- Best provider offering robust AI-powered features: HubSpot
- Best for giving agents access to real-time data: Pipedrive
- Best for ticketing management and routing: Zendesk
- Best solution offering a self-service portal: Zoho Desk
- Best for managing employees and agents: Bitrix24
- Best offering free live chat: Engagebay
- Best for providing omnichannel support: Kustomer
Call center representatives use CRM software specifically designed for contact or help centers. These platforms host all customer information, including contact information, interaction history, purchase orders, and more. Call center CRM software helps manage ongoing customer relationships by streamlining support throughout the sales process.
Top contact center CRM software comparison
In addition to standard CRM features and capabilities, contact center CRM software include in-depth customer profiles, ticketing systems, multiple communication channels, and advanced reporting and analytics. Typically, a good general CRM provider can have all of these call center functionalities with the right configuration and integrations.
Following CRM software best practices can assist in shaping top providers like HubSpot, Pipedrive, Zendesk, and more into effective contact center CRM.
| Software | Starting premium price* | Customer profiles | Ticket management | Communication channels | Reporting and analytics |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HubSpot | $15 per seat per month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Pipedrive | $34 per seat per month | Yes | Limited | Yes | Limited |
| Zendesk | $19 per seat per month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zoho Desk | $14 per seat per month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bitrix24 | $49 per 5 users per month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Engagebay | $12.74 per seat per month | Yes | Yes | Limited | Yes |
| Kustomer | $89 per seat per month | Yes | Yes | Yes | Limited |
| *Price when billed annually. | |||||
HubSpot: Best provider offering robust AI-powered features
Within HubSpot’s Service Hub, the entire helpdesk and ticketing dashboard empowers reps and agents to manage and resolve queries in an AI-first and fully integrated workspace. Users can utilize AI-powered tools throughout their experience with the platform. With conversation intelligence, chatbots, and messaging, users can use AI to assist in not only strategizing support efforts but actually engaging with clients as well.
Why I chose HubSpot
HubSpot is a very popular CRM platform that offers a robust free version of its software. The call tracking, analytics, reporting, and playbook features help users manage end-to-end sales processes, including post-sale support. HubSpot also offers over 1,500+ potential integrations, making it an easy CRM provider to implement into any businesses’ current sales process and tech stack.
While the HubSpot free tier is feature-rich, there still might be some advanced tools that are only accessible in premium plans. HubSpot’s premium subscriptions can be considered costly for startups or small businesses, so if that’s the case, we’d consider looking into Engagebay for similar support features.
For more information, read the full HubSpot review.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for up to 5 users with contact management, quotes, live chat, and more.
- Service Starter: $20 per seat per month, billed annually. The Starter plan includes all free tools, simple automation, e-signature, conversation routing, and more.
- Service Professional: $100 per seat per month, billed annually. This plan includes all Starter features, prospecting workspace, playbooks, forecasting, and more.
- Service Enterprise: $130 per monthly seat, with an annual commitment. Users of this plan receive all Professional tools plus advanced permissions, predictive lead scoring, conversation intelligence, and lead form routing.
Features
- AI assistant: Increase rep and agent productivity and efficiency with AI built directly into the platform with response suggestions.
- Feedback management: Create NPS, CSAT, CES, and custom surveys to gather critical client feedback.
- Omnichannel messaging: Communicate with customers wherever they want by accessing multiple channels through one inbox and seamlessly switching between them.
HubSpot pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 1,500+ app integrations. | Premium plans can be costly compared to others on this list. |
| Users report easy software deployment. | Users report occasional bugs around data. |
| HubSpot acts as an all-in-one software for sales, marketing, and administration support. | Doesn’t offer live support for free users. |
Pipedrive: Best for giving agents access to real-time data
With Pipedrive as a contact center CRM, agents or sales reps can access real-time customer information and use the CRM data to better understand the customer’s needs and solve their submitted queries efficiently. Pipedrive offers this customer tracking software that collects data from every interaction with the customer, including emails, website visits, and more, and then provides valuable insights into their buying decisions. This will help reps close deals quickly and keep clients engaged and satisfied post-sale.
Why I chose Pipedrive
Pipedrive assists businesses that wish to prioritize customer satisfaction through contact management, real-time data, lead management and retention, and more. It is an easy-to-use sales CRM with powerful integrations, intuitive pipeline tracking, and more. With pricing tiers made for growing small businesses, Pipedrive is a scalable solution that can supercharge every step of your business’s sales cycle.
Pipedrive doesn’t offer a totally free version of its platform, and some add-on features can quickly increase the monthly subscription. If you’re looking for a basic CRM with robust customer support features, starting with a free-for-life plan, consider looking into HubSpot for its robust free tier.
What to learn more? Read our detailed Pipedrive review.
Pricing
- Essential: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $24 monthly. This plan supports 3,000 open deals, 15 reports per user, and multiple communication tracking features.
- Advanced: $34 per user per month, billed annually, or $44 per user when billed monthly. This plan offers all Essential tiers plus active automations, active email syncs, and more.
- Professional: $49 per user per month, billed annually, or $64 per user when billed monthly. This tier has all Advanced features, custom visibility groups, formula fields, and unlimited general availability scheduling links.
- Power: $64 per user per month, billed annually, or $79 per user when billed monthly. Power offers all Professional features, including 24/7 live chat support, phone support, and more.
- Enterprise: $99 per user per month, billed annually, or $129 per user when billed monthly. This plan includes all Power features, security alerts and rules, free project add-ons, and more.
Features
- Embed contact forms: Create customized forms on your business website, making it easy for customers to submit their best contact information.
- Email integration: Connect your email to Pipedrive so reps and agents can read and reply to customers directly within the platform.
- Document management: Create, send, and manage contacts, proposals, reviews, and more with Smart Docs. Then, the information and resources are stored in a secure location.
Pipedrive pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 14-day free trial. | No free-for-life version. |
| Designed specifically for small businesses. | Users report the sales feature add-ons can be pricey. |
| Offers 24/7 support. | Users report limited advanced reporting. |
Zendesk: Best for ticketing management and routing
Zendesk offers a fully integrated ticketing system that acts as a central hub for all client questions, requests, and concerns. After customers reach out via email, chat, phone, or any web channel, submissions are immediately entered as tickets and entered into a queue for reps to pick up. With the help of additional features such as routing, CSAT ratings, time tracking, service level agreements, and more, agents can support clients effectively and efficiently.
Why I chose Zendesk
Zendesk offers a unique solution specifically geared toward customer service. Promoting AI-first service, Zendesk works to deliver faster and more personalized experiences to customers using AI trained in the art of customer service. Their solution allows reps to meet customers exactly where they are across any communication channel.
While Zendesk also offers a modern sales CRM, its bread and butter is the Zendesk Service software. Consider HubSpot, Zoho CRM, or Pipedrive if you need more robust CRM software.
Pricing
Zendesk offers a unique breakdown of its solutions. They offer basic plans for users who just want a ticketing system, calling those plans Support tiers. Zendesk Suite plans offer a complete ticketing, messaging, help center, voice, and powerful AI solution.
- Support Team: $19 per user per month, billed annually, or $25 per user when billed monthly. This plan includes a ticketing system, customer details and conversation histories, business rules, and more.
- Support Professional: $55 per user per month, billed annually, or $69 per user when billed monthly. This tier includes all Support Team features plus multilingual support, SLAs, and more.
- Support Enterprise: $115 per user per month, billed annually, or $149 per user when billed monthly. All mentioned features come in this tier plus skills-based routing, custom agent roles, and more.
- Zendesk Suite Team: $55 per user per month, billed annually, or $69 per user when billed monthly.
- Zendesk Suite Growth: $89 per user per month, billed annually, or $115 per user when billed monthly.
- Zendesk Suite Professional: $115 per user per month, billed annually, or $149 per user when billed monthly.
- Zendesk Suite Enterprise: Contact sales for a custom quote.
Features
- Voice: Speak directly with clients and deliver personalized solutions to complex issues. With embedded voice, customers can seamlessly contact agents and keep all conversations in the same space.
- Agent workspace: Create custom dashboards and workspaces for agents that house all the data, relevant information, and communication channels so they can work efficiently.
- AI agents: Deliver instant and personalized service with AI assistants that can solve tickets of any complexity by offering nonstop service for customers.
Zendesk pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 14-day free trial. | Users report too many add-ons can make the system run slowly. |
| Users praise easy-to-use interfaces. | Limited system user support. |
| Allows for user permissions for both clients and agents. | Limited email feature integration, such as no email forwarding. |
Zoho Desk: Best solution offering a self-service portal
Zoho Desk offers a unique self-service portal that enables customers to find quick answers by themselves, wherever they are. The portal can be embedded into your website or mobile app to ensure a consistent user experience and doesn’t cause a roadblock. The self-service is an easily configurable and low-code platform that also notifies agents about progress made on customer tickets.
Why I chose Zoho Desk
Zoho Desk integrates seamlessly as an additional solution with Zoho CRM. Businesses can use the two to capitalize on cross-selling opportunities and support and sales teams both have access to the same information. With better collaboration between departments, profit can increase, reps and agents alike can respond timely, and retention rates can jump with proactive support and selling.
Zoho Desk and Zoho CRM are technically two different solutions, meaning businesses must budget and account for subscribing to both. If you want software with both sales and support within one solution, consider Kustomer.
To learn more, head over to our independent Zoho CRM review.
Pricing
- Free CRM: Free for up to three users and comes with lead and document management and a mobile app.
- Standard: $14 per user per month, billed annually, or $20 per user when billed monthly. Users can access email insights, sales forecasting, and multiple currencies.
- Professional: $23 per user per month, billed annually, or $35 per user when billed monthly. This tier includes all Standard features, plus assignment rules and unlimited custom reports and dashboards.
- Enterprise: $40 per user per month, billed annually, or $50 per user when billed monthly. This plan introduces all AI-powered tools, plus email segmentation, auto-response, and more.
Features
- Auto-tag tickets: Identify key aspects of a ticket and have notes and tags automatically attached for reps to review.
- Zia reply assistant: Receive relevant solutions from Zoho’s AI assistant, Zia, based on the knowledge base to use in ticket responses.
- Mobility: Manage ongoing tickets and deliver support from anywhere with the Zoho Desk mobile app.
Zoho Desk pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 15-day free trial. | Users report limited data pdf exporting. |
| 24/7/365 data security. | Users report occasional bugs. |
| Offers a free-for-life version of the solution. | Only offers 8/5 customer support. |
Bitrix24: Best for managing employees and agents
Employee and information management are essential to contact and call centers, which need to manage internal and external affairs. Bitrix24 users can access employee profiles, company directories, access permissions, single sign-on, tasks, and tags. Bitrix24 also offers various tools for information management, such as company and team data, knowledge bases, file storage, online documents, presentations, and more.
With all of these features, call centers can better manage workloads for agents and create a seamless support workflow that is accessible and transparent for all parties.
Why I chose Bitrix24
Bitrix24 is an all-in-one platform that can offer all the core features of a CRM, plus HR, website, and inventory functionalities. A company of any size and industry can benefit from Bitrix24’s advanced omnichannel support and integrations, especially a contact center. Web forms, widgets, live chat, and integrations with social media, telephone, email, and communication apps are all extremely customizable to offer the best support to clients.
Bitrix24’s pricing structure isn’t typical for most generalized CRM providers. While there is a free tier that supports unlimited users, the premium plans are charged per organization instead of per user. If you want a similar solution to Bitrix24 with standard pricing, I recommend Zoho Desk, Pipedrive, or HubSpot.
Want to learn more? Read my Bitrix24 review.
Pricing
- Free: Free for unlimited users but only supports up to 5GB of storage space and limited communication features.
- Basic: $49 per organization for five users when billed annually or $61 for five users when billed monthly.
- Standard: $99 per organization for 50 users when billed annually or $124 for 50 users when billed monthly.
- Professional: $199 per organization for 100 users when billed annually or $249 for 100 users when billed monthly.
- Enterprise: Billing starts at $399 per organization for 250 users when billed annually or $499 for 250 users when billed monthly.
Features
- Employee performance: Track converted leads, opened and closed tickets, and other individual or team targets.
- Forms: Create unlimited web forms from templates that customers can fill out with all the information needed to open a ticket.
- Online documents: Co-edit company documents with configurable access permissions that can be shared and updated in real time.
Bitrix24 pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| 15-day free trial. | Users report limited customer support. |
| 600+ possible integrations. | Since it is a more technical platform, there is a slight learning curve. |
| Offers on-demand creation integration for lead generation. | Reports of capped outbound calls. |
Engagebay: Best offering free live chat
Engagebay offers free live chat software for agents to deploy quick and personalized customer responses. The tool also offers customer tracking, reports and insights, unlimited website widgets, automation, chat shortcuts, and more. Agents can talk with customers in real time and even send proactive messages inviting customers to chat. With chat transcripts, agents can strategize for future conversations.
Why I chose Engagebay
Engagebay offers a free Service Bay solution that can be added to its sales or marketing product while also offering a unique all-in-one product with sales, marketing, and help desk features. Overall, Engagebay is an affordable option with various payment options and subscription levels. Together, the platform can help small and midsize businesses organize and manage client interactions, from lead generation to ongoing support.
Since Engagebay caters more directly to smaller businesses, if you’re a mid-level or even enterprise-sized user, consider HubSpot for its additional scalability.
To learn more about this provider, head over to our Engagebay review.
Pricing
- Service Bay: Free help desk and free live chat for support teams.
- All-in-One Free: Free for up to 15 users and 250 contacts with email marketing, CRM access, landing page builders, and more.
- All-in-One Basic: $12.74 per user per month when billed biennially, $13.79 when billed yearly, and $14.99 when billed monthly. This includes everything in the free tier, plus email templates, landing pages, reports dashboard, custom deal milestones, and more.
- All-in-One Growth: $55.24 per user per month when billed biennially, $59.79 when billed yearly, and $64.99 when billed monthly. Users can access multi-currency, email sequences, automations and workflows, and more.
- All-in-One Pro: $101.99 per user per month when billed biennially, $110.39 when billed yearly, and $119.99 when billed monthly. This paid tier includes proposal analytics, role management, call records, and scripts.
Features
- Support groups: Create groups of service agents based on location, product, service skills or more, and route customer queries based on those filters.
- Custom ticket views: Organize tickets by grouping them into lists based on different criteria by which the user wishes to sort them.
- Canned responses: Save time by creating canned responses for similar service queries and use them to reply to email or message tickets.
Engagebay pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Provides extensive integrations. | The software requires some learning for less experienced users. |
| Offers a basic free version of the platform. | Limited platform customization. |
| Tech support is reviewed as highly effective and helpful. | The free tier has limited features. |
Kustomer: Best for providing omnichannel support
With Kustomer, reps or agents can deliver seamless customer support around the clock across a variety of digital channels. This includes CRM-powered chatbots with FAQs, email, live voice, SMS, and social media messaging through Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp. Users can also leverage AI and historical customer insights to personalize engagement strategies and set up automation that helps provide quick resolutions.
Why I chose Kustomer
Kustomer is a well-rounded CRM that focuses on customer service. The platform uses contextualized data to deliver hyper-personalized client support and drive smarter sales processes that can scale businesses. With a 360-degree view of customers and process automation, users can improve their customer experience from beginning to end with custom logic and rules that sort and assign conversations to the right agent at the right time.
Kustomer only offers about 60 plug-and-play apps and integrations. Though the CRM is heavily focused on customer experience, this lack of potential integrations might make the platform siloed when it comes to deploying it within your existing tech stack. For a similar provider with more integration possibilities, check out HubSpot.
Pricing
- Enterprise: $89 per user per month. All contracts and billing schedules are annual. This tier offers multi-channel communication, proactive service features, voice provider integration, and more.
- Ultimate: $139 per user per month. All contracts and billing schedules are annual. This plan offers all Enterprise features plus real-time user supervision, enhanced routing, and dashboards.
Features
- Bulk messaging: Generate profit by bulk messaging specific customer segments based on unique filters, such as orders, location, or CSAT.
- Voice and SMS: Manage calls, SMS, and MMS directly on the Kustomer platform with ticket routing.
- Timeline view: Visualize every customer interaction from orders, reviews, appointments, and more in a threaded chronological view.
Kustomer pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Offers a product demo. | Limited social media integration and monitoring. |
| Users praise the program’s speed without needing extra RAM or processing power. | Users report a learning curve with the platform interface. |
| Offers robust purchase order visibility and accessibility. | Users report lacking ticket routing functionality. |
What is a contact center CRM?
A contact center CRM is a customer relationship management software used to specifically facilitate client support. The terms call center CRM and contact center CRM are being used interchangeably here. These CRM solutions include ticket management and omnichannel communication channels for clients or customers to submit queries or contact a rep directly.
Why do contact centers need a CRM?
For the same reason, sales and marketing teams need a CRM tool, and so do call centers and support teams. These departments and teams need access to the same client information sales reps do, such as contact information, purchase history, and past client activity with sales reps. When there’s this same transparency across teams, contact center representatives can troubleshoot client problems faster.
Benefits of CRM software for call centers
When call centers can troubleshoot, solve, and close out customer tickets quickly and efficiently, the customer’s experience with your business or brand improves. Implementing a CRM tool will bring several benefits, no matter the industry or market your business serves. These include workflow optimization with the ability to automate tasks, more advanced insights into rep performance, and workload management.
How do I choose the best contact center CRM software for my business?
Using our list of the top contact center CRM software, the next step would be to request demos, sign up for free trials, or begin communicating with the sales team of the providers on this list that pique your interest. Understanding your budget and standard CRM pricing is critical before committing to subscriptions or contracts.
Below are questions to ask when researching contact center or client support CRM software:
- Does the CRM software integrate with tools you already have in your tech stack?
- What is the total in-market expertise for your industry, if any?
- Is the CRM scalable and detailed enough to fit your small business or enterprise?
- Does the software fit your business’s budget? Would a free CRM tool be a better option?
FORUM: Here are some factors to consider when choosing a CRM.
Review methodology
To evaluate the top contact center CRM software, I used my in-house rubric with outlined criteria, focusing on client support capabilities. After scoring and reviewing each provider with the rubric, an algorithm calculated an overall star rating, which I used to assign each software an ideal use case.
Here’s a breakdown of the exact scoring criteria used:
- Cost: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Core features: Weighted 25% of the total score.
- Customizations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Integrations: Weighted 15% of the total score.
- Ease of use: Weighted 10% of the total score.
- Customer support: Weighted 10% of the total score.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
Which CRM software is best for a call center?
We’ve found the best CRM software that offers robust customer support, contact, and call center features, including HubSpot, Zoho CRM, Kustomer, and Zendesk, among others. Along with each provider’s pricing information, pros and cons, and top relevant features, we’ve also identified each solution’s ideal use case. This guide will help you determine which software fits your business’s specific needs and priorities.
What is CRM for customer service?
CRM software for customer service refers to features that aid sales reps or agents in continuing customer engagement and support post-sale. Specific customer service features include storing all client history, enabling multiple communication channels, and more. The top enterprise CRM software typically offers some degree of customization for customer service solutions. This way, businesses can deploy the solution into their existing sales process and actively support customer retention goals.
What is CRM in a call center?
Customer relationship management software, specifically used in a call center, acts as a hub for all client information for agents to instantly access while troubleshooting issues and providing a live communication channel to clients. To best support customers, the CRM can organize and manage account history and all relevant business information in real time while agents are on the phone.