Call center software is an application that has the technical abilities to manage communications among customers and your business from multiple channels such as telephone, emails, and social media. It helps the employees to handle the incoming calls, track all the calls’ data, make outgoing calls, and manage the workforce.
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Call center solution software is divided into two types:
1. On-premises call center software
Using On-premises systems will give you control over the phone systems. To use this system you will have to buy expensive hardware and more expenses for maintenance of the system. Another problem with this system is that it decreases the scalability of the business from multiple places, you can not control your call center unless you are in the same place as the center.
2. Cloud-hosted call center software.
When using Cloud-hosted call center software, you will not need to buy any hardware. The price of the service will depend on your usage, so it is a lot cheaper. You will not need installations also. It gives you benefits like the availability of data from anywhere at any time and secure connections.
However, you need to determine your needs in terms of requirements, budget, and features to help you choose the right call center software On-premise or Cloud-hosted.
Other factors may be important in making your mind when choosing the call center software such as the nature of conversations between you and your clients. This can make you choose between inbound and outbound call center management software.
In this article, we will show you five of the best call center software discussing their pros and cons. The call center software choice is an important factor to enhance the growth of your business. The good software will give you multiple useful tools such as call barging, call monitoring, and real-time dashboards.
1. Go Answer.
Go Answer is one of the best picks in the inbound call center services as it has a great price and comprehensive features giving you all your needs. Their pricing plans are flexible so they are suitable for all sizes of businesses. It is also a good choice for growing companies that need to scale to accommodate their growth. Go Answer has three main call center locations, two United States centers in Florida and New York, with the third location in Saint Lucia.
Pricing.
Go Answer’s pricing is amazing in terms of flexibility and competitiveness. Shares packages that run in monthly subscription comes with a 30-day trial. Setup fees (75$) will be paid only if you continue using Go Answer after the trial period. Their plans start from 50$ per month and a 1.15$ per-minute overage fee up to 8200 $ per month and a 90 cent per-minute overage fee. You can also make your plan accustomed to your business needs.
Go Answer Features.
Go Answer offers multiple features and services that make your business easier to respond to your customers. These features include:
1.Live Answering: The basic service offered by all call center services. It helps you manage the inbound phone calls to the agents at Go Answer. The agents can help you develop scripts to handle your calls correctly.
2.Message Taking: Agents can take down your clients’ data and direct them to the appropriate personnel in your company who can follow them up.
3.Customer Service: Go Answer agents can assist your clients with any needed service or direct them to the right place.
Other features: they include customer retention, call patching, email and text messaging notifications, client portal, and outbound services.
Go Answer Pros:
1.Comprehensive features list.
2. Flexible monthly subscription plans are suitable for small and large companies.
3. Custom plans can be developed for companies that need more than the 10,000-minute package.
4. Easy scaling up and down for all needs.
5. One of the best customer service experiences.
6. Go Answer is not a tiered service, this means that if you choose the cheapest plan, you will also have access to all the services of the software.
Go Answer Cons:
1.Although Go Answer prices are competitive, they are not the cheapest options available.
2.Go answer offers outbound services only on a case-by-case basis.
3.Go Answer asks for an evaluation of the needs of your business to develop a specific outbound approach.
2.Tele direct.
Tele direct is a flexible service that offers pricing models suitable for all businesses. It is always a good choice for small and large businesses as well. Some consider Tele direct is the best call center overall for a small business. Tele Direct has more than 400 agents ready for your service. They provide the best shared and dedicated agent service. They have two centers in the US where they answer phone calls and manage their clients.
Pricing:
Tele direct plan depends on a package of minutes, not on a fixed monthly subscription. The purchased minutes or available permanently and will not expire. if you cancel your subscription before you run out of minutes you will receive a refund of up to 80%. Tele Direct’s minimum usage per month is at least 29 minutes. The prices range from 300 minutes for $387 up to 20000 minutes for $15,000.
Teledirect Features:
1.live answering: Tele Direct agents will answer phone calls for your business professionally. Their agents will answer based on a script provided by you and it is fully customizable.
2.Message taking: Agents will take down a message along with the clients’ data and send it to your company via email.
3.Tech support: Agents may give your clients basic technical support in the basic problems.
Other features and services include: Customer support, Order processing, lead follow-up, market research, email and webchat management, and client portal.
Teledirect Pros:
1.The best overall center service for small businesses.
2.Teledirect agents are multilingual, speaking English, Spanish, and more.
3.The ability to access all the advanced features even on the cheapest plans.
4.Competitive prices.
Teledirect Cons:
1. Some of the extra features that you have to pay more money for are the main features in other services.
2. The minimum usage requirement for 29 minutes per month is necessary to keep the subscription active.
3.SAS (Speciality Answering Service).
SAS is one of the most well known and established call center companies on the market. They have decades of experience in the field, offering their services to many businesses in all fields but they are more invested in fields as healthcare, finance, and legal industries. SAS is more than just a call center service, they offer inbound and outbound call center options. This is perfect for growing businesses and startups. They are also good options for larger companies as they have important features as market research, technical support, and location services.
SAS is also HIPAA-compliant which means their agents can handle secret information professionally and confidentially.
Pricing:
SAS offers 8 pricing plans for different levels. The plan composed of a number of minutes each month. They have made their plans flexible and affordable for all volumes of businesses. Their plans start from $31 per month and an overage fee of $1.19 per minute up to $7749 for 10,000 minutes and an overage fee for 79 cents per minute.
The plans can be more flexible according to your needs, SAS offers 14-day free trial period and you will not need to provide your credit card info in advance. SAS charges you $50 installation fees paid once only.
SAS features and services:
1. Order processing: If your business includes e-commerce interactions, SAS agents will guide the clients with their purchases and answer any questions.
2. Lead capture: The SAS software can grab the details of the callers’ whether they are asking about a service or a product and update your CRM automatically.
3. Appointment setting: SAS agents can set appointments for your company via a shared calendar where you get notified when any new appointment is set.
4. Bilingual Support: SAS agents are prepared to help your clients in English and Spanish.
5. Other answering services: Live Answering, Message taking, Client portal.
6. Call center services: Help desk, Sales, Locate a dealer, and market research.
Speciality Answer Service Pros:
1. Competitive pricing and extensive features.
2. Decades of experience in the call center service.
3. HIPAA-regulations compliant.
4. Service customization available.
5. Suitable plans for all sizes of business companies.
Specialty Answering Service Cons:
The rates are not the cheapest option for small businesses. However, it is suitable for midsized and larger companies.
4. Stericycle Communication.
Stericycle Communication Solutions introduces answering services suitable for the healthcare industry and any medical practices. Stericycle Communication understands through its extended experience the needs of the healthcare providers and their patients. The company’s services are HIPAA-compliant to make sure the patient’s information is completely secure and according to the law.
Stericycle Communications do not only offer amazing basic answering services, but they also offer services specifically for health care providers such as physician referral, appointment scheduling, and appointment reminders for your patients. Their pricing options vary according to the client. However, they require signing a yearlong contract at least.
Pricing:
Stericycle Communications plans are variable according to the client. They have no previously set plans with constant amounts of money to be paid. If you want to hire Stericycle Communications they will ask you for specific information about your practice including average call volume, service requirements, and other more. After that, they will send you a price quote.
You will have to sign a one year contract for your business, unlike other services that operate on a monthly basis. This may be due to the sensitive nature of the medical industry.
Stericycle Communications features and services:
1.Physician referral: Stericycle agents can help your clients reach the appropriate specialist to their case and set appointments with them.
2. Live answering: The basis of any call center service is the live answering agents that manage the call you get through a script you provide or a guideline to represent your business professionally. The agents are available 24 hours every day of the year.
3.Appointment Reminder: It is known that missed appointments can be expensive for the business. Stericycle offers to remind the patient with their appointments and make sure they do not miss it.
4. Post-discharge services: Stericycle agents will follow up with your patients after discharge from the hospital to follow up on the appointments and check on the patients.
Stericycle Communication Solutions Pros:
1. A leading service provider for medical industries and other general corporations.
2. HIPAA-compliant services ensuring the safety of your patient’s legal and medical records.
3. Medical services as physician referrals and appointment reminders.
Stericycle Communication Solutions Cons:
1. You have to sign a 12-month contract, as it is uncommon for other services to require long contracts.
2. Stericycle charges holiday service fees.
5. Contact Communications.
Contact Communications is a great choice for low-cost call center services. They are pay-as-you-go services that operate on low base service rates and cheap per-minute usage rates. The company offers all the core features of call center services that you need.
Contact Communications is the best option for startups and very small businesses. It will be perfect for businesses on a budget that wants to outscore a portion of their calls’ volume. They include multiple services such as order taking, appointment scheduling, and tech support. Contact Communications prices start at $19.99 per month and the price will vary according to the services you require and your monthly call minutes.
Pricing:
Contact Communications pricing is simple following two rules. You pay a basic sum according to the level of service needed and at the end of the month you pay more fees according to the minutes consumed.
The base rate varies from $40 per month reaching $33.5 if billed annually down to $25 per month reaching $19.99.
The minute usage varies from 79 cents per minute for less than 500 minutes per month, up to more than 1000 minutes per month for 60 cents per minute.
Some additional services are billed separately such as text-to-cell for $5 per month per cell phone, voicemail for $5 per month, faxing for per minute usage chart, appointment scheduling for $10 per month, E-fax for $9.95 per month.
The email message service includes encrypted emails that are HIPAA compliant.
Contact Communications features and services:
1. Live answering: Live answering for your company’s calls by trained agents as a continuation of your business. Contact communications use scripts provided by your business to handle your calls professionally.
2. Message and order taking: Contact Communications’ agents can gather the contact information and record their inquiries and then deliver the messages to your company via email. They can also take orders from your clients and decrease cart abandonment rates for your business. They will help the callers find the desired products and answer their questions placing the order properly.
3. FAQs: Your company can make a list of frequently asked questions by customers and their answers. The agents will answer your clients according to this list.
Contact Communications Pros:
- The best choice for businesses with very low call volume.
Contact Communications Cons:
1. Contact Communications bills in 30-second increments which inflate the number of the billed minutes greatly.
2. Contact Communications offer limited features as an answering service compared to its competitors. They do not offer features like client portals. Client portals include detailed reports and customizable options for scripts.