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How easy it is for your customers to reach you is central to whether or not they become loyal, repeat buyers or churn and head to a competitor. 

Long hold times, missed calls, and clunky systems that keep your team bogged down all add up to a poor customer experience. If this sounds familiar, it might be time to look at cloud contact center solutions.

In this article, we’ll explain how a cloud-based contact center can transform customer support, what features to prioritize, and the top five software solutions that stand out in today’s market. 

What Is a Cloud Contact Center Solution?

A cloud contact center solution is a customer communications platform hosted entirely in the cloud. It allows businesses to manage customer interactions without needing physical infrastructure. 

This setup relies on a secure internet connection and allows customer support and sales teams to access calls, chats, emails, and other customer service channels from virtually anywhere. By moving operations to the cloud, companies gain flexibility, scalability, and cost savings while ensuring a seamless experience for both agents and customers.

What is the difference between a cloud contact center and a hosted contact center?

The main distinction between cloud and hosted contact centers lies in how they’re deployed and managed:

• Cloud contact center: A cloud-based call center is fully hosted in the cloud and managed by a third-party provider. Your company’s data and applications are located on external servers, which allows for flexibility and easy scaling—as you can add new users or features quickly without physical infrastructure changes.

• Hosted contact center: A hosted contact center is similar but may not be entirely cloud-based. Instead, it may rely on off-site physical servers owned by a third-party provider, offering a hybrid approach. While hosted contact centers deliver many cloud benefits, like remote access and provider-managed maintenance, they may be limited in terms of real-time scalability and can have higher maintenance costs compared to a fully cloud-based setup.

Why Use a Cloud Contact Center Instead of a Traditional Contact Center?

Switching from a traditional to a cloud contact center is a smarter approach for managing customer interactions in a way that’s agile, cost-effective, and packed with advanced features.

10 Features Your Cloud Contact Center Solution Should Offer

Here are the top 10 features to look for in a high-performing cloud-based call center software:

1. Dashboard and activity feed: A centralized dashboard and real-time activity feed provide an instant overview of key metrics to help managers track performance and monitor interactions at a glance.

2. Collaboration tools: Built-in team collaboration features, such as internal chat and file sharing, streamline communication and allow contact center agents to solve customer issues faster by accessing instant support from colleagues.

3. Omnichannel support: A cloud contact center should allow agents to manage calls, chats, emails, and social media messages from one unified platform to ensure a consistent customer experience across all channels.

4. Smart call routing: Advanced call routing ensures customers are directed to the right agent based on skills, availability, or other criteria to minimize wait times and improve first-contact resolution rates.

5. IVR and self-service options: Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems let customers resolve common issues independently to reduce the load on agents and speed up service for routine inquiries.

6. Extensive integrations: A good cloud contact center seamlessly integrates with CRMs, helpdesk software, and other business tools to increase agent productivity by consolidating customer data into one accessible solution.

7. Analytics and reporting: Built-in analytics provide valuable insights into call trends, customer satisfaction, and agent performance to allow managers to make data-driven decisions that optimize operations and customer service.

8. AI and automation capabilities: AI-powered tools can automate repetitive tasks, route calls intelligently, and even provide real-time prompts to agents.

9. Call recording and monitoring: Call recording allows managers to monitor interactions for quality assurance and training and ensure every agent delivers consistent, high-quality service.

10. Mobile and remote access: A cloud contact center with mobile access empowers agents to work from anywhere, making it easy to support remote teams and ensure business continuity during unforeseen disruptions.

5 Top Cloud Contact Center Solutions

Choosing the right virtual call center software can greatly impact how efficiently your team handles customer interactions. 

Here’s a look at five top cloud phone solutions leading the way in functionality, reliability, and ease of use.

Aircall

Aircall’s live call monitoring feature gives you a real-time overview of what’s happening in your call center.

Aircall’s cloud-based customer communications software empowers contact center teams with powerful analytics and real-time insights, which allow managers to monitor performance closely and make data-driven improvements on the go. With over 100 integrations—spanning CRMs, helpdesk software, and productivity tools—Aircall simplifies workflows by automating repetitive tasks and centralizing customer information. 

Designed to meet the needs of sales, IT, operations, and customer service teams, Aircall helps you improve communication across departments and enables you to deliver seamless, impactful customer experiences.

• Features: AI-powered conversation intelligence, automated calling, call recording, multi-line Power Dialer, CRM integration, disposition logging, caller ID

• Integrations: 100+ integrations, including ActiveCampaign, HubSpot, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, and Zendesk

• Pricing: From $40/month/user

All the features your sales and customer support teams need to have better conversations, boost sales, and increase productivity. Try Aircall for free.

Talkdesk

Talkdesk gives your agents important customer information to help them provide exceptional service.

Suited for mid-size to enterprise-level companies, Talkdesk is widely used across industries where seamless, scalable customer support is essential—such as finance, healthcare, retail, and government.

Talkdesk’s AI-powered features help streamline customer service operations by automating routine tasks. Automated customer responses, conversation summaries, and quick information retrieval help reduce the workload on live agents and allow them to focus on complex inquiries. 

• Features: Advanced routing, call monitoring and reporting, agent workspaces, real-time dashboards

• Integrations: 60+ integrations, including Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Slack, Zendesk, and Zoom

• Pricing: From $85/month/user (3-year contract)

Five9

Keep track of important customer details within Five9’s platform.

Five9 is designed for large, blended contact centers and offers features like conversational AI, global voice and VoIP capabilities, and omnichannel support. 

Its cloud contact center platform includes agent gamification to increase engagement and productivity, an open API for easy customization, and app integrations. Five9’s reporting and analytics give managers insights to improve performance, while workflow automation minimizes repetitive tasks.

• Features: SMS/MMS, email, inbound/outbound calling, workflow automation, video calling, employee engagement

• Integrations: 80+ integrations, including Microsoft, Oracle, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Zendesk

• Pricing: From $119/month/user (3-year contract)

Nextiva

Use Nextiva to manage calls, send text messages, and hold video conferences from your desktop or mobile device.

Designed to meet the needs of industries like healthcare, real estate, education, and retail, Nextiva supports both customer interactions and internal collaboration, adapting to each sector's specific communication requirements.

The tool facilitates customer engagement across multiple channels, including inbound/outbound voice, live chat, business SMS, digital messaging apps, social media, and video meetings. Its features include workflow automation, workforce management, and analytics with real-time dashboards for streamlined operations and data-driven insights. 

• Features: Unlimited voice and video calling, voicemail, toll-free numbers, unlimited internet fax

• Integrations: 20 integrations, including HubSpot, Microsoft, Oracle, Zendesk, Zoho

• Pricing: From $30/month/user

8x8

8x8 helps you better engage your customers with the data and automations your customer-facing team needs.

8x8 is used across diverse industries, such as education, government, healthcare, making it a versatile software solution for various communication and operational needs. The communication platform comes with features like auto-attendants, smart call routing, call recording, and call queuing. 

The solution also includes video conferencing with meeting recording and transcripts, team messaging, and file sharing to facilitate collaboration. 

• Features: Basic auto-attendant; unified mobile, desktop, and web app; team messaging; voicemail; unlimited calling in the U.S. and Canada

• Integrations: 60+ integrations, including Hubspot, Microsoft Dynamics, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce

• Pricing: No pricing information is listed on the 8x8 website.

Choose the Most Reliable Cloud Contact Center Solution on the Market

Aircall’s advanced cloud contact center solution helps businesses drive up revenue and improve the customer support experience.

Choosing the right cloud call center software can be the difference between a conversation that results in a loyal customer and one that causes frustration and churn. That’s why you need a platform that offers flexibility, powerful features, and seamless integration with all the tools in your existing tech stack—and Aircall is that solution.

The platform is easy to use and offers real-time analytics, 100+ integrations, advanced productivity features, and AI-driven conversation insights. With tools built to streamline team collaboration and enhance customer experiences, the customer communications and intelligence software adapts with your business as it grows. 

Aircall provides the support and functionality your team needs to deliver exceptional service, every step of the way.

All the features your sales and customer support teams need to have better conversations, boost sales, and increase productivity. Try Aircall for free. 

Published on December 23, 2024.