Understanding Omnichannel Contact Center Software and Top 5 Options for Businesses

If you are looking for a platform to manage all your customer interactions, then omnichannel contact center software is the perfect solution. It improves customer experience and helps achieve tangible business results in your organization. The contact center fosters customer engagement, integrates with other communication platforms, and supports customers across social media, text, video, voice, email, and voice-over IP (VoIP) technology. Here is everything you need to know about this customer service function:
What is omnichannel contact center software?
Business communication systems come with call queuing and then routing those calls to agents with the right skills and expertise to address customer queries. Software with inbound queueing and routing, outbound dialing, call analytics, and workforce management that allows customers to switch back and forth across channels is called omnichannel contact center software. The software offers features like automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), omnichannel support, and computer-telephony integrations (CTI). This software facilitates all forms of business communication so that agents are able to provide customer service across multiple channels.
Most software uses a cloud-based solution to handle customer interaction from multiple channels. Omnichannel cloud contact center software features ACD to route contacts from multiple channels, workforce management systems to forecast volume for channels (like phone, text, video, and social media), and tools to give agents customer data and customer conversation history. The sales team in your organization can use this software to handle prospecting, as the software can be integrated with applications to access customer information and update customer records.
Must-have features
A good omnichannel contact center software should have:
A cloud architecture to quickly manage data across multiple channels
Omnichannel routing to direct customer queries across service channels
Additional features like speech analytics, workforce management, and quality assurance
ACD, IVR, queue management, and computer-telephony integrations
Integration with existing CRM (or customer relationship management) software
Benefits
Unified desktop: The software provides a unified desktop for agents to work on one screen without screen toggling hassles. Your sales agents can manage all the customer interactions from one place, whether by email, voice, social media, or live chat. It enables the sales workforce to plan and work responsively.
Improves customer experience: Offers instant gratification to customers by supporting them across multiple channels like in-app chats, phone, live chat, and social media. It has a direct positive effect on customer experience. For instance, intelligent call routing can help agents provide personalized service.
Better reach: Also, the omnichannel contact center software solution helps you reach a wide variety of audiences, widens communication channels, and provides abundant opportunities.
Advanced AI-powered analytics: This helps transform customer engagement with intelligence, identifies priority customers, aligns skilled agents, and offers precise solutions.
Increased efficiency: The software allows automated operations and streamlines your business workflow. For instance, omnichannel routing automation improves efficiency and productivity by featuring routing capabilities like preferred agent routing, dedicated agent routing, skill-based routing, and the least recently used routing. This ensures that the platform forwards interactions to the best agent to quickly meet the client’s specific needs.
Quick action: Omnichannel Contact Center Software monitors real-time customer information from one place. Also, the software enables managers and supervisors to gain actionable insights and use them to make informed decisions.
Reduces costs: Cloud-based contact centers lower operational costs compared to on-premise solutions.
Best omnichannel contact center software
Talkdesk
Taldesk is an end-to-end cloud contact center solution with omnichannel and workforce engagement, employee collaboration, AI, and customer experience analytics. The top features of Talkdesk are:
- 60+ pre-built CRM integrations
- Talkdesk AI to automate customer self-service, empower agents, and mitigate fraud
- A real-time activity dashboard for contact and customer management
- IVR and VoIP technology
- Integration for automatic missed call notifications and new contact information
- Call conferencing, tracking, monitoring, recording, reporting, tagging, and scheduling
- Voice, digital, and outbound engagement
- Workforce management
- Actionable customer intelligence analytics
Nice CXone
This is one of the best omnichannel contact center software that comes with digital entry points, an AI engine, self-service, journey orchestration, automation, and prepared agent features. Some noteworthy features of Nice CXone are:
- Captures data through AI and optimizes workforce
- Enables planning, staffing, and scheduling through AI
- Robotic process automation for faster resolution of customer issues and reduced costs
- Optimizes voice as a service solution
- Predictive dialer and call recording capability
- ACD and IVR
- Real-time reporting and dashboard
Five9 Virtual Contact Center
Five9 is a cloud Contact Center platform for inbound, outbound, blended, and omnichannel contact centers. It elevates customer and agent experience through AI. Also, Five9 comes with inbound and outbound communication functions and predictive dialing features. Other striking features of this cloud-based Contact Center solution are:
- API and CRM integrations
- Natural language processing and speech recognition for IVR (with visual options)
- Reporting and customer interaction analytics
- Live agents with AI assist feature
Genesys Cloud CX
This is an omnichannel contact center solution that manages interactions and metrics with features:
- Real-time response
- Automated routing and cloud telephone for unified communications
- AI support
- ACD
The pricing starts from $75 per month with inbound, outbound voice, Secure IVR, callbacks, and voice campaigns.
8×8
8×8 is an omnichannel cloud solution with advanced speech, engagement, customer, and interaction analytics. Intuitive features include:
- Integrated voice, web chat, email, and social media
- Skill-based routing
- Interoperable team messaging and graphical call flow design
- Predictive dialer, post-call surveys, and collaborative performance management
It has an open integration framework that connects business and CRM apps to the contact center, phone, video meets, and team chat. Also, it provides end-to-end encryption with unified journey analytics starting from $15.
Omnichannel cloud contact center software can help capture customer interactions at every stage across multiple platforms and allows you to create intelligent solutions for cross-channel personalization. Moreover, AI bots can boost your team’s efficiency, and CRM integrations can unify customers’ journeys. Also, it tracks customer data and information, offers real-time insights, optimizes agent productivity, and routes customers intelligently through social media, web chat, or text messages. Explore all the five omnichannel Contact Center Solutions and choose the right platform for your organization.