6 Best CRM Call Center Software 2020

The best customer relationship management (CRM) software for call centers combine internal and external calling tools with contact management features to provide a view of all customer touchpoints. We compared dozens of software options based on cost, integrations, ease of use, and phone system features to find the six best, including the best overall CRM call center software.

Top 6 CRM Call Center Software

Evaluating the Best CRM Call Center Software

To be considered, a CRM needed to include or integrate with telephony systems to help manage thousands of contacts from a single screen. The best also provide a 360-degree view of customers and contacts across all touchpoints, giving reps the information they need to have effective conversations, whether it’s an inbound support request or outbound sales call. To learn more about how we selected these options, read our detailed list of evaluation criteria.

Freshworks CRM: Best Overall CRM Call Center Software

With a free tier and paid plans starting at $12 per user, per month, Freshworks CRM is all-in-one CRM software with a built-in phone system and multiple calling features. There are customization options for contacts, assignments, and notifications, and integrations with customer service platforms Freshdesk and Freshcaller provide even more call center capabilities. This makes it ideal for business-to-business (B2B) teams needing a feature-rich and customizable call center CRM.

Freshworks CRM Pricing

• Freshworks CRM’s free plan includes a built-in phone and contact management.
• The paid plans range from $12 per user, per month to $49 per user, per month—the lower end of those we reviewed—and include more advanced customization and reporting.
• There are also add-ons, like Freshdesk and Freshcaller, which offer an advanced call center software that can be bundled or cost between $19 and $40 per user, per month as standalone products.
• Incoming calls costs 1.6 cents per minute or 1.4 cents per minute for voicemail.
• Outgoing calls start at 2.2 cents per minute.

Freshworks CRM Features

• Click-to-call: Freshworks CRM includes a built-in dialer, which means you don’t have to integrate a third-party phone system into your workflow; however, you don’t have to use Freshcaller if you prefer an alternative. Simply click on a record to make a call.
• Automatic call logging and recording: Calls can be saved to client records, eliminating the need for external call logs and providing quick access to client history.
• Smart fields: Freshworks CRM is easy to customize and allows you to create dynamic fields like “last contacted” that auto-populate and allow you to segment customer lists for scheduling follow-up calls more effectively.

Freshworks CRM’s built-in phone dialer
(Source: Freshworks CRM)

To read in-depth reviews, visit our Freshworks CRM reviews page.

Voicent: Best Call Center CRM With Advanced Features

Voicent is a CRM with a powerful phone system and customer service communication tools starting at $29 per user, per month. Its extensive call center features, such as inbound and outbound interactive voice response (IVR), text marketing, and surveys, are best for large call centers, nonprofits, and schools that need a CRM with advanced calling capabilities, and make it a great option for businesses with the most extensive call center needs.

Voicent Pricing

• Voicent’s base plan starts at $19 per user, per month when billed annually or $29 per user, per month if you prefer monthly billing.
• Voicent offers 4 cents pay-as-you-go calling minutes as well as minute bundles that range between $75 for 2,500 calling minutes to $375 for 25,000 minutes.
• Call center add-ons cost as follows:
  • Inbound call center with phone number: $15 per number
  • Call Center Management: $10 per user
  • Workflow Automation: $99 per account

Voicent Features

• The base plan includes predictive dialer, auto-dialer, agent dashboard, and contact management, among others.
• More advanced features found in call center-centric add-ons include on-hold music, advanced interactive voice response (IVR) menus, call monitoring, whisper coaching, agent reports, and workflow automation.

Agent dashboard sample. Image courtesy of Voicent

Nextiva: Best Call Center CRM With Customer Service Automation

Nextiva is known as a voice-over-internet-protocol (VoIP) phone system provider, but also offers a CRM featuring intelligent customer experience tools like Smart Topics along with free domestic calling, chat, and analytics starting at $25. Rounding out the suite are case management, custom surveys, and automated task management. This makes it great for call center teams wanting a CRM offering advanced customer service insights and automation supported by a highly rated business phone system.

Nextiva Pricing

• Nextiva’s sales and service CRM ranges in price from $25 to $45 per user, per month.
• The CRM can also be bundled with Nextiva’s business phone service, which has various pricing tiers that range in price between $19.65 and $44.95 per user, per month depending on the features selected, billing cycle agreement, and the total number of users.

Nextiva Features

• Nextiva’s starter tier, known as the Essential plan, includes a customer health tracker, sales automation, and the ability to communicate with a customer through their preferred contact method.
• The Professional plan adds features like custom saved responses, conversation analysis, customer segmentation, and the ability to automatically assign leads or service agents to agents based on work capacity.
• Nextiva’s enterprise level plan also gives teams the ability to create custom workflows or set time-based triggers.

Customer service metrics. Image courtesy of Nextiva

Zoho CRM: Best Call Center CRM for Team Collaboration

Zoho CRM offers dozens of phone service integrations, robust social media features, and a suite of additional applications allowing companies to run their entire business. It also includes access to their free and paid help desk platform. This makes it best for call center teams that want an all-in-one CRM with social media communication, help desk functionality, and team collaboration tools.

Zoho CRM Pricing

• Zoho CRM offers a free plan for three users.
• Paid plans start at $7 per user, per month for its most basic starter plan, known as Bigin, and go up as high as $100 for its ultimate enterprise edition, which is only available with an annual agreement.
• Month-to-month plans range between $18 and $45 per user, per month.
• Additional file storage costs $4 per 5GB, per month.

Zoho CRM Features

• Zoho CRM’s free plan provides basic service, sales, and marketing functions like direct messaging, folder sharing, follow-up rules, and call logs with 1GB of file storage.
• Its Standard plan integrates with dozens of call center platforms via PhoneBridge, their customer support platform, and adds in scoring rules, sales forecasting, reminders, and data enrichment from Facebook and Twitter.
• The Professional plan adds a fully featured social management platform, case management, sales signals, assignment rules, and web-to-case forms.

Sample SalesSignals notifications. Image courtesy of Zoho CRM

Bitrix24: Best Free, No-frills Call Center CRM

Bitrix24 has a free plan and paid plans from $24 to $99 per month with additional functionalities. All plans include unlimited contacts, live chat, social integration, email marketing, integrated telephony, and leads from forms. The number of features in this plan makes this the most affordable CRM by far of those we reviewed. Therefore, this plan is best for companies that need a call center CRM with lots of features and a low-cost, per-user price.

Bitrix24 Pricing

• Bitrix24 offers a free plan for an unlimited number of users.
• Paid plans cost between $19 per month and $159 per month with annual agreement; however, they have user limits.
• Discounts are available based on longer-term commitments.
• Automatic call transcription can be added for an additional fee.

Bitrix24 Features

• Bitrix24 includes internal and external voice options like work hour settings, voicemail greetings, and unlimited incoming and outbound lines with contact management, help desk, and live chat.
• Their free plan includes an integrated phone system that lets you use your own numbers or rent numbers (one maximum) and pay per-minute charges for outbound calls.
• All plans include a call-back widgets that you can insert on your website.
• You can assign different phone numbers to different channels, allowing you to see which marketing efforts are most effective.
• Paid plans also give call center supervisors the ability to rate chats and agent calls.

Sample Bitrix24 CRM dashboard. Image courtesy of Bitrix24

Agile CRM: Best Call Center CRM With Advanced Marketing Capabilities

Agile CRM is a campaign management platform with a built-in help desk for support, as well as a contact management system. There’s social monitoring, lead scoring, and marketing automation that allows customized campaigns with event triggers and text-based marketing. This platform is for businesses that want CRM call center software with advanced marketing automation capabilities.

Agile CRM Pricing

• Agile CRM’s free plan allows 10 users.
• Paid plans cost between $8.99 and $47.99 per user, per month with an annual agreement.
• Month-to-month plans are also available.

Agile CRM Features

• All plans include the ability to make and receive calls as well as help desk features, integrations, reports, and a Chrome extension.
• The free plan includes contact management, lead scoring, and email campaigns, but only one integration.
• Paid plans adds contact level analytics, an auto-dialer, post-call automation, missed call alerts, help desk ticketing, dedicated support groups, marketing automation, and social monitoring.

Marketing automation setup. Image courtesy of Agile CRM

How We Selected the Best CRM Call Center Software

While we considered both general use software as well as industry-specific CRMs, there were a number of call center needs we paid specific attention to. All products, for example, had to include some form of built-in telephony, with tools like call logging or performance tracking, and all needed to be scalable, affordable, and easy to understand.

Here’s an in-depth look at the evaluation criteria we used to make our selections:

• Cost: The cost per user and any upgrade costs for additional items like extra file storage, increased contacts and emails, and data backup were reviewed.
• Ease of use: We compared setup and user interfaces by trialing or demoing platforms.
• Integrations: Native and third-party integration phone system options for features such as interactive voice response (IVR) as well as other functions such as help desk, email, and marketing automation were considered.
• Automation: We evaluated each product’s ability to automate sales and marketing functions such as tasks, follow-up, email nurturing, and marketing.
• Reporting and analytics: Reporting capability for real-time and historical data in areas such as sales performance, sales rep activities, call tracking, ticket resolution, and more were compared.
• Customer support: We reviewed the level of support included with each product, the depth of each software’s knowledge base, and its community involvement.
• Customer satisfaction: Represents how satisfied customers are overall and what, if any, common issues they had with the CRM software.

Bottom Line

The best CRM call center software for a small business is affordable, intuitive, and provides the features needed for service and sales reps to resolve issues and close sales. It should also be capable of handling support requests with ticketing and integration either natively or with third-party apps such as phone systems, help desk, and other service-related platforms.

We found that Freshworks CRM offered the most capability for all of these functions with their customization options, low-cost tiers, and suite of call center business software such as Freshcaller and Freshdesk. It’s a versatile, all-in-one platform ideal for any small or medium business needing a call center CRM. Try it for free with no time restrictions.