6 Best Call Center Phone Systems in 2023
This article is part of a larger series on VoIP.
The best call center phone systems offer robust call management capabilities: automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and call queues. They feature different outbound dialing modes, helping teams be more efficient in customer outreach. Additionally, they integrate with various third-party business tools and allow companies to add calling capabilities to their existing tech stack.
Based on our research and evaluation, the best call center phone systems are as follows:
- CloudTalk: Best for businesses strengthening their global presence
- RingCentral Contact Center: Ideal for companies improving agent and customer communications
- Nextiva Contact Center: Top pick for teams evaluating customer conversations
- 8×8 Contact Center: Solid choice for overseeing call center activities
- Talkdesk: Best for companies offering 24/7 customer service
- Freshdesk Contact Center: Ideal for budget-conscious teams wanting to manage phone calls efficiently
Best Call Center Phone Systems at a Glance
Best | Monthly Starting Price per User | Call Management Features | Outbound Dialer Features | FSB Rating |
---|---|---|---|---|
$25 |
|
| 4.61 out of 5 | |
Customized quote |
|
| 4.42 out of 5 | |
Customized quote |
|
| 4.38 out of 5 | |
$85 |
|
| 4.31 out of 5 | |
$75 |
|
| 4.14 out of 5 | |
$18* |
| Power dialer | 4.06 out of 5 | |
*The provider also offers a forever-free version.
Which call center phone system is right for you?
Cloud-based contact centers are 27% cheaper and experience 35% less downtime compared to on-premise phone systems. Keep abreast with the latest contact center market trends to ensure your business uses the most modern tools and practices.
CloudTalk: Best for Strengthening Global Presence
What We Liked
- Unlimited number of users is offered across all plans
- Wide variety of phone numbers: short, toll-free, and international
- Provides a single sign-on service for better security
Where It Falls Behind
- Uptime guarantee is only available at the highest-tier package, which has a customized quote
- Limited native third-party integrations
- Outbound dialers are not available in the entry-level plan
CloudTalk Monthly Pricing
- Starter: $25 per user for unlimited inbound and intracompany calls, ACD, unlimited call queueing, and international numbers
- Essential: $30 per user for skills-based routing, advanced analytics with unlimited history, third-party integrations, and open application programming interface (API)
- Expert: $50 per user for outbound dialers, call monitoring tools, single sign-on, and unlimited concurrent calls
- Custom: Custom quote for unlimited outbound calls for flat rates, enterprise-level security, custom reporting, and service level agreement (SLA)
- Free trial: 14 days
CloudTalk is the best among the call center phone systems we evaluated, allowing businesses to set up and maintain global customer service operations. It offers local phone numbers in over 160 countries. Using local phone numbers improves the likelihood of leads answering your calls since the numbers are familiar to them. For existing customers you want to stay connected to, the local numbers help you avoid the high costs of international calling.
CloudTalk is equipped with various call center features that make managing communications with international clients easier. For one, it has caller-based routing, which intelligently distributes calls based on the customer’s phone number and predefined rules. It features an automatic outbound caller ID that sets your caller ID according to the call destination country, meaning your clients will see a familiar local phone number instead of an international one.
However, note that you must upgrade to CloudTalk’s Expert subscription plan, priced at $50 per user, per month, to unlock the outbound dialer features. Consider other best call center phone systems like Freshdesk for a more affordable solution. It features the power dialer in its Pro plan, which only costs $39 per agent, monthly.
CloudTalk Features
- Auto-answer: Reduce customers’ wait times by enabling the phone system to automatically answer incoming calls. It complements call queues and skills-based routing, allowing you to manage more calls efficiently.
- Call tagging: Assign custom tags to each call so the agents will know which ones to prioritize. For example, a customer service representative tasked to review negative feedback will simply refer to “Complaints” tags.
- Call recording: CloudTalk automatically records all phone calls and makes the audio files available in the customer’s contact details and call history. Download them from your browser using your preferred device: laptop, tablet, or mobile phone.
Learn more about this call center system’s capabilities in our CloudTalk review. The provider earned perfect scores on general features and ease of use.
RingCentral Contact Center: Best for Improving Agent & Customer Communications
What We Liked
- Call recording is included in all subscription plans
- Offers APIs that help businesses extend the functionality of their existing apps
- Omnichannel support features 30+ digital channels
Where It Falls Behind
- Outbound dialers are available as add-ons, not as an inclusion in subscription plans like other providers
- Users must upgrade to the most expensive package to unlock workforce and performance management tools
- Pricing isn’t transparent like other call center systems
RingCentral Contact Center Pricing
The provider offers custom quotes for:
- Essentials: IVR, call recording, and integrated RingCentral MVP capabilities
- Standard: Omnichannel support (over 30 digital channels), advanced analytics, and advanced call recording
- Premium: Quality management and screen recording
- Ultimate: Workforce management and performance management
RingCentral Contact Center, ranking second in our top picks for call center phone systems, is the ideal solution for those who want a platform equipped with unified communications (UC) tools. Although it’s primarily a contact center as a service (CCaaS) software, it has integrated collaboration features, such as messaging and video conferencing. Given this, you’ll be able to manage customer and employee communications in one platform.
When agents need to consult a colleague for a customer concern, they have the option to send a quick message or hop in a brief huddle room while the customer is on hold. It’s easy to share files through chat in case additional resources are necessary. With RingCentral’s CCaaS and integrated business phone system features, you’ll accommodate large call volumes more efficiently while collaborating with the team.
However, unlike other providers, RingCentral doesn’t have transparent pricing. According to our research, the estimated starting fee is $150 per seat, which is way more expensive than other platforms. CloudTalk and Freshdesk are more affordable alternatives.
RingCentral Contact Center Features
- Skills-based routing: Distribute calls to agents who have the knowledge and expertise on particular customer concerns. This should improve first contact resolution and reduce call volume in the long run.
- Gamification: Motivate agents to perform better by making call center metrics visible and interactive. Roll out challenges and provide badges and prizes as you engage employees.
- Live reporting: Get an overview of call center activities to keep up with different kinds of call volume. RingCentral’s live reporting dashboard features various metrics: service level, agents count, and queue details.
If you plan to use this call center software in your customer service, refer to our RingCentral Contact Center review first before subscribing. This should give you an idea if it will suit your business needs.
Nextiva Contact Center: Best for Evaluating Customer Conversations
What We Liked
- Call recording is available in the entry-level plan
- Visually intuitive workflows help users without programming know-how
- Geo-redundancy ensures service reliability
Where It Falls Behind
- Does not have transparent pricing
- Limited third-party integrations
- Lacks a free trial
Nextiva Contact Center Monthly Pricing
The provider offers custom quotes for:
- Core: Blended inbound and outbound calling capabilities, geo-redundancy, and call recording
- Premium: Digital channel support and essential quality management
- Optimum: Enterprise quality management, proactive notification, and enterprise workforce management
- Ultimate: Interaction analytics, graphical no-code workflows, and entire workflow automation suite
The Nextiva Contact Center, built on the Five9 contact center platform, places third in our list of top call center phone systems—providing robust tools for identifying issues in customer engagement. Its automated quality management system assigns a score for every captured customer call. It alerts users to evaluate conversations manually, preventing managers from overlooking tasks.
Also part of the robust quality management system are the coaching tools, which enable users to build coaching packages for customer service representatives and provide URL access to helpful resources. With these features in your contact center phone system, agents are able to re-skill themselves and improve customer communications.
While Nextiva is great for quality management, it lacks robust third-party integrations. If you want to connect your existing tech stack to Nextiva Contact Center, consider Talkdesk, as you’re more likely to find your business tools in its vast catalog of integrations.
Nextiva Contact Center Features
- IVR: Direct customers to the appropriate departments by letting them follow instructions from the automated menu. When crafted right, interactive voice response (IVR) flows will improve first contact resolution and facilitate self-service.
- Toll-free numbers: Choose from a vast catalog of toll-free numbers, direct inward dialing (DID), and international numbers. If you want to keep existing numbers, use the provider’s number porting services.
- Essentials quality management: View basic employee performance scorecards and screen recordings. Use the insights from the evaluation to recalibrate coaching and training programs.
If you’re interested in this provider, refer to our Nextiva Contact Center review. It outlines the pros and cons of the platform, along with its best use cases.
8×8 Contact Center: Best for Overseeing Call Center Activities
What We Liked
- Offers 99.999% uptime guarantee
- Call monitoring tools are available across all contact center subscription packages
- Easy-to-use Agent Workspace
Where It Falls Behind
- More expensive subscription fees compared to other providers
- Call recording retention only lasts 30 days
- Integration with Microsoft Teams requires an additional fee
8x8 Contact Center Monthly Pricing
- X6: $85 for call routing, call monitoring, call activity analytics, and queued and web callback
- X7: $110 for omnichannel routing and co-browsing
- X8: $140 for auto-dialer, quality management, and speech analytics
8×8 Contact Center is a suitable phone system for teams that want to closely monitor call center activities because it has different analytics features for various purposes. For instance, the call activity analytics feature offers access to key metrics: average call time, average talk time, total number of inbound and outbound calls, total answered, and total missed.
On the other hand, the supervisor analytics feature lets managers see agents’ individual metrics, such as the number of calls accepted, rejected, and abandoned. The speech and text analytics feature classifies calls and makes it easier for users to know the most common topics and sentiments in customer conversations. Instead of going through each customer interaction, refer to this feature’s interactive graphics and find the types of calls you want to address.
Before choosing 8×8 Contact Center, note that the call recordings are only stored for 30 days. Talkdesk has a longer retention period of six months.
8×8 Contact Center Features
- Intelligent IVR: This artificial intelligence (AI)-powered system offers self-service options to customers, which help speed up the resolution of concerns and inquiries and remove the need for human agents’ assistance. With this, your live customer service representatives are able to focus on more complex requests.
- 8×8 CRM: Since 8×8 uses computer telephony integration (CTI) technology, it allows users to access CRM systems, giving agents visibility to customer records as soon as they get connected to a client. The provider’s CRM platform features key information for providing context-based customer service, including the account value.
- Quality management: Ensure that agents are performing efficiently and hitting quality standards. 8×8’s average quality scores report outlines customer service groups’ average call duration. The provider also allows the creation of customer service survey templates.
In our 8×8 Contact Center review, we recommended the provider to those looking for an omnichannel solution. Read the guide to learn which businesses benefit most from the software.
Talkdesk: Best for Offering 24/7 Customer Service
What We Liked
- 60+ out-of-the-box integrations
- Knowledge management feature helps agents resolve queries faster
- Entry-level plan is packed with advanced call management features, such as auto-answer and IVR
Where It Falls Behind
- Subscription fee is pricier than other providers
- Difficulty in using reporting features, according to some users
- Features may be an overkill for small businesses
Talkdesk Monthly Pricing
- CX Cloud Essentials: $75 per user for IVR call routing, real-time reporting, AI-powered assistant, and access to APIs
- CX Cloud Elevate: $95 per user for digital engagement, quality management, screen recording, and Conversations Mobile App
- CX Cloud Elite: $125 per user for custom reporting, performance management, and compliance solution
- Experience Clouds: Custom quote for industry-specific solutions, 100% uptime SLA, and any two add-ons from the options: workforce management, customer experience analytics, agent assist, and proactive outbound engagement
Talkdesk is the only call center platform on this list that offers a 100% uptime guarantee, having set up multiple servers in several regions all over the world. In case an outage happens in one location, server redundancy allows the phone system to remain operational. Because of this uninterrupted service, Talkdesk is suitable for companies providing 24/7 customer support as well as those that can’t afford even a few minutes of downtime.
Aside from the excellent service level, the provider’s robust call management system helps businesses sustain 24/7 operations. Its call forwarding distributes phone calls to mobile phones, landlines, and multiple agents to ensure the customer gets connected to a live company representative. Its virtual agent makes customer service more efficient and constantly available, as it takes orders and responds to frequently asked questions any time of the day.
Although Talkdesk is a highly reliable platform, many users encountered difficulties in accessing its reporting features. In this aspect, 8×8 is superior, providing robust yet easy-to-use analytics.
Talkdesk Features
- Agent IVR: Talkdesk plays an IVR prompt twice when agents press 1 and answer the calls forwarded to their external phone. When they press 2 to reject, the phone call goes to voicemail.
- Customer caller ID: Calls forwarded to a service representative’s external phone will usually reflect the account’s phone number. But with the customer caller ID, the number shown will be the individual’s specific call ID, making it easier for agents to know who is on the other end of the line.
- Performance management: Refer to the leaderboards to see the top-performing agents and their respective productivity metrics. Talkdesk displays different quality benchmarks, including average customer satisfaction score (CSAT), average handle time, and quality evaluation score.
Learn more about what this call center software does by reading our Talkdesk review. This guide discusses the pros and cons of using the platform, helping you decide if it’s suitable for your operations.
Freshdesk Contact Center: Best for Budget-conscious Teams Managing Calls
What We Liked
- Offers a forever-free version and affordable subscription plans
- All subscription packages have a calling minutes allowance
- Unlimited concurrent calls across all plans
Where It Falls Behind
- Number porting requires an additional fee
- Call transcriptions feature is locked behind the most expensive package
- Poor customer service, according to some clients
Freshdesk Monthly Pricing*
- Free: Inbound caller ID, call notes, custom greetings, and call metrics
- Growth: $18 per user for 2,000 calling minutes, basic call queues, call recording, and queue transfer
- Pro: $47 per user for 3,000 calling minutes, call monitoring, IVR, and custom reports
- Enterprise: $83 per user for 5,000 calling minutes, speech-enabled IVR, abandoned call metrics, and service level monitoring
- Free trial: 21 days
*Pricing is based on monthly billing. The entry-level plan’s fee is reduced from $18 to $15 when you choose annual billing.
Freshdesk is the most affordable call center software listed in this guide, offering an entry-level subscription plan priced at $18 per user, per month. The package already includes an allowance of 2,000 incoming calling minutes and basic call management features. Its advanced routing tools include business hours, team routing, and routing to an external phone number. It also has queue management capabilities, like wait queues, customizable greetings, and messages.
More importantly, the provider has a forever-free plan that features outbound calling from any number, call blocking, unlimited concurrent calls, and inbound caller ID. While Freshdesk offers a budget-friendly starting rate, its number porting isn’t free like in Talkdesk.
Freshdesk Features
- Call barging: Join a live call between an agent and a customer to address concerns faster. The call won’t be disconnected when you remove yourself from the three-way conversation. For its excellent call barging feature, Freshdesk emerged as our top pick for the best call monitoring software.
- Queue callback: Allow callers waiting in queue to request a callback rather than waiting passively for their turn to talk to an agent. This reduces customer frustration during busy hours when your team accommodates large volumes of calls.
- Parallel calling: Put a customer on hold and place another call to a different individual (e.g., a colleague or a team leader) to clarify or confirm information. Switch between the two lines until you’re able to resolve the customer’s concern.
Explore other features in our comprehensive Freshdesk Contact Center review. This guide also discusses our evaluation of the provider’s ease of use and customer support.
How We Evaluated the Best Call Center Phone Systems
To assess the top call center phone software, we considered pricing, general and advanced features, ease of use, and customer support. We added our expert opinion on its value for money and popularity in the evaluation.
Learn more about these specific criteria points by clicking on the tabs below:
15% of Overall Score
To determine the value for money the provider offers, we checked the cost of the base-level subscription plan and compared it to the prevailing fee in the market. We considered the number of packages available, giving more points to those with more than three options as they cater to different budget requirements. Providers with discounts for annual billing and bulk purchases also got more points.
25% of Overall Score
The general features we looked at were ACD and call monitoring. Since businesses need a reliable communications platform for on-the-go employees, we included mobile apps in our assessment. We gave more points to providers offering omnichannel support.
25% of Overall Score
The specialized features we considered were AI virtual assistants, workforce management, and outbound dialers. Providers with robust integrations earned more points.
10% of Overall Score
We evaluated ease of use by determining the expertise required to set up and operate the phone system. We also assessed if the providers have an intuitive interface.
10% of Overall Score
The variety of customer communication channels was part of our evaluation. We gave more points to providers with email, phone, and live chat support. We considered the hours these channels are active and operational.
15% of Overall Score
This includes our evaluation of the provider’s standout features, value for money, and ease of use. We checked user ratings in third-party review sites to gauge the platform’s popularity.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Call center systems come in different types, catering to different communication needs and business goals. Before settling on a particular platform, familiarize yourself with the different types of call center phone solutions:
- Inbound call center: The software primarily accepts and manages incoming calls. It’s ideal for businesses offering customer service, tech support, order processing, and loyalty programs. The typical features in an inbound call center are ACD, skills-based routing, and IVR.
- Outbound call center: This type of platform focuses on letting teams reach out to clients more efficiently. It suits companies executing sales and marketing campaigns, such as lead generation efforts, payment collection, and audience research. Auto-dialers are the main features of outbound call centers.
- Blended call center: This combines the functions of an inbound and outbound call center. Thus, it’s best for companies that want to provide customer service and streamline sales and marketing efforts.
- Omnichannel contact center: Aside from phone calls, the software lets users manage customer communications across different channels, including SMS, email, and social media. It’s great for organizations that want to interact with customers in multiple channels using only one platform.
Good call center software matches your communication requirements. When choosing among phone systems for call centers, consider these aspects:
- Features: Your team’s needs and goals dictate which features to look for. For example, if you aim to reach as many clients as possible in a short period of time, then you should prioritize software with robust auto-dialers. If you frequently handle large call volumes, go for phone solutions with call queues that accommodate multiple calls.
- Integrations: Call center software that integrate seamlessly with other business apps make handling calls easier and more efficient. Find one that connects with frequently used tools, such as CRM, help desk, and productivity solutions.
- Customer support: A good call center software vendor has multiple lines for technical assistance. Aside from an online help center and a community forum, your provider must offer phone, email, and chat support, ideally available 24/7.
A call center allows users to manage voice communications, while CCaaS (contact center as a service) includes different communication channels, such as SMS, email, and social media, in the cloud.
Bottom Line
The best call center software help businesses accommodate different types of customer communications, thanks to robust call routing and outbound dialing capabilities. It provides easy access to live and historical reports of performance metrics, enabling managers to evaluate call center activities and agent productivity more accurately.
After evaluating different contact center phone systems, CloudTalk stood out as the best solution for those maintaining an international presence. Sign up for the provider’s 14-day free trial today to know if it matches your communication needs.