The 6 Best Contact Center Solutions for 2019

If you are in charge of your organizations contact center, you're probably constantly on the prowl for the best technology available to insure maximum productivity at the best price. You probably also want solutions that are both reliable and cutting edge, but without a steep learning curve for you or your agents. You also know the value of a trusted advisor--an expert you can lean on to get an objective opinion with your best interests in mind.

Hundreds of customers lean on us as a trusted advisor because we've helped a lot of small businesses implement phone services, including contact center solutions, over the years. Leveraging that expertise, we'll give you the top six options you should look into.

The Top 6 Contact Center Solutions for 2019

Contact centers can make an enormous difference in your daily operations if you run a call center and they can be as important as your business phone service, Internet provider, and cloud host for insuring successful communication with your prospect/customer base. They increase your employees’ productivity, allowing them to focus on the task at hand, rather than passing phone calls on to a different department.

Most importantly, a really good contact center solution can offer a service that provides flexibility for your operations and increases customer satisfaction. In the modern office, documents, discussions, and messages that can be compiled in one location can give your employees the opportunity to find the best solution for a caller. Intermodal integration with your different channels, like phone, website, and social accounts, empower agents to have an archive of contacts and touch points but also access to information resources that should result in optimal agent interactions.

When it comes to selecting your provider, the first step is identifying your needs. You want to ensure the contact center you choose can integrate with any back-office systems, as well as your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Additionally, you want to ensure the system is user-friendly, making it easy for you to train your staff on daily operations.

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop, you should be aware of current possibilities and also road maps for future development. Are they using natural language processing, or simply managing mundane tasks with their AI? While this may seem like science fiction, AI is becoming more and more a reality and inability to capitalize on such tools can decrease customer satisfaction and operational flexibility, especially as the technology continues to develop.

After you’ve identified requirements, take a look at the best contact center solutions provided below. There’s no doubt that at least one of them will meet your needs.

1. Cisco CJP

Cisco’s Customer Journey Platform (CJP) is a powerhouse in the contact center world and our recommendation to most companies because of all it offers.

Designed and developed as a cloud solution, it provides the security you need when handling customer data. It also offers omnichannel compiling, providing all your customer interactions in one location.

CJP can integrate with your CRM data to plan routing for each customer, and their predictive analytics AI furthers this by finding an agent that can meet the specific needs of your customer in their level of the customer journey. The center offers on-demand collaboration to find the best agent, manager, or subject matter expert to handle the interaction once the customer provides more information.

CJP also collects analytics through every engagement, tracking the customer’s journey as they progress with your company. With their Workforce Optimization (WFO) suite, you’ll be able to interact with that data, including quality management information and insights through speech, desktop, and text analytics.

Cisco is a respected brand with a long track record of success. Their products are some of the best out there and they continually implement new and more efficient systems and processes. If you’re looking for a user-friendly contact center solution, loaded with features to make managing customer communication simple, Cisco’s CJP should be high on your list.

2. Zendesk

Servicing hundreds of companies, Zendesk is another option to meet your needs. Within a day, they can have your omnichannel network established so they can take care of your customer service, reducing overall hassle with the initial setup.

Zendesk offers a Guide feature, allowing you to create an online knowledge base that allows customers to search for their own solutions while also enabling agents to service them better. This can include an online community, allowing other customers to share solutions and creating impromptu brand ambassadors at the same time.

Answer Bot, Zendesk’s AI, will offer customers articles and potential solutions while they wait for an agent. This decreases the perceived wait time and could give your customers the answer they’re looking for.

Their analytics will help you decide which content is most popular and which requires more work, allowing you to provide better material for your consumers.

3. Avaya Aura

Avaya’s Aura Platform is their answer to the growing need for a multimedia-based contact center solution. They offer private, public, on-premise, or hybrid options, giving you flexibility in how you want your support operated.

Avaya’s AI integrates chatbots, virtual assistants, and machine learning to improve your customer satisfaction levels. Like some of the other centers, Avaya offers smart matching, to help customers find the correct agent fast. One of the leading features of their AI is its ability to summarize talk and text conversations in real-time, providing you with useful information immediately.

With data collection through their cloud, you’ll also receive all the necessary information to understand where your customers’ problems lie and where to focus your efforts in their support.

4. Vocalcom

Vocalcom prides itself on being an AI contact center, with their service managed mostly through well-crafted intelligence.

As a cloud-based contact center that works with any channel you need, Vocalcom is a useful asset to your customer support. They have also added some minor features that could be beneficial to your customers, including Call-Back Queuing and a decreased wait time for repeat callers.

Dashboards display their collected data and provide an easy to read layout so you can make educated decisions faster. With their ability to integrate into your CRM, Vocalcom is another well-rounded resource to consider.

5. Five9

Five9 offers many of the same options as the previously named solutions, including a Workforce Management (WFM) tool to assist with forecasting, monitoring, and scheduling your contact center staff.

Reports are developed in real-time and the Supervisor Dashboard gives you the ability to set alerts and thresholds on the statistics provided. Couple this with the potential to integrate into your CRM, and you have a seamless method to track customer satisfaction.

Since Five9 connects with any channel your company operates on, they make it easy to consolidate all your customer service requirements under one interface.

6. Genesys

Genesys enables you to develop your own customer journey and integrate their software to help you reach your customer goals. With omnichannel support, you can rest assured that your customers will receive the care they expect over each channel.

The Genesys analytics hub produces a range of overlapping reporting, giving you no shortage of information to ensure a consistent level of customer satisfaction.

Since customers often call with issues that are difficult to settle over the phone, Genesys prides itself on rapidly assigning tasks to the first available, most qualified employee on your staff. This cuts wait time and gives the customer a better solution.

Talk With Real Users of Contact Center Solutions

Before you start interacting with contact centers, it’s important to list out the requirements of your company. You’ll want to ensure the contact center data can integrate with your CRM, works with any channels you use, and that they have the resources and right people to handle your service and support.

Most importantly, you should talk with peers who’ve successfully integrated a contact center solution before jumping in. Also, having worked through many contact center implementations, we can provide you with information to make your decision significantly easier. We've assisted customers in a wide range of industries, so feel free to talk with us about the best choice for your company.