We can’t promise that every tier of every product reviewed above offers all these features, but these are some of the key features we felt that any mid-tier contact center software solution ought to offer.
Feature | Description |
---|
Omnichannel routing | Software should accept inbound inquiries from numerous channels. |
Single-pane interface | Bring past interactions and current data into a single, coherent window. |
Monitor and review | Spot struggling agents; track and monitor KPIs; run training and coaching. |
Clear pricing | Per-user-per-month pricing is standard, alongside paid upgrades. |
Omnichannel Routing
Customers should have a consistent experience, regardless of whether they phone in, communicate through a chatbot support tool or send an SMS support request. The best contact center software platforms combine all these input channels (and others) into one interface. Agents and supervisors should be able to monitor inquiries across all channels easily and in one central location. However, it’s notable that Convoso supports outbound communications only.
Single-Pane Interface
Agents shouldn’t be flicking back and forth between different software platforms. Every aspect of customer interactions and history should be displayed (usually chronologically) in a single-pane window, giving them full oversight and granular control. These dashboards should be customizable, from colors and design to widgets and data feeds. A single-pane interface supports rapid response times from agents, which can boost customer satisfaction and improve resolution rates.
This example of an agent dashboard comes from GoTo Contact Center. It shows an agent’s assigned queues, pending tasks and summary of recent activity at a glance. Source: GoTo
Monitor and Review
Our shortlisted platforms all take slightly different approaches to reviewing agent performance and customer interactions. Twilio offers bespoke reporting in response to certain interactions or thresholds being breached, while RingCentral archives data for 25 months to support retrospective analysis. However a contact center software platform does it, we looked for a mechanism that enables supervisors to monitor and review agent performance and offer coaching to help agents improve over time.
This example of historical agent performance comes from RingCX and shows a range of charts breaking down data around agent call times, interactions and more. Source: RingCentral
Clear Pricing
We’ve explained above that pricing varies considerably from one tier to another, but all the companies we’ve reviewed, except one, offer unambiguous pricing on a per-user-per-month basis. Some additionally offer pay-as-you-go deals, while free trials are common but not universal. RingCentral’s free trial is so limited, for example, it’s effectively useless at gauging the platform.
Although free trials are useful, don’t sign up to one unless you’re likely to remain on the platform. They often require a lot of setup and can be complicated when disentangling your IT infrastructure from a contact center system once it’s up and running.