There are many great cloud-based contact center platforms on the market today — so many that it can be hard to find the right one for your business. With all the various vendors, packages, features, and pricing plans out there, finding the right one can feel overwhelming.
Perhaps the best way to pick a platform is to compare the options and see which ones come out on top. With that in mind, let’s look at the pros and cons of Talkdesk and Five9, what features each one provides, and how they compare to each other.
Talkdesk vs Five9: The Pros
Both Talkdesk and Five9 are popular Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platforms and for good reason. Both provide several features designed to improve agent productivity and customer satisfaction, but which one has the right tools for your contact center?
Pros of Talkdesk
Talkdesk is a contact center platform praised for its ease of use, customization, and robust functionality. Its platform and agent desktop are very intuitive, which makes Talkdesk easy to learn and allows agents to get right to work without any difficulty.
Talkdesk’s platform is also designed for collaboration, as it features communication tools for both customer support and internal teams. Agents and reps can seamlessly work together, consult experts, and help customers as a team without leaving the Talkdesk platform.
Additionally, Talkdesk uses artificial intelligence (AI) to empower agents and assist customers. This includes AI-powered self-service tools, customer insights, and a suite of customer experience (CX) applications.
Other popular Talkdesk features include:
- Digital engagement tools across SMS, chat, email, and social messaging
- Data-driven analytics on a customizable dashboard
- 70+ pre-built integrations with apps such as Salesforce, Zendesk, and Slack
- 30+ security certifications, including SOC 2 and 3, HIPAA, and GDPR
Talkdesk has four subscription options:
- CX Cloud Essentials and Digital Essentials, each of which costs $85 per user per month
- CX Cloud Elevate, which costs $115 per user per month
- CX Cloud Elite, which costs $145 per user per month
Pros of Five9
Five9 is a leading cloud contact center software provider that offers a comprehensive package, which includes an integrated dialer, lead management, and reporting tools.
Five9 also has a strong focus on employee engagement, as its CCaaS platform includes tools for workflow optimization, workforce management, and quality management. These tools help keep agents organized, scheduled properly, and equipped to provide the best service possible.
Additionally, Five9 uses task automation and multi-channel orchestration to optimize and automate support. These features can help companies maximize revenue and improve customer loyalty.
Five9 supports customers across channels, including SMS, phone calls, messages, email, social media, and video calls.
A few extra Five9 features include:
- AI-powered customer insights, agent assist, and call summaries
- Contact center supervisor tools that help managers monitor and assist agents
- Reporting and analytics tools that provide actionable insights in real-time
- Integrations with other customer relationship management (CRM) and communications platforms, including Salesforce, Oracle, and Microsoft Dynamics 365
Five9 offers five different packages, all of which are priced per user:
- Digital and Core packages, which each cost $175 monthly
- Premium at $235 a month
- Optimum at $290 per month
- Ultimate at $325 per month
Talkdesk vs Five9: The Cons
While Talkdesk and Five9 each have plenty of benefits, they still fall short in certain areas. Here are some of the downsides of each:
Cons of Talkdesk
Users looking for a more customizable contact center platform might be frustrated with Talkdesk. User reviews have stated that certain features can’t be customized on the user end, so users need to contact Talkdesk to make any changes, but support is not always responsive.
Additionally, although Talkdesk offers call recordings, the audio quality could be better. A common complaint is that recordings don’t balance the caller’s and agent’s voices.
This means that if you’re listening to a call, the volume and audio quality can shift dramatically whenever someone speaks, which is not only annoying but also impacts the quality of the review process.
While Talkdesk’s integration library is a point in its favor, setting up and customizing the integrations is another story. Getting integrations to work seamlessly with existing systems can be a complex and time-consuming process.
Cons of Five9
Five9 offers comprehensive and powerful features, but that makes for a steep learning curve. New users often struggle with the complexity, so it can take a while to really see benefits from the platform.
This is made even more difficult when there are technical issues, and some users have reported intermittent login problems where they couldn’t log in for a time.
Needless to say, being unable to access the contact center makes it impossible for agents to work, so there were operational disruptions any time they couldn’t log in.
Additionally, some Five9 customers have reported connectivity delays in which calls lag for a few seconds before they connect to an agent. Not only are these delays off-putting for customers but those few seconds can add up over time and end up costing hours of productivity.
Nextiva vs. Talkdesk and Five9
After going through the pros and cons of Talkdesk and Five9, you might be uncertain. Perhaps Five9 is out of your price range, and its learning curve and technical issues are putting you off. Or maybe you need more customization than Talkdesk offers.
Fortunately, there is another option: Nextiva.
Nextiva’s AI-powered contact center platform is a flexible, scalable, enterprise-grade contact center solution built for omnichannel communications.
Nextiva users save time and money on every customer interaction when compared to alternative platforms. According to customer reviews, Nextiva is also rated higher overall than Talkdesk and Five9.
In addition, Nextiva offers a wide range of contact center and telephony features, including:
- Inbound and outbound omnichannel communications, including multi-channel conversational history
- Native workforce optimization
- Customizable call routing and auto attendant features, including skills-based routing
- A built-in predictive auto dialer system to optimize outbound calls
- Unified reporting and analytics to track your APIs and key metrics across channels
- Virtual and visual voicemail
| Comparison | Talkdesk | Five9 | Nextiva |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plan | CX Cloud Elite | Ultimate | Professional |
| Monthly price | $145/user | $325/user | $119/user |
| Key features | Digital engagement across all channels Performance management Real-time dashboards | Chat, voice, email, SMS/MMS, and social messaging channels Full-platform workflow automation Blended inbound/outbound functionality | Full omnichannel capabilities Plug-and-play advanced AI Quality management |
| Customer rating (G2) | 4.4 out of 5 (2,199 reviews) | 3.9 out of 5 (385 reviews) | 4.5 out of 5 (3,100 reviews) |
| Best for | Support teams | Support teams | Sales, service, and support teams |
So, why should you choose Nextiva? Let’s look at what it brings to the table.
Versatility
Nextiva provides more than just call center software. It provides unified communications and omnichannel contact center capabilities, giving users a broader range of business communication tools.
Organizations looking for an all-in-one VoIP communications solution for their teams and contact centers will find everything they need with Nextiva.
CX focus
Nextiva is dedicated to creating a great CX and user experience. So, not only does Nextiva’s contact center enable users to provide a quality CX, but its own customer support is also awesome.
Nextiva uses AI-driven data and analytics to manage and enhance the CX. It can identify trends, analyze customer sentiment, and improve first-call resolution rates, all of which are great for businesses that prioritize customer satisfaction and engagement.
Nextiva itself also has a quality CX, as Nextiva’s customer support is highly regarded. Anyone contacting Nextiva for support will quickly get firsthand experience of how well their contact center solution works.
Customizable solutions
A contact center is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Every business will have different communication and contact center needs based on its size, industry, and more. That’s why customizable and scalable solutions are so important.
Nextiva is known for its scalability. Users can add seats as needed so their contact center system can grow with their business.
Additionally, the Nextiva contact center solution is highly customizable, so organizations can add any apps, CRM integrations, and capabilities they need.
AI
Nextiva also has several AI-powered tools and features to enhance agent productivity and customer satisfaction.
These include customer self-service tools, such as an AI-powered chatbot and speech-enabled IVR, and tools to assist agents with their everyday tasks.
Nextiva’s AI-powered features include:
- Automated outbound campaigns
- Workforce optimization tools to improve first-contact resolution and conversion rates
- Automatic call transcriptions and summaries
- Dynamic scripting
- Task automation
- Virtual assistants for voice, chat, and text channels
Nextiva: There’s Something for Every Business
Talkdesk and Five9 are fine contact center solutions, and each has plenty of features and benefits to offer organizations. They specialize in providing robust contact center software with a focus on AI, automation, and omnichannel support and are well-regarded by their users.
However, Nextiva stands out with its broader focus on wrangling multiple business communication channels, optimizing CX management, and providing versatile solutions that can be tailored to a wide range of business needs.
Now that you know what Five9, Talkdesk, and Nextiva can offer a business, the choice is clear: when you need a robust contact center platform, you can’t go wrong with Nextiva.
