Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) solutions offer cloud-based customer support software to businesses managing customer conversations. These solutions support customer service professionals with capabilities like call routing, interactive voice response (IVR), and other advanced features.
Not all contact center software providers offer comparable features, functionality, or pricing. There are numerous differences among vendors.
In this guide, we’ll discuss the best CCaaS providers on the market today and some of their standout features. We’ll also share our checklist of ways to narrow your search effectively.
Top CCaaS Providers Leading the Market in 2024
Every CCaaS provider has pros and cons. Compare the leading software solutions on the market, and choose the most suitable one for your business.
1. Nextiva
Nextiva offers many VoIP services, including business phone services and extensive contact center software. It delivers the best Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) and CCaaS solutions to manage internal communication while customer-facing teams deliver a delightful customer experience across multiple channels.
Nextiva lets you improve overall contact center operations while streamlining customer interactions through several features. It helps your agents become more productive and improves their performance with real-time insights.
Pricing: Nextiva offers custom pricing based on your requirements. You pay for the features your business truly needs. Talk to an expert and get your quote.
Nextiva features
Below are some notable features of Nextiva Contact Center:
- The omnichannel contact center provides a unified view of all customer interactions on phone, email, chat, or social media platforms.
- Automatic call distribution routes incoming calls in queues to agents based on various parameters including skills, workload, and pre-defined criteria.
- IVR reduces agents’ workload by providing self-service options for routine inquiries, allowing them to manage more complex queries.
- Intelligent virtual agents use artificial intelligence to perform simple tasks or route queries to the right team.
- CRM integrations make it easier to get context on previous customer interactions and sales transaction data.
- Workforce management increases the operational efficiency of a call center using strategies and processes to optimize agent productivity.
2. Talkdesk
Talkdesk uses generative AI and automation to help businesses gather customer experience insights. These data points allow you to make more informed and customer-centric decisions.
The platform allows agents to create simple workflows to automate tasks and improve productivity. After every call, agents can easily access all call recordings in their CRM systems.
Source: Talkdesk
Pricing: Starts at $85 per user per month.
Talkdesk features
Below are some notable features of Talkdesk:
- Multiple integrations save time and reduce the confusion of switching among various platforms.
- Deep direct integrations with vertical systems facilitate easy automation while delivering significant efficiency gains.
- Self-guided demos let people explore cloud solutions without investing time or resources in research.
3. 8×8
8×8’s CCaaS solution is a comprehensive suite of VoIP and contact center platforms catering to businesses of all sizes. Its secure cloud CCaaS offers a consistent customer journey while providing options to optimize workforce management.
Source: 8×8
Pricing: 8×8 doesn’t share its pricing on the website. Contact the 8×8 sales team for a custom quote.
8×8 features
Below are some notable features of 8×8:
- A user-friendly interface makes it easier for agents to seamlessly handle all customer interactions via voice, chat, email, social media, or chatbot through a single interface.
- High-definition video conferencing allows up to 500 participants on any device.
- A customizable AI-powered chatbot addresses customer queries quickly while reducing agents’ workload.
4. Vonage
Known for its VoIP services, Vonage offers a unified communications solution with helpful features for contact center professionals. The Vonage Business Communications desktop app combines calls, messages, and video conferencing.
Source: Vonage
Pricing: Vonage doesn’t share pricing on its website. You can get a quote by reaching out to its sales team.
Vonage features
Below are some notable features of Vonage:
- Integrations with Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and Slack make it easier for agents to work across business apps.
- Vonage AI studio lets businesses create omnichannel conversations with its no-code flow builder.
- Enterprise-grade features like single sign-on make it easier for agents to offer a delightful customer experience while ensuring robust security.
5. RingCentral
Established in 1999, RingCentral offers decent features to manage outbound calls. These include a mix of progressive, predictive, and preview dialers. It helps reduce the fatigue that comes from manual dialing and makes agents more efficient.
Overall, it offers a simple CCaaS solution, RingCX, that’s AI-first and easy to deploy.
Source: RingCentral
Pricing: Starts at $65 per agent per month when billed annually.
RingCentral features
Below are some of RingCentral’s notable features:
- Intelligent call suppression makes real-time adjustments to the dialing list based on customers’ actions.
- Analytics and extensive reporting let businesses recognize workflow bottlenecks and improve customer experience with dashboards and management tools.
- Advanced call handling lets teams properly manage inbound and outbound calls and deliver a remarkable customer experience.
6. Aircall
Aircall offers businesses access to toll-free and local numbers for outbound and inbound calling in more than 100 countries. It lets organizations route calls intelligently and ensure that suitable agents take calls per their availability and area of expertise.
The platform offers integrations with HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zendesk, helping agents easily work with different business apps while being more productive.
Source: Aircall
Pricing: Starts at $30 per user per month when billed annually. You need to subscribe for a minimum of 3 users.
Aircall features
Below are some notable features of Aircall:
- Call monitoring lets users listen to live calls, accelerating employee training and improving quality assurance.
- After-call work gives teams time to take notes, tag people, and decide on the prerequisites of the following conversation.
- Business hours allow users to customize their availability based on their working hours.
7. Genesys
Genesys Cloud lets users manage customer interactions across multiple channels, including voice, text, web, and social media. The platform recognizes repeat customers and routes them to the last agent they spoke with or the agents best suited to address their needs.
It also gives agents a customer’s context and insight, helping them personalize and tailor the interaction.
Source: Genesys
Pricing: Genesys’ voice and digital plan costs $115 per month.
Genesys features
Below are some notable features of Genesys:
- AI automation enables deeper personalization while offering customer support. It directs the conversation toward a human agent when it feels the need and supplies all historical conversational insights.
- Gamified performance management keeps teams focused while improving the agent experience.
- Intelligent prioritization uses AI to identify customers who need assistance as quickly as possible while automating several manual tasks for the team.
8. NICE CXone
NICE CXone, previously known as NICE inContact, offers a comprehensive CCaaS solution to optimize customer interactions and improve agent efficiency. The platform’s virtual phone offers global VoIP telephony, capable of making HD voice calls with 99.99% uptime to over 130 countries.
Source: NICE CXone
Pricing: CXone’s interaction orchestration for omnichannel agents costs $110 per month.
NICE CXone features
Below are some notable features of NICE CXone.
- Service accountability means 80% of calls are answered in less than a minute.
- Pay-as-you-go pricing doesn’t require any hefty upfront fees. The service subscription is bundled into monthly invoices.
- 24/7 maintenance ensures that issues are quickly resolved.
Related: Communications Service Provider: Overview & Key Features
Things to Consider Before Choosing Your CCaaS Provider
Choosing the right CCaaS provider for your business requires thorough research and a deep understanding of your needs.
Here are a few factors to help you with the decision-making process.
Scalability
This involves assessing whether the service can grow or shrink according to your business needs without significant disruptions or costs.
Start by understanding the provider’s capability to handle changes in call volume and user count. Consider whether the provider’s infrastructure is cloud-native, as this can often allow for more seamless scaling.
Additionally, evaluate the ease of adding or removing features, integrating new services, and expanding to different geographical locations. The ability to scale should not compromise the quality of the service or the user experience, ensuring that transition periods are smooth and barely noticeable to end users.
| 💡Tip: Always perform a “stress test” with your potential CCaaS provider to see how its system handles increased demands under controlled conditions. This will give you a realistic view of its scalability and flexibility in supporting your growth. |
Unified communications compatibility
UCaaS has some overlap with CCaaS. Many organizations already use a hosted business communications provider, but it’s often entirely separate from the contact center.
This means that some CCaaS providers force you to purchase a separate SIP trunking provider so your team can make or receive calls.
You don’t need a separate voice carrier. Top CCaaS providers like Nextiva provide everything you need in one comprehensive solution, with no surprises, so your team can focus on improving customer satisfaction and increasing operational efficiency.
Integration capabilities
The ability to seamlessly integrate with existing systems — such as CRM software, ERP systems, workforce management tools, and marketing platforms — is essential for maintaining workflow continuity and enhancing operational efficiency.
Check whether the CCaaS platform supports open APIs that allow for custom integrations. This is crucial as it enables the contact center to connect with various third-party applications and services that are important to your business processes.
Furthermore, examine the provider’s pre-built integrations: a good range of native integrations with popular business tools can significantly reduce the time and cost involved in setting up and maintaining the system.
The ease of integration also impacts your organization’s learning curve and adoption rate. It’s important to consider how intuitive the integration processes are and whether the provider offers any tools or services to facilitate these integrations. For example, some CCaaS providers offer visual dashboards that allow non-technical staff to configure integrations without needing coding skills.
| 💡Tip: Opt for a CCaaS provider that regularly updates its API capabilities and offers a comprehensive support network to assist with integration challenges. This ensures your contact center remains agile and can adapt to new technologies or changes in business processes. |
Omnichannel support
Omnichannel engagement is an essential feature to consider when choosing a CCaaS provider. It ensures that all customer interactions across various channels, including email, social media, live chat, and voice calls, are integrated into a single, cohesive customer experience. This integration enables agents to provide more personalized and efficient service by having access to the full context of a customer’s interactions, regardless of the channel used.
When assessing a provider’s omnichannel capabilities, it’s important to verify that it can support all the channels your business uses and that these channels are seamlessly integrated within the platform. Look for features like universal queues, which manage interactions from all channels in one place, and real-time syncing of customer data across channels.
| 💡Tip: Prioritize a CCaaS provider that not only supports a wide range of communication channels but also demonstrates a commitment to adopting future technologies in customer communication. |
Reliability and uptime
High uptime guarantees are essential, as even minimal downtime can lead to significant service disruptions and potentially significant financial losses. When evaluating a provider, look for one that offers at least 99.99% uptime. This level of reliability is often supported by robust infrastructure, including redundant data centers and failover mechanisms that ensure continuous service even in the event of hardware or software failures.
Additionally, review the provider’s historical performance data and client testimonials to gauge its track record on reliability and uptime.
The provider’s approach to handling unexpected issues and its disaster recovery plans are also important. It’s crucial to understand how it manages data backups, system updates, and emergency situations. A provider should be transparent about its maintenance schedules and provide regular updates on system status. Ask about its service level agreements and what compensation or remedies it offers if the agreed-upon uptime is not met.
These details can give you insight into how seriously a provider takes its service commitments and what you can expect in terms of reliability.
| 💡Tip: Always include specific uptime guarantees within your contractual agreement and clarify the recourse available if the provider fails to meet these standards. This not only secures your interests but also incentivizes the provider to maintain high standards of reliability. |
AI features
AI-powered solutions can automate routine tasks, provide predictive analytics, and support real-time decision-making.
When selecting a CCaaS provider, assess its AI capabilities, focusing on features like chatbots for customer self-service, intelligent routing to direct customers to the appropriate agent or department based on their needs, and sentiment analysis to gauge customer emotions during interactions. These AI functionalities can help reduce agent workload, improve customer satisfaction, and optimize overall contact center performance.
Additionally, evaluate how the AI integrates with other systems and data sources. Effective contact center AI features should seamlessly draw on existing customer data to provide context-rich support and enhance customer interactions.
| 💡Tip: Look for AI that learns and improves over time through machine learning algorithms. This ensures that the system becomes more effective as it processes more data. |
Security and compliance
A reliable CCaaS provider must adhere to rigorous security standards and compliance regulations to protect your data from breaches and ensure legal compliance. When assessing potential providers, verify that their technology meets relevant industry standards, such as ISO 27001, GDPR, HIPAA (for healthcare-related services), and PCI DSS (for payment processing). These certifications indicate a provider’s commitment to security and data protection.
In addition to checking for certifications, it’s crucial to understand the specific security measures the provider implements. This includes data encryption at rest and in transit, regular security audits, and access controls to ensure that only authorized personnel can access sensitive information.
| 💡Tip: Always request detailed documentation of the provider’s security and compliance measures and verify its claims through third-party audits, if possible. This due diligence is crucial not only for protecting your data but also for maintaining your customers’ trust. |
Post-sale support
Effective post-sale support ensures that any issues encountered after the initial deployment are quickly and efficiently resolved, minimizing downtime and maintaining operational continuity. When evaluating a provider, consider the breadth and quality of its support services. Look for providers that offer 24/7 support through multiple channels, including phone, email, live chat, and even social media, to ensure that help is available whenever needed.
Additionally, assess the expertise and responsiveness of the support team. A good support service should have a well-trained team that can handle a range of issues, from simple troubleshooting to complex technical problems. The provider should also offer a comprehensive knowledge base, training resources, and user communities. These resources empower your team to resolve common issues independently and make the most of the CCaaS solution.
| 💡Tip: Prioritize providers that respond to issues and collaborate with you to optimize the system and adapt the service as your business needs evolve. This partnership approach in post-sale support can significantly enhance the value you derive from your CCaaS investment. |
Cost and ROI
When evaluating affordability, it’s important to look beyond just the initial pricing and consider the total cost of ownership, which includes setup fees, maintenance costs, upgrades, and potential costs associated with scaling the service. Opt for vendors that offer transparent contact center pricing with no hidden fees, allowing you to predict and control your expenses effectively.
Additionally, assess the value provided by the service in relation to its cost. A cost-effective CCaaS provider should offer a comprehensive suite of features that meet your specific business needs without requiring extensive customizations, which can drive up costs.
Compare how other providers can streamline your operations and improve customer service. Pay attention to the flexibility of pricing plans — providers that offer scalable solutions can adjust to your needs as your business grows or changes, potentially offering better cost efficiency over time.
| 💡Tip: Find out if the CCaaS provider offers pay-as-you-go options or if it can provide tailored plans that adapt to your changing business dynamics. This ensures you are not locked into long-term, inflexible contracts that do not reflect your current needs. |
Vendor reputation
A reputable vendor typically has a proven track record of stability, strong customer support, and a commitment to continuous improvement. Begin by reviewing the provider’s history in the industry, including how long it has been in business and its experience with businesses similar to yours. This background can give you confidence in its ability to understand and meet your specific needs.
Also, assess the vendor’s reputation through customer testimonials, case studies, and thousands of customer reviews. Look for feedback on its service reliability, the effectiveness of its technology, and the quality of its customer support. It’s beneficial to check industry forums and social media to get unfiltered insights from current and past users.
| 💡Tip: Engage with potential vendors directly to ask specific questions and gauge their transparency and willingness to provide information. This interaction can often give you a better sense of its customer service and reliability than secondary research alone. |
Solve Your CCaaS Needs With Nextiva
CCaaS is a suitable and scalable solution for customer-facing professionals like sales and support teams, while UCaaS is a wise choice for almost every other department. With Nextiva, you get the best of both, which is why it’s a leader among the best CCaaS providers.
With it, you get to create a seamless ecosystem that caters to the communication needs of all departments. Nextiva lets your team work efficiently and deliver a memorable customer experience across all touchpoints.
Don’t settle for less when you can get CCaaS and UCaaS in one platform.
