Unlike small business solutions, enterprise contact center solutions must handle massive interaction volumes with complex workflows and global teams. Finding a provider that can handle everything you need can be a challenge, choosing the right contact center solution is essential.
In this guide, we’ll cover what to look for and why you should consider cloud based contact center solutions. Plus, we’ll discuss the top enterprise contact center solution providers so you can find one that will work for your needs.
Enterprise Contact Center Solutions
Once upon a time, call centers were the gold standard of customer service. Today, organizations of all sizes are turning to contact centers instead. Contact centers are similar to call centers, except they utilize multiple channels to communicate with customers, not just voice.
Enterprise contact center solutions are designed for the large-scale needs of big organizations, helping them manage all their customer interaction across phone, email, chat, SMS, social media, and more. They provide the technology and tools needed to support high call volumes, complex workflows, large teams, and strict compliance and security requirements.
The goal of an enterprise contact center solution is to help organizations deliver consistent, high-quality customer experiences.
Cloud Based Contact Center Solutions
Although some companies are still using legacy systems, many are switching to cloud based contact center solutions. Cloud-based platforms run entirely over the internet instead of on physical, on-site hardware. They allow businesses to manage all customer communication channels on a single platform.
Because everything is hosted in the cloud, you can scale quickly, add agents from anywhere, and access advanced features like AI-powered routing and analytics, all while saving money. With cloud-based platforms, you don’t have to handle the high costs of installation and maintenance. Instead, you pay a monthly or annual subscription fee. Cloud contact centers also allow your agents to work from anywhere, enabling teams to handle customer interactions even when away from the office.
Contact Center Analytic Solutions
With so many customer interactions, your enterprise is handling enormous amounts of data. Contact center analytic solutions compile that data to provide insights you need to understand how to improve performance and customer experiences. You need more than just basic call metrics. You need deep visibility into agent activity, customer behavior, and overall service quality.
The best contact center solutions capture and analyze data from every interaction channel, including voice, chat, email, SMS, and social media. They use AI and machine learning to identify trends, predict customer needs, and highlight areas that need improvement. Features like real-time dashboards, historical reporting, sentiment analysis, and speech analytics can help you measure KPIs to improve your contact center. In short, analytics turn raw customer interactions into actionable insights that drive continuous improvement.
Features for Enterprises
While every business has unique needs, enterprises usually require a robust solution that can handle large volumes of interactions across multiple channels. If your current setup isn’t cutting it, here are some features to look for in enterprise contact center solutions:
- Omnichannel communication: You need a platform that unifies all of your customer touchpoints, including voice, SMS, email, live chat, social media, in-app and website chat, and/or global messaging apps like WhatsApp. Customers switch channels often, and an omnichannel system keeps context all in one place so agents don’t have to start over from square one at every interaction.
- Advanced IVR: Interactive voice response, or IVR, is the system that greets callers and routes them to the right agent or department based on the customer’s input. Small organizations are fine with an IVR that only offers a few options, but your enterprise likely needs something more sophisticated. Look for systems with multi-level IVR that can handle your complex setup with customizable IVR flows. You may also want one that enables self-service automation for basic tasks like current balance, bill pay, hours, and more. A good IVR system can lower wait times for customers and improve agent efficiency.
- Integrations: Look for SaaS contact center solutions that offer integrations with CRM, help desk and ticketing tools, ERP systems, and other software that you rely on. Deep integrations between your contact center and your other software provide agents with unified customer data in real-time, helping your team provide better service. You may also want to look for open APIs so your IT department can further customize your contact center software.
- AI: When it comes to contact center cloud solutions, AI and automation tools are becoming increasingly more necessary for enterprise businesses. AI features like chatbots, real-time agent assist, predictive analytics, transcription, and sentiment analysis can improve resolution speed and reduce your costs.
- Workforce engagement management (WEM): With a large team comes the daunting responsibility of managing tons of employees. WEM tools can help you optimize your workforce so agents work more efficiently, offering better service. They can also help you with forecasting and scheduling so you always have the right amount of agents available to communicate with customers. Quality management, performance dashboards, and coaching tools help you keep service levels high across your large team.
- Reporting and analytics: As a large company, data-driven decisions are essential. Look for contact center analytics solutions that offer real-time dashboards, customizable KPIs, historical reporting, speech analytics, and customer journey tracking.
- Global compliance and security: Protecting your data from cyberattacks is critical in today’s business world. The best contact center solutions offer strong security that also keeps you compliant with global standards. Look for SOC2 compliance, ISO27001 certification, HIPAA compliance (if applicable), and GDPR-compliant data handling. Other security and compliance features your enterprise may need include end-to-end encryption, secure call recording and store, role-based access controls, single sign-on, multi-factor authentication, and security assertion markup language.
Top Enterprise Contact Center Solution Providers
If you’re looking for contact center cloud solutions built for enterprises, consider these top providers.
Nextiva
Our number one enterprise contact center solution provider, Nextiva, is an all-in-one platform designed to help you improve the customer experience. Nextiva offers advanced IVR, omnichannel support, customizable call routing, workforce management, predictive analytics, and single sign-on. Nextiva also has some strong AI features, like AI-powered dialing, dynamic scripting that assists agents during calls, and an intelligent display for agents.
Strengths: Nextiva is a feature-rich enterprise contact center solution with advanced analytics, AI-powered tools, workforce management features, and team collaboration.
Genesys Cloud CX
Genesys is one of the most mature SaaS contact center solution providers, with decades of experience. Genesys is an all-in-one customer experience platform, with omnichannel support and AI-driven journey orchestration. Additional standout features include workforce engagement tools, quality management, and analytics. Plus, Genesys offers strong security features with ISO 27001 certification and compliance options.
Strengths: Genesys Cloud CX offers just about everything your enterprise could need in a contact center. It’s a fully comprehensive solution with strong AI, advanced self-help options, and tons of enterprise-grade integrations.
RingCentral Contact Center
RingCentral offers not only one of the most popular unified communications platforms on the market but also one of the best omnichannel contact center solutions. It supports over 30 channels, including voice, video, SMS, and major messaging and social media apps. Plus, RingCentral integrates with hundreds of top business apps.
Strengths: RingCentral is a fully comprehensive solution, with advanced call management, omnichannel routing, and customization features.
Five9
Five9 is a fully cloud-based, enterprise-grade contact center provider with smart routing, omnichannel support, and high reliability. Its AI features are advanced, helping you automate repetitive tasks and handle simple customer interactions. It scales well for large customer interaction volumes and provides extensive integrations and real-time call transcription.
Strengths: Five9’s biggest strength is its AI-powered features, which include agent assist, workflow automation, conversational AI, and machine learning tools that help simplify analysis.
Talkdesk
Talkdesk is another of the best contact center solutions, with a platform that’s built for scale. The platform empowers support, sales, and service teams with AI-powered tools and advanced analytics. Some of its best features for enterprises include predictive dialing, virtual agent, omnichannel engagement, AI-powered WEM tools, and strong security features. Plus, it provides over 70 out-of-the-box integrations with apps like Salesforce, Zendesk, and more.
Strengths: Talkdesk supports different deployment models: pure cloud, hybrid, and bring-your-own carrier. It also has industry-specific solutions designed for healthcare, finance, retail, and government.
Types of Enterprise Contact Center Solutions
The type of enterprise contact center solution that works best for your company will depend on the type of contact center you’re operating. There are three main types: inbound, outbound, and blended. Inbound contact centers focus on receiving calls and contact from customers, while outbound contact centers proactively reach out to customers. Blended contact centers combine both, allowing agents to handle incoming requests while also managing outgoing campaigns.
Inbound Contact Center Solution
Inbound contact centers are designed to receive customer-initiated interactions. These are the centers customers contact when they need help, information, or support. Common uses of inbound contact centers include: customer service, technical support, billing questions, order tracking, returns, and appointment scheduling.
When looking for an inbound contact center solution, you’ll want to find a provider that offers intelligent call routing, such as skills or priority-based routing, and multi-level IVR. Self-service features can reduce the burden on your agents, saving them for more complicated queries. CRM integrations are another must for an inbound contact center. These integrations link data from your CRM to your contact center software and help your agents work more efficiently.
Outbound Contact Center Solutions
Outbound contact centers focus on initiating contact with customers or prospects. They are commonly used for sales outreach, cold calling, lead qualification, customer surveys and feedback campaigns, appointment reminders, collections, and proactive customer notifications.
When looking for an outbound contact center solution, you’ll want to find a provider that offers auto-dialers, such as predictive, preview, and progressive dialing. These features help agents reach more customers with less downtime. Compliance tools for the Do Not Call registry and TCPA are also essential, especially if you want to avoid being marked as spam.
Blended Contact Centers
A blended contact center handles both inbound and outbound interactions, often dynamically. Agents switch between incoming support calls and outgoing sales or follow-up tasks based on real-time volume and priorities. This type of contact center is usually more expensive to run, as agents need skills in both types of calls.
A blended contact center benefits from a unified agent desktop for all channels, and smart workload management to balance both types of tasks. Omnichannel routing is key for managing the load, and real-time analytics can show where help is needed.
Things to Look for in Onboarding
When switching to a new enterprise contact center solution, onboarding can often be the trickiest part. It takes a lot of time and effort to migrate data, train employees, and learn the new system yourself. Here are some things to look for in the onboarding process:
- Comprehensive training: With all the features required in an enterprise-grade contact center platform, training is essential. Does the provider offer step-by-step guides, tutorials, access to acknowledgment base, and role-specific training?
- Technical support: Does the provider offer technical support during onboarding? This can ensure you properly configure the system and can help avoid major hiccups.
- Data migration: When moving from one system to another, you have a lot of data to worry about. Some providers offer help with data migration to ensure nothing gets lost along the way.
Customer Support
Another major consideration when choosing between contact center cloud solutions is the type of customer support they offer. Good customer support can make the difference between a good provider and a great one. Here are some things to look for when evaluating the customer support provided:
- Are they available 24/7? You need a provider who’s there to help you whenever technical difficulties arise.
- How responsive are they? You want a provider who responds quickly and is able to help without a long wait.
- Do they provide a dedicated account manager? Having a consistent point of contact who knows the details of your account helps you receive better support faster.
Enterprise Contact Center Solutions Conclusion
When it comes to contact center solutions, enterprises have unique needs compared to SMBs. You want to find a provider that offers the features you need while also being able to handle the volume of calls and contact you receive from customers.
It can take a lot of work to sort through all the cloud based contact center solutions on the market, but Arcus can help. We start by consulting with you to thoroughly understand what your organization needs. From there, we can show you quotes and offer advice on how best to set up your contact center.
If you’re ready to take your customer service to the next level, contact Arcus to set up a consultation today!
