8 Best CRM Call Center Software in 2023
Jess served on the founding team of a successful B2B startup and has used a wide range of sales and marketing tools over the course of her 15-year career. She uses her industry knowledge to deliver the best answers to your questions about sales tools and sales management.
Jill is a writer at Fit Small Business specializing on Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
This article is part of a larger series on CRM.
Customer relationship management (CRM) call center software offers tools for contact and lead management. It typically has strong telephonic features that allow you to manage and track calls, as well as generate call-centric analytics reports. The best CRM call center tools offer these features at an affordable price. We compared dozens of call center CRM systems and narrowed them to our top eight recommendations.
- Best overall and easy-to-use call center CRM: Freshsales
- Best for project management: Bitrix24
- Best for PBX integration to gain analytics: Zoho CRM
- Best all-in-one CRM with call prioritization tools: EngageBay
- Best for workflow automation and call routing: Pipedrive
- Best for conversational intelligence: HubSpot Service Hub
- Best for voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) with collaboration tools: Nextiva
- Best for enterprise-level all-in-one CRM tool: Salesforce Service Cloud
What Is CRM Call Center Software?
A call center CRM system helps manage and track customer interactions across various channels, primarily through the phone. Other channels include email and live chat. It provides agents with customer data and call history, allowing them to deliver personalized assistance. It also lets managers monitor team performance. Its features typically include call recording, routing, scripting, automatic call distribution, and reporting.
Best CRM Call Center Software Compared
Free Plan | Starting Price for Paid Plans | Our CRM Rating out of 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|
 | Growth plan is free for up to 3 users | $15 per user/month | 4.80 |
 | âś“, for unlimited users | $39 per month for 5 users | 4.61 |
 | For up to 3 users | $14 per user/month | 4.43 |
 | For up to 15 users | $13.79 | 4.43 |
 | âś• | $14.90 per user/month | 4.33 |
 | âś“, for unlimited users | $450 per month for 5 users | 4.29 |
 | âś• | $28.95 per user/month | 4.20 |
 | âś• | $25 per user/month | 3.84 |
Freshsales: Best Overall & Easy-to-use Call Center CRM
Overall Score:
4.80 / 5
Pros
- Powerful calling features, queue transfer, call masking, recording, and buying of toll-free and international numbers in its cheapest plan
- Analytics feature measures sales of individual performance based on outbound calls made, pipeline process, and customer interactions
Cons
- Can get expensive if you want sophisticated features like warm transfer, conference calling, and holiday routing
- Free usage of the Growth Plan is limited to three users
- You want a robust in-app caller in your telemarketing CRM software: Freshsales is an intuitive CRM with built-in cloud telephony tools, like automatic inbound call routing, click-to-call functions, call recording, call queues, and buying of toll-free numbers. Its call center tools include sales call and team performance analytics. It also has a mobile app, letting you take calls on the go, logging and linking them with a contact, deal, or account.
- You want a detailed activity history of your contact engagement: To make your calls more efficient, Freshsales lets you add notes to contacts and view the activity history associated with a connection. It provides a chronological view of a customer’s engagement with your business. Users can view audience interactions like their website and email activities and gain complete visibility into their engagement with your brand.
- You want a simpler CRM for your call center system: For small businesses, Freshsales offers a great price point for a CRM system with solid basic call center features. However, the cost of many agents, the number of calls, call duration, and subscription could soar. Check out its Call Center Estimator to learn about potential operational costs.
- Alternative: Consider Zoho CRM for a simpler CRM for call center options with more budget-friendly pricing schemes.
- You want to use CRM for free: Freshsales allocation for free usage is limited to three users under its Growth plan, making the limit to users a drawback for teams needing a tool that supports more free users.
- Alternative: HubSpot offers unlimited user allocation under its free plan with access to basic CRM features for sales, marketing, and service.
Freshsales Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
Freshsales in-app caller lets users make and record calls from the CRM. (Source: Freshsales)
Our Expert Opinion
Freshsales is our top pick CRM call center software because its powerful in-app cloud phone lets you easily communicate with your contacts through its desktop or mobile app. It also has essential CRM functionalities like account and contact management to help you manage customer communications. If you want feature-packed and sophisticated call center CRM software with all the necessary features to record and manage calls, then Freshsales is the best choice for you.
Learn more in our Freshsales review for detailed information on features, pricing, and overall usability.
Bitrix24: Best for Project Management
Overall Score:
4.61 / 5
Pros
- Phone features work anywhere in the world
- Relatively inexpensive when evaluated per user
- Call center software includes collaboration options that integrate well with the project management tools
Cons
- Does not offer any customer phone support
- User interface can be difficult to navigate
- No in-app calling features in the free plan
- You need strong project management tools: Bitrix24 is a CRM system with integrated project management features that can be used for specific call center functions. For example, you can assign inbound calls as tasks within a project. You can also automatically generate leads for answered and missed calls logged in the contact center. In addition, you can connect your phone to your CRM to link calls to deals.
- You need a robust customer communication tool: Bitrix24 can automatically log all the phone calls you make or receive from a specific contact. Once you connect your email inbox to Bitrix24, the entire history of email exchanges will be stored inside your Bitrix24 contact manager and you can log emails.
- You need an industry-specific CRM for ecommerce: Bitrix24 offers ecommerce features, including basic inventory management for tracking product stock, stock receipts, and orders. This enables users to manage their online store and never miss orders or urgent customer queries.
- You need a simple CRM: While Bitrix24 is a powerful CRM, it can be confusing to navigate the platform for novice users as many features are displayed in the dashboard.
- Alternative: HubSpot offers an intuitive, simple interface that is beginner-friendly.
- You want to reach support by phone: Bitrix24’s customer support channels are limited to live chat and email, which could be inconvenient for critical issues that require urgent help through a phone call.
- Alternative: Freshsales provides users with 24/5 customer support via phone, chat, and email across all its plans without additional charge.
- You need free in-app caller features: Unfortunately, Bitrix24 doesn’t offer any free telephone features in its free plan. Users need to subscribe to the cheapest paid plans, at a minimum.
- Alternative: Freshsales’ Growth plan is free for up to three users and provides essential calling features like queue transfer, call masking, recording, and buying toll-free and international numbers.
Bitrix24 Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 30-day free trial.
Bitrix24 CRM telephone has an in-app caller that helps users track phone calls with their customers. (Source: Bitrix24)
Our Expert Opinion
Bitrix24 is a feature-rich CRM with robust call center features ideal for users running an ecommerce store. The free version is enough if you have an existing voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) you want to connect to the CRM with solid project management tools. However, if you wish to have in-app calling features in your CRM account, you must subscribe to its paid plans.
Read our Bitrix24 review and subscribe to the free plan to experience how this platform’s capabilities can help grow your business.
Zoho CRM: Best for PBX Integration & Analytics
Overall Score:
4.43 / 5
Pros
- Integration with Private Branch eXchange (PBX) systems provides precise analytics on sales calls-to-deals made, allowing call strategies to be adjusted for better performance
- Call reporting analytics are displayed in an easy-to-understand format
- Call center software included in Zoho Desk, and customer service software within the Zoho ecosystem
Cons
- Free plan has few features and is limited to three users
- Limited customer support; premium support requires separate purchase
- Most of the CRM customization is only available in the highest-priced plan
- You want to connect your CRM to your PBX tool: Zoho CRM lets you buy local or toll-free numbers and assign unique outgoing numbers to your agents. This solution integrates with Zoho Desk to access email ticketing and help desk capabilities. When connected to PBX programs, such as Ring.io and Amazon Connect, you can extract data like your team’s productivity level, concerns customers talk about, and call volumes and length per month.
- You need an affordably priced CRM calling software: Zoho CRM is the most scalable CRM solution on this list. You can start off with its free and low-priced plans. Then, slowly upgrade when your team’s features needs evolve. Its highly customizable system supports sales, marketing, and customer case management. Users can track leads and accounts on its app, log notes, calls, and events, and communicate with contacts via email, text, and telephone.
- Users wanting a simple call center CRM: While Zoho is a robust CRM system, it could be confusing to navigate due to the broad suite of tools it offers.
- Alternative: If you prefer using call center software that is not as complicated as a full-featured CRM, consider Nextiva.
- Those needing a free plan that supports unlimited users: Zoho CRM is packed with essential CRM features; however, its free plan is limited to three users.
- Alternative: HubSpot offers a free plan for unlimited seats, making it ideal for teams with limited budgets.
Zoho CRM Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
Zoho CRM’s integration with Ring.io allows users to generate data-driven insights. (Source: Ring.io)
Our Expert Opinion
Zoho CRM offers essential features like lead and contact management, reporting, email marketing, and conversational artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. If you want to have a CRM that you can integrate with your existing PBX system to generate data insights and analytics, then consider the paid plans of Zoho CRM. The free version is sufficient if you only need a CRM to record call notes with your contacts.
Our in-depth Zoho CRM review tells you everything you need to know and whether it’s best for your business.
EngageBay: Best Call Center CRM Software for Call Prioritization
Overall Score:
4.43 / 5
Pros
- Has lead prioritization features so agents can focus on leads more likely to convert
- Free help desk tools
- All-in-one CRM that offers tools for marketing, sales, and service teams
Cons
- User interface needs to be improved
- Calling function not available in the free plan
- You want to prioritize hot leads: EngageBay helps you receive or make calls from the system. It has call prioritization features that inform agents about which customers to call based on their website activity, such as page visits, time spent on a page, and form submissions. You can add call notes to help you keep track of past conversations with your contacts and record important calls, so you get needed information from customers.
- You want free help desk tools: Enables customer service collaboration between marketing, sales, and service teams. Track every customer interaction in a centralized platform using service features like ticketing, issue segmentation, and intelligent workflows to identify tickets needing urgent attention.
- You need an intuitive CRM: Some reviews about EngageBay say its user interface needs improvement in terms of overall usability. For example, saving some items redirects to a new page instead of updating the existing one.
- Alternatives: For popular CRM options known for their ease of use and navigation, consider either HubSpot or Freshsales.
EngageBay Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available at a slightly higher rate.
EngageBay’s contact page with a direct link to the caller feature. (Source: EngageBay)
Our Expert Opinion
EngageBay’s call center feature is only available on its paid plans that start at $13.79, which give 15 call credits to users. Compared to other providers like Freshsales, which provides access to its in-app caller even on its free plan, this may not be ideal. However, if you need a free CRM with an allocation for a high number of users (up to 15), EngageBay is an excellent option for a call CRM as it provides fundamental features for sales, marketing, and service.
Pipedrive: Best Contact Center CRM for Workflow Automation
Overall Score:
4.33 / 5
Pros
- Workflow automation for calls
- Automatic call routing features
- Extensive third-party software integrations
Cons
- Lead generation and marketing features cost extra
- Does not offer a free plan
- Calling features are available only in Professional and Enterprise plans
- You need to automate your call center workflow: Pipedrive has its own contact center that allows you to import contacts easily and automate your call management workflows. You can automatically route or assign incoming calls to specific agents and add essential data to contact records. It also allows you to schedule follow-up activities based on the nature and outcome of your last call.
- You need an AI-powered sales assistant to manage your contact communications: Pipedrive’s AI-powered sales assistant, called Smart AI, lets you engage contacts better because it provides insights and advice on the best course of action to take with contacts, leads, and deals. The tool alerts you when to call a contact next by analyzing email opens, participation in community discussions, and their associated deals in the pipeline.
- You need affordable and robust marketing features: While Pipedrive is a solid call center CRM software option, it lacks some native out-of-the-box sales and marketing features in its basic plan. For instance, email templates and workflow automation are not included in its Standard plan.
- Alternative: HubSpot offers many sales and marketing features even in its free plan.
- You want an affordable in-app phone to stay in touch with contacts: Pipedrive’s calling feature is only available in the Professional plan or higher. Another downside is that the in-app caller feature was made exclusively available to legacy users since October 2022—new users who signed up after that can no longer access this tool.
- Alternative: Freshsales offers its in-app caller even on its lowest-priced plan, Growth, which users can access for free if they need three user seats or less. If you’re a new user who still wants to use Pipedrive as your call center CRM, you can integrate your third-party VoIP phone.
Pipedrive Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
Pipedrive displays all pertinent information about the contact, so it’s easier for agents to make productive calls. (Source: Pipedrive)
Our Expert Opinion
Pipedrive is a popular CRM with a robust in-app caller that makes it easy for agents to follow up and call their contacts. However, you can only access its in-app dialer if you subscribed to its Professional or Enterprise plan before October 2022, as this feature is now only available to legacy users. If you’re a new user, you can integrate a third-party VoIP tool and still use Pipedrive as your call center CRM.
Read our in-depth Pipedrive review to learn more about its features and see if this provider suits your business needs.
HubSpot Service Hub: Best for Conversational Intelligence
Overall Score:
4.29 / 5
Pros
- Free plan for unlimited users
- Conversation intelligence helps sales team managers in coaching reps
- Includes a shared inbox, live chat software, and self-service tools
Cons
- Built-in caller is available only in paid plans
- Requires subscription to premium plans for analytics
- Expensive to scale
- You need conversational intelligence features: HubSpot Service Hub enables team managers to coach their reps efficiently through its conversation intelligence. This feature automatically takes notes of commonly mentioned keywords and provides transcription for voice data in your CRM. Using its insights, managers can identify performance patterns, leave feedback, coach reps, and help them overcome objections and close more deals.
- You are using your CRM as a call center tool and customer service platform: HubSpot offers powerful yet easy-to-use call center software through its Service Hub. It helps your team improve the quality of customer service with its advanced automation tools and insightful analytics reports. In addition, it comes with a shared email inbox, live chat software, call tracking, and self-service features.
- You want to access the in-app caller in the free plan: HubSpot’s in-app caller is unavailable in its free Service Hub tools, and a paid subscription is required.
- Alternative: Freshsales’ Growth Plan—free for a maximum of three users—provides access to the in-app caller.
- Those needing an affordable CRM to scale: While HubSpot is robust and offers solutions for sales, marketing, and service in one platform, it can get expensive once users upgrade to paid plans.
- Alternatives: Freshsales and Zoho CRM are the two best options for providers that offer scalable paid plans.
HubSpot Service Hub Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. Each plan offers a 14-day free trial.
HubSpot’s contact management page (Source: HubSpot)
Our Expert Opinion
HubSpot Service Hub is a powerful CRM with an in-app phone that comes with conversation intelligence tools to provide data-driven insights to businesses. It’s only ideal if you are willing to subscribe to its paid plans to access its in-app phone—however, be willing to pay at least $450 per month. The free plan doesn’t provide users access to calling features.
Read our HubSpot Service Hub review and get insights about subscription plan comparisons and information on the features of the product.
Nextiva: Best for VoIP Tools & Collaboration Features
Overall Score:
4.20 / 5
Pros
- Advanced VoIP calling features
- Built-in collaboration tools
Cons
- No traditional CRM features
- Not ideal for non-enterprise businesses
- You need a powerful voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) with advanced analytics: Nextiva offers advanced business tools to manage calls with contacts, including routing, holding, diverting, and blocking calls. Its analytics tools let you download historical data and track real-time data, including agent performance, call volume, and source.
- You need team collaboration tools: While primarily a VoIP tool, Nextiva also offers collaboration features through Nextiva Cospace. This allows team members to message each other directly, send group messages, share and search documents, and schedule meetings.
- You want a traditional CRM: Nextiva has strong internet phone and collaboration features but has no traditional and fundamental CRM functionalities like pipeline and opportunity management.
- Alternative: If you want a conventional CRM with excellent in-app phone features, Freshsales is our top recommendation.
- You are not operating a call center for an enterprise business: Nextiva’s VoIP features are highly advanced and designed for teams that process a high volume of calls. It has advanced features like multi-level attendant and session initiation protocol (SIP) trunking, which smaller businesses may not need.
- Alternative: If you’re managing a small or mid-sized business and simply need a reliable in-app phone without all the extra features, the Bitrix24 or Zoho CRM are great alternatives.
Nextiva Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost.
Nextiva call dashboard displays overall visibility on the activities using the system. (Source: Software Advice)
Our Expert Opinion
Nextiva, a powerful internet phone that provides users with advanced data, is one of our top picks for the best small business VoIP service providers. However, some of its features might be too sophisticated and unnecessary for smaller businesses that don’t need enterprise-grade phone features.
To learn more about Nextiva’s VoIP features, read our in-depth Nextiva review. It will give you insights into features, plans, ease of use, and information on customer support.
Salesforce: Best Enterprise-level All-in-one CRM Tool
Overall Score:
3.84 / 5
Pros
- Boosts telephone integration’s ability through its analytics features
- Extensive third-party integrations
- Excellent artificial intelligence (AI) features
Cons
- Needs integration with third-party phone system
- Requires technical experience or previous CRM knowledge
- No free plan and pricing plans are expensive
- You have an existing VoIP system: Integrating your existing VoIP system to Salesforce enables you to make one-click calls directly from within your system, record conversations, and save notes to associated contact records. Customer records will automatically appear when receiving calls via the CRM software, so agents have a reference on the contact’s profile and activity history.
- You need a sophisticated AI sales assistant: Salesforce’s artificial intelligence (AI) assistant, Einstein, leverages customer data to identify the next best steps to existing deals in your pipeline. It can also predict customer issues based on trends or call conversation quality and alert agents of potential problems that the customer may bring up.
- You need a free plan: Salesforce doesn’t offer a free plan, and the starting prices of its paid plans are generally higher than other providers.
- Alternatives: Bitrix24 offers a free plan for unlimited users with access to essential features. You can also consider Freshsales, which offers its Growth plan for free for up to three users.
- You want an in-app caller within your contact center CRM: Users need to integrate a third-party phone to Salesforce to make calls, which will entail additional costs since you need to subscribe to a separate business tool.
- Alternative: Our top pick for a provider with an in-app caller is Freshsales due to its calling features like recording, transferring, and buying toll-free or international numbers.
Salesforce Service Cloud Pricing Plan & Overview*
*Pricing is based on annual billing on a per-month breakdown. Monthly billing is also available for a higher cost. You can sign up for its 30-day free trial.
Salesforce integration with RingCentral (Source: Salesforce Ben)
Our Expert Opinion
Salesforce is a powerful, highly customizable call center CRM. However, to use it for your call center, you must integrate it with a separate VoIP or internet phone such as RingCentral. We recommend Salesforce for enterprise-level businesses as it could be expensive since users must allocate a different budget for the CRM and VoIP systems.
If you want to learn more about this provider’s enterprise-grade features, read our extensive review on Salesforce.
How We Evaluated the Best CRM Call Center Software
Excellent contact center CRM software provides state-of-the-art features specific to phone calling activities within the platform or through a third-party app integration. The software should also offer users reporting functionality to track call logs and call center activity. Additionally, great call center CRM providers deliver solid customer support, are easy to use, and offer attractive pricing options—which are some of the core CRM features that small businesses need.
15%
Pricing
25%
General Features
25%
Niche Features
20%
Support
15%
Expert Score
15% of Overall Score
Pricing considers free plan availability, various scalable pricing options users can purchase affordably, and the availability for a subscriber to either pay monthly or save by paying annually. Additionally, we looked at the costs specifically for its call management features.
25% of Overall Score
In addition to call center-specific and core CRM features, we looked at the overall functionality we feel is necessary for a CRM. This includes various CRM integration options, reporting and analytics tools, customizable sales pipelines, and a mobile app. We also evaluated other common capabilities in most CRM systems, such as task management and automated workflow options.
25% of Overall Score
The most important evaluation criteria involved the features relating directly to managing and tracking contacts, leads, and calls. For call center CRMs, it is essential to have a built-in phone system and tools for generating call-centric analytics reports. Other essential features we evaluated include lead scoring, email and SMS (short message service) marketing, and workflow automation.
20% of Overall Score
Extensive support and service help prevent poor customer experiences and outcomes users may encounter while using any of these systems. Help and support were evaluated in terms of customer service hours and the availability of support via phone, live chat, and email. We also looked at online resources for users to review, like tutorials, forums, or training modules.
15% of Overall Score
In addition to firsthand experience with these contact center software systems, we evaluated what users say about each product. These criteria consider how customers feel, based on their reviews, to gain insight into platform popularity, ease of use, and overall value for the price.
*Percentages of overall score
Bottom Line
Customer communication is an essential aspect of customer relationship management. While most CRM providers offer a range of communication channels like email or live chat, one of the key features a call center CRM should have is the ability to provide an in-app phone or integrate with a powerful VoIP system. Freshsales is our top pick because it offers a robust in-app caller while at the same time providing all the fundamental CRM features small businesses need to manage their customers.
