Contact Center Market Definition

Contact center software, also referred to as CCaaS or contact center as a service, provides businesses with the capabilities necessary to run a cloud-hosted customer contact center. Founded on traditional, voice-based call center solutions, contact center software enables inbound queueing and routing, outbound dialing, call analytics, and workforce management. However, this type of software goes beyond call center infrastructure to support digital interactions in multiple channels, such as SMS, email, and chat. Common features of the best contact center software include automatic call distribution (ACD), interactive voice response (IVR), omnichannel support, and computer-telephony integrations (CTI).

Contact center software is commonly used by support teams to staff a help line or by sales teams to handle prospecting. These products integrate with CRM software applications to access customer information and to update customer records with the post-action summaries. They will often integrate with contact center workforce software, speech analytics software, and contact center quality assurance software solutions if the product doesn’t provide that functionality natively. Contact center solutions may also integrate with or include features for unified communications, or UCaaS. Some businesses opt to use virtual receptionist services in place of contact center software.

To qualify for inclusion in the Contact Center category, a product must:

• Offer a cloud-based contact center solution
• Distribute incoming calls and manage phone number assignment for outbound centers
• Provide the infrastructure for call management, placement, and monitoring
• Provide multiple channels (such as voice, SMS, email, chat) for call center representatives to leverage
• Include the following features: automatic call distributor, interactive voice response, queue management, and computer-telephony integrations
• Supply additional features that assist call center operations, such as speech analytics, workforce management, and quality assurance
• Integrate with CRM software or a company’s system of record

Usability Index Description

A product’s Usability score is calculated by a proprietary algorithm that factors in real-user satisfaction ratings for a number of use-related review questions. Software buyers can compare products in the Contact Center category according to their Usability scores to streamline the buying process and quickly identify the most usable products based on the experiences of their peers. For sellers, media, investors, and analysts, the Index provides benchmarks for product comparison and market trend analysis.

Badges are awarded to products for: Best Usability (highest overall Usability score), Easiest to Use (highest ease of use rating), Easiest Admin (highest ease of admin score), and Best Meets Requirements (highest meets requirements score).

Products included in Usability Index for Contact Center | Winter 2024 have received both a minimum of 10 reviews and 5 responses from real users for each of the use-related questions featured in our review form by November 21, 2023. These ratings may change as the products are further developed, the sellers grow, and as additional opinions are shared by users. A new Usability Index report will be issued for this category as significant data is collected.