Are you planning to put up a contact center or perhaps work with one? Are you looking into equipping your sales and support team with the best phone systems available, the kind they use in call centers?
Call centers are not just the agents and managers – although these people are a huge part of a successful one. Contact centers are also defined by the technologies they employ, particularly their phone systems.
Of course, when we say phone systems here, we don’t just mean the physical phone unit. A phone system is made up of several hardware, software and processes.
It facilitates basic call center functions, such as call routing and logging, agent desktop interface, multi-channel communications and predictive dialing. Integrations, such as CRM integration and Workforce Management, are also requisites at this point. Additional features, such as automated customer surveys, quality monitoring, multilingual customer support, knowledge management and analytics, are good to have too.
So, know more about the most-used phone systems by contact centers. See where the difference lies; and then understand what’s best for your team.
Leading Phone Systems in Call Centers
1. Avaya
Avaya Inc. is a California-based multinational company, which offers business communications solutions services, as well as VoIP, data and CRM applications and services. It is a huge operation, with over 1 million active customers being served around the world.
It offers a variety of contact center services, including Avaya Aura Contact Center and Avaya Aura Call Center Elite.
Avaya Aura Contact Center is a call center software that makes use of SIP for improved multimedia communications and connectivity. Through its Open Web services, it can be integrated with business applications and databases, like your CRM software. This way, you can encourage data-driven customer interactions and better customer support.
On the other hand, Avaya Aura Call Center Elite is touted as the most widely utilized contact center software globally. It can be adapted into the operations of any business, regardless of size. It is essentially an automatic call distribution application that optimizes resource and routing allocations. It features its intelligent contact routing system, which matches customers with the best agents for their concerns.
2. Mitel
Mitel is a global company with headquarters in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It began as a producer of TDM PBX systems and applications. However, since 2001, it has shifted to offering unified communications solutions for businesses.
One of the company’s primary offerings is MiVoice Business Call Service, which is a robust business communication platform. It facilitates multi-channel communications, mobile access, collaboration features and other applications. It is a good-fit for all sorts of businesses, from small ones to those with up to 65,000 users.
Another Mitel option is the MiContact Center Enterprise, which is a comprehensive customer support platform. Interaction via MiContact is through several channels, including voice, SMS and social media. It also features historical and real-time reporting and analytics to improve agent effectiveness and the customer experience.
3. Nextiva
Nextiva Inc. is an Arizona-based VoIP and other cloud-based services provider, founded by Tomas Gorny. It is a growing company that now boasts of more than 100,000 business clients, to date.
Its call center solutions offer features, such as automatic call distribution, IVR/ auto attendant, queuing, remote or mobile agents, and call monitoring.
4. VoIP Logic
VoIP Logic is a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provider, owned by BroadSoft, Inc. (VoIP Logic was once a wholesale service provider for BroadSoft’s BroadWorks-based cloud communications services.)
Its main call center product is the Call Center with Call Recording PaaS. This is a flexible platform that can be implemented for different-sized businesses and contact centers. It is made up of more than 15 service providers/partners to allow users the perfect mix-and-match options. The service provides features, such as Skills Based Routing, Overflow Call Routing, Priority Queuing, Call Escalation and Real Time Dashboard.
5. Asterisk
Asterisk is a free and open source software, created by Digium’s Mark Spencer. It is designed to create reliable communications servers out of any business-grade computer. It runs on different operating systems, such as macOS, Solaris, NetBSD and Open BSD.
Asterisk includes several propriety PBX features, like conference calling, IVR, voice mail and automatic call distribution. Because it is open source, users can create their own functionalities, using Asterisk’s extension languages. This means that deployers can practically develop their own phone systems for call centers. Or, they can use Asterisk to facilitate the migration to new phone system technologies.
6. Allworx
New York-based Allworx offers VoIP products and solutions specifically created for SMBs. It is owned by Windstream and now counts more than 30,000 customers in a variety of industries.
It started as an engineering firm – with Kodak, Emerson and General Electric as clients – which required a new business phone system. Since none of their options met their needs, they built their own. This led to the company’s debut in VoIP in 2003.
The Allworks Automatic Call Distribution is their leading call center solution, with features like linear priority and round-robin call distribution, superior queue management systems, agent monitoring, and visual queue alarm notifications.
7. Elastix
Elastix is an open source unified communications software that uses HylaFAX, Asterisks, Postfix and Openfire. It is designed to offer enterprise-level unified communications alternatives, with functionalities such as PBX, IM, email and fax.
Elastix 2.5 is one of its more popular iteration because of its flexibility and support of several phone brands and protocols. It includes a call center module, with predictive dialing and capabilities in handling incoming and outgoing call campaigns.
8. NEC
NEC is a multinational company, which began in Japan. It offers a gamut of IT and network services and solutions. Its core business segments are in network solutions, IT solutions and electronic devices. This has brought us the NEC Aspire / DXE / SL1100 / SV8100 / SV8300 / XN120, which are primarily used in contact centers. NEC has the UNIVERGE family of desktop phones, softphones, and in-building wireless systems, which is designed to give agents easier any time access to data, tools and collaborators.
9. RingCentral
RingCentral is a cloud communications solutions provider with headquarters in California, USA. It was founded in 1999 by CEO Vlad Shmunis. It has since transformed business communications and collaboration platforms through cloud-based technologies, with capabilities in voice communications, team collaboration and conferencing, and business messaging, among others.
It also offers the RingCentral Contact Center, a feature-packed call center product developed through a partnership with inContact. It features historical and real-time reporting, multichannel communications, IVR, and several agent monitoring/ management functions.
10. Shoretel
Shoretel is another California-based unified communications service provider for business. It is one of the biggest premise-based, cloud and hybrid business telephony service providers in the world. Its award-winning solutions are designed to improve the customer experience while lowering cost of ownership.
Its Connect Cloud, a hosted cloud contact center solution, and Connect Onsite, an on-premise contact center solution, represent some of Shoretel’s unified communications solutions.