order to find the perfect fit for your needs.
Disclaimer: While MiaRec has had longstanding partner relationships with some of the listed CCaaS vendors, we want this to be an unbiased review and have also included companies that MiaRec doesn’t integrate with yet.
While Cisco is best known for its networking products, it built upon its existing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) cloud solution to develop and launch the Cisco Webex Contact Center in 2020. Cisco Webex Contact Center is an all-encompassing contact center solution that’ll provide your agents with an omnichannel view of their customer’s journey.
The cloud solution promises horizontal scalability and rapid deployment without overwhelming your IT teams. Empower your agents with AI-powered assistance through Cisco Webex Contact Center’s flexible cloud contact center and collaboration suite. Webex Contact Center can be integrated with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and Zendesk.
User Feedback on Cisco Webex Contact Center: People are praising Webex Contact Center's wide range of features, from conversational AI and agent assist, to their reporting and analytic features. However, Cisco Webex’s UI has mixed reviews, with some finding it intuitive and others wishing they had additional customer support.
Please note: If you're already part of Cisco's legacy contact center, you might experience a bumpy migration. Webex Contact Center is based on a different platform and doesn't have the same feature set as Cisco's legacy on-premises products.
Recommended for: Gartner suggests that WebEx Contact Center is a better fit for midsized contact centers. Coincidentally, Cisco has begun offering Webex Contact Center Enterprise to better support larger contact centers. Overall an all-rounder, Cisco WebEx is a good fit for organizations who aren’t prioritizing a specific feature but still want quality agent support, research analytics, and personalized customer journeys.
Founded in 2001, Five9 has grown to be a leading provider of cloud contact center software for companies across industries and sizes. Five9’s website highlights their Cloud Contact Center Software solution’s quality monitoring, real-time and historical reporting, and call recording.
The company aims to bridge the gap between inbound ACD functionality and outbound dialers. It developed both inbound and outbound platforms in-house to create the Five9 Blended Contact Center. Five9 can be integrated with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Zendesk, and more.
User Feedback on Five9: While Five9’s customer support had mixed reviews, users found it easy to adopt Five9’s core packaging and scale additional solutions as needed. Users saved time as Five9 handled maintenance and provided post-deployment support.
Recommended for: US-headquartered multinational contact centers can benefit from Five9’s expanding regional support for customers outside of North America. Five9 is also recommended for growing small to mid-sized contact centers that no longer have the capacity to self-host.
In 2015, Genesys launched Genesys Cloud CX as an all-in-one contact center solution. Their website emphasizes its composable design (a combination of microservices-based architecture, API-first development, open data, and AI) and promises to seamlessly integrate voice and digital channels.
Genesys Cloud CX can be integrated with Salesforce and supports Salesforce Service Cloud, Lightning Experience, Omni-Channel, and High-Velocity Sales. Microsoft and Genesys have also partnered together to provide enterprises with their cloud contact center service, Genesys Engage on Microsoft Azure.
User Feedback on Genesys Cloud CX: While Genesys CX has been an expert in customer cloud experience and contact center solutions since 1990, their Genesys Cloud CX solution has been experiencing growing pains after adopting Architect UI. Multiple reviews find that the product is still evolving and lacking in customization. However, users who’ve had a positive Architect experience were able to utilize Genesys Cloud CX to meet their WFO needs.
Pricing: Pricing is available on their website. Genesys Cloud CX begins at $75 per month. While several CCaaS solutions don’t include pricing on their website, most will begin at $100-300 USD/month. Genesys Cloud CX’s pricing makes it great for price-conscious contact centers that’re prioritizing core features like calling recording and basic self-service options.
Recommended for: Gartner’s 2022 Magic Quadrant for CCaaS highlights Genesys Cloud CX’s geographic reach and migration services. They recommend Genesys Cloud CX for organizations prioritizing contact center platform consolidation.
CXone, a specialized CCaaS platform, was part of inContact and then later acquired by NICE, best known in the WEM market, in 2016. NICE CXone is an enterprise-grade open cloud platform providing omnichannel routing, workforce optimizations, analytics, and voice as a service. An expert in the WEM industry, NICE CXone utilizes the company's data about customer insights to build and develop self-learning customer interaction models.
NICE CXone has pre-built CRM integrations to merge your customer context and contact center controls into a single interface. CXone can integrate with Salesforce, Oracle Service Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, ServiceNow, and more.
User Feedback on NICE CXone: NICE CXone was voted as one of Gartner’s Peer Insights Customers’ Choice for 2023. People are praising NICE’s customer service and its platform for being easy to navigate. Users especially liked NICE CXone’s reporting capabilities and access to real-time data.
Please note: While NICE CXone offers some WEM capabilities, there are additional specialized WEM capabilities that aren't fully integrated onto the platform. Make sure to understand your chosen service's capabilities.
Recommended for: With a wide range of offerings, NICE's CCaaS platform is best suited for enterprise contact centers.
Another all-rounder, NICE CXone’s core package includes advanced audio and screen recording, self-service IVR, and quality management.
Twilio is a cloud communications company that was founded in 2008; it climbed its way up to becoming one of America’s leading customer engagement platforms. Twilio offers Twilio Flex, a cloud-based call center software designed to support agents throughout the entire customer lifecycle.
The digital engagement center promises to support every aspect of the customer journey, from pre-purchase conversations to in-app interactions, with data-driven customer service. Flex works within your existing solution, so you can modernize without replacing your current system. Twilio Flex can also be integrated with Zendesk and Salesforce.
User Feedback on for Twilio Flex: Users found it easy to set up Twilio Flex and integrate with existing CRM systems. A few reviewers reported technical glitches when making and receiving calls.
With Twilio, you can migrate to a flexible platform and increase agent efficiency with customizable UI, Interactive Voice Response, intelligent routing, and more.
Pricing: Twilio offers per-hour pricing beginning at $1 per active user hour and per-month pricing beginning at a $150 flat rate per user. $1 per active user hour is great for companies with part-time agents, while the $150 monthly per-user rate is suited for companies whose agents work full-time.
Recommended for: Twilio Flex's developer-friendly platform is suitable for organizations looking for a pay-as-you-go subscription model. A pay-as-you-go model means that you'll be able to scale and personalize workflows at your own pace. In addition to their flexible payment methods, they also offer a "bring your own carrier" policy where you can keep your current PSTN voice carrier and phone number to use with Flex.
Microsoft, best known for computer software systems and applications, has been venturing into the contact center market. We’ve previously mentioned how Microsoft has partnered with Five9, Genesys, NICE, and Cisco. In April 2021 Microsoft also acquired Nuance, the conversational AI platform.
Nuance has a long history of providing AI-driven customer engagement solutions and driving agent efficiency for contact centers across industries from healthcare to financial services. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service leverages automation throughout the customer journey to ease agent workload and create seamless customer experiences. Together, they aim to provide "the most complete and compelling” AI-driven cloud-based customer engagement and contact center offering.
User Feedback on Microsoft and Nuance: We were unable to find specific reviews for Microsoft and Nuance’s combined solution. Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service is a reliable customer service solution; Nuance is a trusted AI solution best known in the healthcare industry. Streamline repetitive, tedious processes, and focus on improving user experiences with Microsoft and Nuance.
Recommended for: Despite being a newer offering on the market, Microsoft and Nuance’s cloud-based AI solution could be a good fit for organizations looking for a versatile contact center solution. Contact centers can take advantage of their combined experience, as well as Microsoft 365’s extended service offerings.
You now have a solid list of the most well-known CCaaS solutions in the market and can use this guide to compare other offerings to see if they’re up to standard.
If you’re currently exploring how to add voice analytics to your CCaaS offering, check out How Much Does Call Recording & Voice Analytics Cost In 2023.