Every customer interaction — whether a call, message or email — holds enormous weight for a business. Missed or mishandled, these moments can be costly.
But with volume and variety increasing, how can businesses ensure they never drop the ball? This isn't a challenge that mere tools can solve; it demands a holistic approach.
Leveraging a dependable CCaaS provider ensures businesses can pivot swiftly. Whether addressing audience needs, introducing fresh customer service channels, navigating launch-driven demand spikes, or breaking into new regions, a robust CCaaS platform keeps you a step ahead in a fluid marketplace.
Let's spotlight the industry's best, what they bring to the table, their pros and cons — basically everything that helps you make an informed decision. But first, let’s discuss the basics of CCaaS and the factors that should govern your buying decision
What is contact center as a service (CCaaS)?
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is deployed over the internet, eliminating the need for physical hardware or on-site systems. Its distinguishing feature is its "as-a-service" model, offering businesses the flexibility and elasticity to scale contact center operations up or down based on seasonal demand, customer preferences, or industry trends.
A cloud contact center uses the vastness of cloud technology, whereas CCaaS specializes in offering the solution as a subscription service. This distinction is more than just semantics. The CCaaS architecture empowers businesses with the agility to adapt to shifting demands, sidestepping the high costs and upkeep of traditional on-prem systems.
CCaaS also bolsters two crucial areas: disaster recovery and business continuity, ensuring operations run smoothly even amidst unexpected disruptions, and contact center compliance, guaranteeing that customer interactions remain both safe and compliant with regulations.
Gartner identifies four core pillars of customer service with CCaaS.
Connection: Applications that direct customers to the most suitable agents, be they live or virtual, via the ideal engagement channel
Process orchestration: Solutions that manage intricate customer engagements, ensuring a tailored and personalized response
Resource management: Tools designed to elevate the agent experience through strategies for contact center workforce optimization (WFO)
Knowledge and insight: Capabilities that extract valuable insights from customer, employee, and operational data, guiding informed next steps and actions
Why use a CCaaS vendor
Using CCaaS helps customer service teams with a suite of benefits that help them build and render great digital customer experiences. As businesses like yours prioritize agility and customer engagement, understanding its tangible advantages becomes imperative. Here’s a quick rundown of the benefits of using CCaaS vendors.
Tailored solutions: CCaaS vendors can address specific needs such as seasonal demand fluctuations, integration with niche software or unique communication channel preferences, ensuring solutions align with operational realities.
Rapid deployment: Vendors offer ready-to-use platforms, enabling businesses to initiate operations swiftly, which is especially crucial during peak seasons or sudden market changes.
Scalability: Whether a company is launching a new product or expanding to new regions, vendors ensure the system accommodates increased interaction volumes without performance hitches.
Continuous upgrades: With the tech landscape evolving, vendors ensure businesses always have access to the latest features, from AI-driven contact center analytics to enhanced security protocols.
Expert support: Vendors typically offer 24/7 support, ensuring minimal downtime. They also often provide training sessions, ensuring teams harness the platform's full potential.
Cost predictability: Fixed subscription fees eliminate unexpected costs, aiding businesses in financial planning. This contrasts with traditional models that might necessitate sporadic hardware upgrades or software license renewals.
Disaster recovery: CCaaS offers cloud-based data redundancy, ensuring continuous operations even in the face of server failures or cyber-attacks.
Top 10 CCaaS vendors
When navigating the CCaaS landscape, choices are abounded and nuances matter. Not all vendors wear the same stripes; their specialties vary. Based on our 2023 research, we’ve compiled a list of the top CCaaS vendors with top features to pros and cons, pricing, reliability index and our verdict — for your convenience right here.
⚠️ Important Note for Readers:
The below tools are in no particular order of ranking or popularity. Still, they are independent picks by Sprinklr’s editorial team based on our research and publicly available information in the review sites. It is crucial to note that software or platforms may evolve over time, and the company may address some of these concerns in newer updates or versions.
Sprinklr
Sprinklr Service is the first purpose-built CCaaS platform to ensure contact center agents can provide quality and efficient customer service on 30+ traditional and digital channels, including voice, chat, social and email. Its single-code architecture bypasses the need for point solutions that render broken, siloed service experiences. With a powerful analytical powerhouse, Sprinklr surfaces real-time and long-term strategic insights that help brands:
Enable customers to reach out and seamlessly switch between channels without losing context
Build and empower agents with a single-point customer view, assistive AI and unified dashboards to deliver quick, relevant resolutions
Get a panoramic view into your performance data and derive actionable insights for higher strategic and operational efficiency
Empower supervisors to identify gaps and opportunities for growth, manage and optimize their workforce with nuclear contact center insights
🚀 Top features
Agent Assist and Unified Agent Desktop
Sprinklr’s Unified Agent Console with Agent Assist tool boasts a suite of AI-powered features that enable agents to deliver sharp, on-point resolutions in time. Get access to:
Customer and case histories
Marketing and CRM data
Real-time responses built using generative AI models like OpenAI and Google’s Vortex
Specific insights derived from summarized conversations
Workforce management
Forecast talent needs, plan capacity and automate shift scheduling using an AI-driven workforce management tool that operates on historical data and service targets.
Quality management
Control and manage quality standards by evaluating your conversations on 30+ quality parameters like opening/closing quality, introduction, promptness, usage of compliant language etc.
Reporting and analytics
Sprinklr's analytics and reporting dive deep into the heart of the customer journey. Harness multi-level drill-downs to unravel layers of insights, enabling you to fine-tune your operations in real time. Its versatile dashboards seamlessly shift focus from overarching business KPIs to the nitty-gritty of your team performance across queues, locations and interactions.
Verdict: Sprinklr’s CCaaS is equipped with a comprehensive command center for complete customer experience management that ensures free flow of cross-channel context, ensuring seamless continuity. Sprinklr has dedicated self-service equipped with generative AI for greater personalization, which also boosts agent productivity and accelerates average handle times. However, this seamless blend of technology positions it as a premium option for businesses with strict budget constraints.
Customer testimonials
💪What works best
“The approver feature! Where the agent replies to a query and goes under the approver queue — one of the great features that helps the user rectify the response if it's wrong. The notification panel is where the cases are notified, even when the tags are changed or if the case is recreated. Reports are detailed and perfect, especially the case hold-up time calculator.”
Source: G2
💡What could be better
“Sprinklr Service can be used on mobile devices too, but the functions are limited. The software can be more enhanced in order to make it more mobile friendly in nature.”
Source: G2
Price: $249 (1 seat/ month-billed annually). Check full pricing.
Free trial: Sprinklr offers a 30-day free trial
Cisco
Cisco’s Webex Contact Center offers a cloud solution that facilitates smooth digital-to-human interactions across numerous channels, ensuring cohesive customer journeys. It equips agents and supervisors with actionable insights and collaboration tools that align with business objectives. The CCaaS platform is ready-to-use and customizable, prioritizing both adaptability and top-tier security.
🚀 Top features
Multichannel integration
Agent and supervisor desktops
Reporting and analytical insights
Verdict: Cisco is a known and reliable player in the CCaaS market with high uptime and a generally stable infrastructure — however, a high volume of inquiries may overwhelm the system. While Webex Contact Center has comprehensive features, it might be more suited for medium to large enterprises given its high cost.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works the best
“Webex strengthens our response time. To strengthen our customer service infrastructure, we prioritized security and adopted Webex Contact Center. The platform meets our diverse security and compliance needs and is deployed across all key customer service departments.”
Source: G2
💡 What could be better
“The multichannel support is effective; having more advanced automation options for channel-specific workflows would be beneficial. This would allow us to tailor the automation processes to the unique characteristics of each communication channel.”
Source: G2
Price: Contact their sales team for a customized plan for your needs.
Genesys
Genesys Cloud CX™ provides a platform for streamlined customer interactions across multiple channels. With AI-powered automation and analytics, it simplifies customer service workflows. The platform handles inquiries, manages customer interactions, and keeps track of customer journeys. Moving beyond the limitations of older phone systems, Genesys enables timely communication through websites, social media and live chats, combining both automated and human interactions for a seamless customer experience.
🚀 Top features
Inbound and outbound
Workforce management
IVR
Analytics and reporting
Verdict: Genesys is a known veteran in the customer service industry and is often regarded for its easy implementation with comprehensive documentation and user-friendly UI. However, customers sometimes report low reliability regarding system uptime and maintenance outages. Higher customization options come at an extra cost.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“The schedule function is fantastic. It is simple to integrate with different communication channels, and it can also speed up customer service and support procedures.”
Source: G2
💡 What could be better
“Customization options are fewer and support/PS teams need to be involved in any deep customizations (which most of the times are not feasible).”
Source: G2
Price: $75 for voice and $115 for voice and digital
Talkdesk
Talkdesk offers a cloud-native contact center software that streamlines interactions across channels like phone, email, chat and social media. Their platform, designed for seamless call routing and ticketing, offers real-time insights, enhancing service efficiency. Moreover, third-party integrations using APIs further amplify its adaptability in various business settings.
🚀 Top features
Voice
Email
Session queuing/routing
Auto dialer
Reporting and dashboards
Verdict: Talkdesk offers commendable reporting and analytics capabilities, coupled with an intuitive UI that simplifies onboarding for new hires. The studio features are notably proficient. However, businesses with comprehensive customer service operations may find the setup a tad intricate. Additionally, some users have highlighted occasional technical hiccups, including service disruptions and minor bugs.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“Ease of administration, no code IVR and Studio builder allows the non-IT professional to administer the product with ease.”
Source: Gartner
💡 What could be better
“One of the challenges I had initially experienced with Talkdesk was the quality of the calls. However, once I looped in our internal IT team, they were able to make adjustments to my headset, which solved the problem. It was likely user error!”
Source: G2
Price: Starts at $75 per user/month. Offers multiple plans.
RingCentral
RingCentral Contact Center provides an omnichannel solution, catering to customer preferences from voice and chat to social media. The platform emphasizes quick connections, using intelligent IVR and smart routing to link customers to the most relevant agents. It also boasts seamless integration with major CRM platforms.
🚀 Top features
Multiple channel access
Call queuing and routing
Auto dialer
Session recording and summary
Verdict: RingCentral offers a variety of features and is often regarded for its seamless call management. The online training, although vast, could be more intuitive. Additionally, there are challenges in reporting and forecasting without manual interventions. And while the support is there, prompt solutions aren't always guaranteed.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
"Great all-in-one solution for managing end-user contact - integrating social media, chat, AI response, and phone calls."
Source: Gartner
💡 What could be better
“This tool isn't ideal to manage a mid-size or larger contact center. It lacks reporting tools that are usable from an ad-hoc perspective. I haven't connected to it via API to use other software to read the data, so I hope that it is available for other users.”
Source: G2
Price: On a need-to-know basis for two plans, RingCX Intelligent Contact Center and RingCentral Contact Center Enterprise
Free trial: 14-day trial available for new subscribers only
8x8
8x8 Contact Center offers a comprehensive multichannel solution tailored to enhance customer experiences. Built-in team messaging eliminates barriers that hinder information sharing, elevating customer support. Each agent license comes equipped with integrations for leading CRM platforms and an Open API, ensuring smooth third-party system connectivity.
🚀 Top features
Voice
Web chat
Self-service
Omnichannel routing
Reporting and analytics
Verdict: 8x8 has competent client success and customer support, but prospective users should be aware of some operational concerns. Some users have pointed out limitations in call management, such as the inability to prioritize calls in a queue or view caller numbers. On the other hand, 8x8 does excel at helping you remotely manage your workforce quite effectively.
💪 Customer testimonials
What works best
“8x8 Contact Center is affordable, intuitive, and modern. Setup was easy and managing the platform as an IT professional has been a breeze. Training new users has been easy as well.”
Source: Gartner
💡 What could be better
“Can be a little slow. Licensing plan could be more flexible.”
Source: G2
Price: On a need-to-know basis, contact sales to learn more.
NICE CXone
NICE CXone, previously known as NICE inContact, offers a leading cloud-based contact center solution. Their CXone platform integrates omnichannel routing, analytics, workforce optimization, automation and AI within an open cloud foundation. This setup aids organizations in enhancing customer experiences by offering smarter, quicker responses to meet consumer demands.
🚀 Top features
Multichannel access
Customer self-service
Journey orchestration and routing
CX analytics
Verdict: NICE CXone seems well-suited for large businesses seeking advanced customer service tools. It has a versatile IVR system, all the while ensuring agents have a clutter-free console to operate from. For those watching their budget or prioritizing detailed digital channel reports, it might pose challenges. While navigating the pricing can be tricky, be prepared for a potential wait if you need specialized setup assistance.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“InContact CXone is great at managing an omnichannel center. Its studio product is much more seasoned than competitors, allowing you to do more complex integrations with partners in easy-to-use UI.”
Source: G2
💡 What could be better
“The downside of CXone is ensuring that our remote workers have the proper network connectivity to decrease performance issues.”
Source: G2
Price: Digital agent pack is $71 per agent per month and $110 per agent per month for the Omnichannel agent pack
Free trial: 60-day trial available
Avaya
Avaya OneCloud CCaaS is a cloud-based contact center platform for businesses to enhance customer and agent experiences. It offers features to assist agents in improving customer interactions, customer self-service and reporting functionality.
🚀 Top features
Voice
Web chat
Email
IVR
Auto dialer
Administrator access
Verdict: Avaya enjoys a resounding endorsement from its clients for its exceptional customer service. They often laud the agility and ability to accommodate custom requests with quick TAT. Occasional call disruption is a shared and reported experience among some customers.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“From the offer to the proof of concept to the start of implementation, the solution and support was exemplary.”
Source: Gartner
💡 What could be better
“Avaya is good, but sometimes we experience latency, which is considerably normal as we also experience [it] with other tools.”
Source: G2
Price: Contact sales to know more.
Five9
Five9 is a CCaaS platform offering both inbound and outbound capabilities, catering to multichannel operations. It's designed to empower agents to interact with customers across diverse channels while providing managers with performance insights. Beyond being just a cloud contact center solution, Five9 boasts features like campaign management, call recording, and quality monitoring.
🚀 Top features
Omnichannel contact handling
Call tracking
Agent scheduling and assignment
Quality management
Verdict: Five9 boasts a suite of features but does not have strong, intuitive training modules for new users in place. The system can be complex to deploy and might use the user’s productive hours to give tangible ROI. However, Five9 often shines for its comprehensive data insight and customizable reporting options. It also assigns dedicated technical account managers to guide you along the way.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“I found that it was easy to learn how to build and run the system through their online documentation and classes and had very few problems building out new campaigns or IVR scripts because of the general simplicity of the platform.”
Source: G2
💡 What could be better
There are quite a few restrictions regarding allowing all applications to communicate with Five9.”
Source: G2
Price: Starts at $149/month. Offers multiple plans.
Vonage
Vonage Business Cloud caters to small-midsized companies, offering an integrated communication platform that encompasses voice, SMS, team messaging, social media, and meetings. With IP-PBX capabilities, video conferencing and collaboration tools, it integrates seamlessly with ServiceNow to provide a unified platform. This integration equips agents with relevant data, streamlining collaboration and enhancing customer experience.
🚀 Top features
Cloud PBX
Multi-level IVR
Answering rules
Call screening
Automated attendants
Video call
Verdict: Vonage’s stronghold lies in its sharp uptimes and versatile ability to customize functionalities according to the business needs. If you’re someone with extensive support needs, you may want to tread lightly, as many users report extensive back and forth with the CCaaS provider. It’s also worth noting that if you’re a native Vonage Business user, you will still need a different license to use the contact center software — the two offerings aren’t directly integrated.
Customer testimonials
💪 What works best
“We like that the product is continually updated with new services and features. Overall, our experience has been really good, with support getting back in a timely manner for issues.”
Source: Gartner
💡 What could be better
“Not the best at noise canceling on calls.”
Source: G2
Price: Multiple plans with different pricing options as per your need.
How to evaluate the best CCaaS provider
When diving into the world of CCaaS, there's a vast ocean of choices. However, it’s the subtleties that differentiate the ordinary from the exemplary. It's essential not just to find a solution but to align with one that genuinely enhances your business's dynamics. Here’s a sharper, clearer lens to refine your selection:
1. Scalability and adaptability
In the dynamic world of business, stagnation is regression. Your chosen CCaaS solution should resonate with this ideology.
As your business changes, your CCaaS should be right there with you, scaling up or adjusting as necessary without causing any disruption.
If you’re a small business, chances are you can make do with specific features like customer service automation on limited channels and built-in lightweight CRM.
However, you might be handling just 100 queries a day for now, but what about during Black Friday sales? Ensure your CCaaS platform scales effortlessly without exorbitant costs.
2. Financial transparency
Beyond the showcased price, delve into the intricate financial web. Understand the breadth and depth of what you're committing to financially. Ensure there are no hidden fees or sudden cost hikes down the line.
Imagine you're considering a CCaaS system with touted API (Application Programming Interfaces) integration capabilities. The vendor might promote these integrations, but the financial details can get lost in the fine print. Here's what to watch out for:
Hidden costs: It might not be immediately obvious, but each time the CCaaS fetches data from your CRM via an API call, there's a price tag attached. At the outset, these costs may seem trivial, but for a scaling business, they can quickly accumulate.
Tiered pricing confusions: Some vendors offer reduced per-call costs as your API call volume increases. However, hidden thresholds might exist where crossing them suddenly pushes you into a more expensive bracket, causing cost surges.
Moreover, here are additional things to consider for ensuring financial transparency.
Surge pricing: Just like ride-sharing apps, some vendors may increase prices during peak usage times or when their system is experiencing high demand.
Inflexible plans: While a vendor's plan might seem economical now, ensure it offers flexibility for future growth or changes in usage patterns without huge costs.
Binding contracts: Long-term contracts might seem cost-effective but can come with steep penalties for early termination or changes.
No upfront quotes: If a provider dodges giving billing estimates during presales, it's a red flag.
For an SME, these nuances can easily slip under the radar. But as the business grows and evolves, these 'minor' aspects can inflate costs considerably. Dive deep into the financial details from the get-go, ensuring clarity and avoiding fiscal shocks in the future.
3. Customer support and training
Won’t it be ironic if a contact center provider falls short in supporting its users?
Your CCaaS provider should be there for you, especially when things go south. Ideally, they should act as an ally, an extension of your team — not just a service. Here is a list of green and red flags you should look out for in a CCaaS provider.
✅ Green flags
Proactive check-ins: Even during the sales process, the vendor actively ensures you understand their offerings, demonstrating their customer-first approach.
Tailored training modules: During demos, they highlight custom training resources they've offered to similar businesses, showcasing adaptability.
Dedicated support personnel: They introduce you to a dedicated contact or team during the evaluation phase, ensuring you'll always have a familiar point of contact.
❌ Red flags
Vague response times: When asked, they can't provide defined SLAs for issue resolution or support responses.
No trial or demo support: They're unwilling or unprepared to offer assistance during the evaluation phase, hinting at gaps in after-sales service.
Hidden support costs: They're not upfront about potential additional fees for certain support tiers or specialized assistance.
Limited knowledge base: A scarce or outdated online resource hub, suggesting they might not be equipped for self-service support or ongoing client education.
4. Security framework
Today, every transaction and interaction leaves a digital footprint. That makes evaluating the security ecosystem of CCaaS providers something you can’t ignore. Here are a few non-negotiable pillars of security.
Data protection: Extensive measures like encryption and data sovereignty that protect sensitive information
Real-time threat management: Using tools such as AI-driven anomaly detection, firewalls and intrusion prevention to counteract threats as they arise
User access and endpoint security: Implementing role-based access control, multi-factor authentication and secure endpoint management
Regulatory compliance: Adhering to industry-specific security standards to ensure integrity, transparency and trustworthiness
These factors will help you choose a CCaaS vendor that not only keeps threats at bay but also helps your team become more resilient and reliable.
Learn more: Contact Center Compliance: Importance, Strategy & Checklist
5. Analytics and insight
Your amassed data isn't merely numerical. It’s the story of your business. An ideal CCaaS provider doesn't just present you with raw numbers; it provides patterns, trends and actionable insights derived from those numbers.
Look for CCaaS systems that not only provide data but also have predictive analytics to anticipate customer behaviors and trends. A sophisticated platform with visualization capability will convert complex data into graphs, heat maps or customer journey maps.
💡 Pro Tip: Train your agents better with incisive clarity of thought. To truly elevate agent training, it's not enough to just track performance. What's crucial is understanding the 'why' behind every dip and rise.
Seek a CCaaS vendor that harnesses advanced AI capabilities to offer nuanced insights. For example, Sprinklr AI+ dissects your contact center’s performance intricately with remedy actions. This ensures you're not just reacting to numbers but comprehending their origins, allowing you to refine scoring criteria and implement precise improvement strategies.
Top 2024 trends for CCaaS
We’re well into the year, and it’s safe to say that businesses now if not already, see customer service as a value center and not a cost center. What we speculated since 2020 is now becoming a reality — because emotions drive customer experiences — and modern contact centers are right at the cusp of invoking the right ones. Here’s what you can expect to see for CCaaS in the future.
1. CCaaS will unify and drive value across teams
CCaaS would herald an exciting era of cross-departmental synergy as contact centers turn into the heartbeat of their companies. The integration of diverse enterprise teams will become seamless, enabling a unified approach to customer insights. CCaaS will channel customer feedback, behavior and trend data from the contact center directly into the hands of product development, marketing and sales teams — ensuring a true Unified Customer Experience Management (Unified-CXM).
2. CCaaS equipped with Gen AI will optimize every touchpoint
Generative AI holds the power to improve interaction at all the customer touchpoints across user experience. For example, outbound contact centers could use generative AI to personalize their sales pitches, and inbound contact centers can use it to respond to queries with specific, highly relevant resolutions.
Interesting read: How To Use Generative AI to Improve Your Customer Experience
3. CCaaS will know what to prioritize
Contact centers are adopting AI to spot and prioritize urgent customer messages quickly. Imagine a customer asking a product question – AI tags it as “important” and alerts the right team instantly. This smart system not only flags high-priority queries for fast responses but also ensures each customer is matched with the best agent to handle their question.
Read more: How to Identify Your Customer's Purchase Intent Using AI
Every dial, every chat — elevated with Sprinklr CCaaS
The modern contact center is a maze. It's crowded with silos and disjointed solutions, and often, customers find themselves lost in translation.
In 2023, your customers are no longer content with just good service; they demand excellence, uniformity and agility across customer service channels. They crave coherence, not chaos.
For businesses looking to rise above the quagmire and offer that seamless experience, the need for a unified solution becomes paramount.
So here’s Sprinklr Service, the panacea for the fragmented.
Blend inbound and outbound during quiet times using AI
Engage on 30+ channels, ensuring accessibility everywhere
Build a unified customer profile and deliver consistent interactions across channels
Offer 24/7 support with conversational AI voice bots and chatbots
Eliminate tab-switching chaos by equipping agents with a single-screen view, guided workflows and relevant widgets
Monitor agents to ensure no missed SLAs and quick workforce adjustments
Glean insights from rich reports on agent performance and trends
They say you can't have your cake and eat it too — but with Sprinklr's 30-day trial on no credit card details, you just might.
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