What is Contact Center Software?

Contact center software is a collection of applications that automate key contact center processes. Contact center software helps organizations control costs, develop agents, monitor and enhance the customer experience, maintain compliance with laws and regulations, and more. Contact center software has advanced significantly over time and is often at the forefront of incorporating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.

Contact center software may be hosted on-site ("on-premises") or hosted by a vendor in the cloud in a software as a service (SaaS) arrangement. Organizations that choose on-premises solutions may have a little more control, but they also incur more IT overhead associated with hardware, applying updates, providing security, and other support activities. With cloud-based contact center software, vendors assume these responsibilities. Additionally, cloud solutions are typically more cost-effective and flexible. These qualities are why most contact centers are moving to the cloud.

Common contact center software applications

• Automatic call distributors (ACDs) - ACDs are foundational to contact center operations. They route incoming calls to agents based on rules associated with agent availability, the nature of the customer issue, agent skills, and more. Advanced ACDs can also route contacts from digital channels and incorporate additional routing criteria, such as customer sentiment, into their routing algorithms.
• Interactive voice response (IVR) - IVR systems greet callers and allow them to interact with menus that ultimately lead to an agent or a self-service transaction. IVRs are often integrated with ACDs, as the information gathered by IVRs makes ACD routing even more effective. Modern IVRs use speech recognition to allow customers to simply speak their needs or menu options.
• Workforce management - Contact center software suites typically include workforce management (WFM) applications, which automate volume forecasting, agent scheduling, and intraday management. Advanced WFM software has features like omnichannel, AI-infused forecasting and provides agents with the ability to influence their schedules.
• Call recording - Call recording software allows contact centers to record, store, and retrieve calls. The best call recording software has features that help organizations stay compliant with applicable laws and regulations.
• Reporting - Reporting applications allow data-driven contact centers to stay on top of key performance metrics. The best solutions come with a multitude of out-of-the-box reports and also let end-users easily create their own reports.