What is Call Center CRM? Top 5 Call Center CRM Software

The importance of excellent customer service can't be overstated – according to the recent research, more than half of consumers will switch to a competitor after one bad experience with a company. And yet, it's becoming more and more challenging for businesses to provide quality customer experience. The number of communication channels is growing, so do customer expectations for personalized customer experience, and businesses are eager to catch up.

According to the McKinsey report from 2022, 60% of customer care leaders reported an increase in total calls – and they expected this number to continue to grow. Call center CRM software helps you handle this volume of communication and provide the best customer experience. When incorporated into your CRM system, call center software enables you to ensure individualized and streamlined customer service that goes above and beyond modern standards.

In this article, we will go through the definition of call center CRM, explain its advantages, give you guidelines on how to choose call center CRM software, and list the 5 best call center CRM systems according to customer reviews.

What is Call Center CRM?

A call center customer relationship management (CRM) platform is an integrated tool that combines CRM functionalities such as customer data management, workflow automation, and communication management with the customer service aspects of a call center. It enables businesses to manage customer interactions, automate and align service processes, and enhance customer satisfaction by providing agents with a unified view of customer information and interaction history.

For example, a call center software with CRM can automatically show a customer profile with their full data and history of interactions when a call is sent to an agent. It then logs in all the information shared during the call with the help of AI. This functionality increases efficiency, enabling agents to spend less time on data search and entry and more time assisting customers with their issues.

A call center is often offered as a part of a contact center CRM. While a call center CRM is specialized for phone-based interactions, a contact center CRM offers a more comprehensive solution for managing customer interactions across various communication channels.

Why do You Need a Call Center CRM?

In short, a call center CRM software gives you all the tools to provide perfect customer experience. But let's ask the question – what makes a customer service call perfect?

The call in question might be a sales inquiry, a complaint, or a request for assistance. Regardless of the reason, your customer expects a response that caters to their specific needs. They seek service that is quick (but not hurried), appropriate treatment (understanding and compassionate), and interaction with a capable agent who can efficiently resolve their issues.

Above all, customers value continuity. They expect your call center agents to recognize them, be aware of their previous interactions, and assist them without making them repeat information they have already shared.

A call center CRM can meet all these expectations by equipping agents with the necessary customer data and workflow organization tools to deliver a personalized, efficient, and seamless customer experience. Additionally, it simplifies the agents' tasks, reducing stress and enabling them to provide a more pleasant and courteous service to customers.

Let's explore the benefits of a call center CRM and understand how it can give your company a competitive edge.

Top 6 Benefits of Call Center CRM

1. Streamlined omnichannel communication

Omnichannel communication allows customer service agents to connect with clients across multiple plans such as social media, chats, email, and phone and transition between them seamlessly. The BusinessWire reports that 40% of consumers cited “multiple options for communicating” as the most important feature of a company’s customer service department.

Let’s say a customer sent their complaint via Instagram direct messages but to properly assist them with solving the issue, you need to call them. A call center CRM enables a seamless transition between the two channels by aligning all the data and interaction history, ensuring everything is logged correctly. If you need to involve other agents or employees, they will have access to all the information shared in the direct messages.

As a result, you can resolve the issue more quickly and save the customer from having to repeat themselves, which is one of the key indicators of poor customer service.

2. Smooth collaboration

A call center CRM allows all your team members to quickly exchange information and processes.

It allows call center agents to ask questions or respond quickly to other colleagues' queries, leading to faster and more accurate resolution of customer issues. Agents can also transfer cases to other agents or subject matter experts, who are automatically alerted and get the full details to provide a speedy solution for the customer.

This system not only fosters collaboration among call center agents but also connects all customer-facing teams, including sales and marketing departments. This integrated approach enhances all touchpoints in the customer journey, ensuring a consistently positive experience beyond just customer support.

3. Support for employee training

A call center CRM supports call center agents' training by integrating a knowledge center directly into the system. This feature provides agents with easy access to comprehensive resources, including scripts, FAQs, and troubleshooting guides, all within the CRM interface. Agents can quickly retrieve relevant information during customer interactions, enabling them to resolve issues more effectively and consistently.

The CRM also tracks agent performance and customer interactions and can help identify the need for targeted training sessions based on knowledge gaps or areas needing improvement.

4. Increased productivity

A call center CRM offers many features that help boost the productivity of your customer service team.

• For example, case management tools help organize and prioritize customer issues, making it easier to navigate an influx of queries and cases.
• Project management and tracking tools provide transparency into agents’ workloads, improving accountability by allowing managers to monitor performance and ensure fair distribution of tasks.
• Workflow automation features help reduce the time and effort spent on manual routine tasks. For example, automated case routing directs cases to the most appropriate agents based on predefined criteria, ensuring faster resolution of customer issues.

Together, these features enhance overall efficiency and enable the service team to operate at peak productivity.

5. Insight into your performance

A call center CRM can provide valuable insights into the performance of your call center by tracking key metrics and analytics. Metrics such as Average Handle Time measure the average duration of customer interactions, indicating efficiency in handling calls. Average Interactions per customer or agent provide insight into the frequency and depth of customer engagement, highlighting customer interaction patterns.

Additionally, tracking metrics like number of Case Reopens helps identify recurring issues or unresolved cases, indicating areas for improvement in service quality and resolution processes. By analyzing these metrics over time, managers can pinpoint areas of improvements, identify training needs, and implement strategies to enhance overall call center performance and customer satisfaction.

6. Improved customer experience

The most obvious advantage of a call center CRM is the increase in customer satisfaction level due to the world-class customer experience that it enables companies to provide. Every other benefit on our list stems from this overarching goal. A call center CRM enhances customer experience in multiple ways.

First, it allows you to provide consisted customer experience. Your customers are likely to contact you more than once through various channels and interact with different individuals in your organization. An integrated call center CRM system showcases the history of previous interactions, contact details, billing information, and even the products and services the customer has already purchased. This level of detail and CRM integration ensures a coherent service and sometimes even allows agents to have solutions ready before they even answer the call.

Moreover, an integrated CRM enables businesses to proactively address customer needs and concerns, helping you identify trends and issues that can lead to tangible business improvements. Whether it's adjusting your sales pitch or enhancing lead nurturing, insights from tracking customer interactions can significantly improve the customer journey.

Finally, CRM systems facilitate effective customer segmentation and targeting. By segmenting customers based on their characteristics and behaviors, businesses can tailor their marketing efforts and deliver personalized experiences that resonate more with customers, fostering deeper loyalty.

Essential Features for Call Center CRM

It's crucial to recognize that not every CRM is tailored for customer service. Furthermore, while CRM software may offer call center functionalities, it might lack essential customer support features crucial for a seamless customer experience. This list highlights the CRM features that are particularly beneficial for call center agents.

• Support for omnichannel communication: Enables seamless interaction with customers across various channels such as phone calls, emails, chats, social media, and more.
• Case and call routing: Automatically directs incoming calls and cases to the most appropriate agent or team based on predefined criteria like skill set, issue type, or priority level.
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR): Automated phone system that allows customers to interact with a computerized voice prompt to route their call to the appropriate department or gather information before connecting to an agent.
• Customer 360 view: Provides a comprehensive view of each customer's interactions, purchase history, preferences, and previous issues across all touchpoints, empowering agents to deliver personalized service.
• Call tracking: Records and tracks details of customer calls, including duration, outcome, and any actions taken, enabling managers to monitor performance, analyze trends, and identify areas for improvement.
• Call scripting: Provides agents with predefined scripts and templates for handling common customer inquiries. This feature helps ensure consistency in messaging and compliance with company standards.
• Workflow automation: Automates routine tasks and processes such as case routing, follow-ups, notifications, and escalations based on predefined rules and triggers.
• Customer service AI: Incorporates AI and machine learning to analyze customer interactions, predict customer behavior, offer personalized recommendations, and automate responses to routine inquiries.
• Task management: Helps agents organize and prioritize their tasks, ensuring they address customer issues promptly and efficiently while tracking progress and deadlines.
• Knowledge management: Centralizes and organizes information such as FAQs, product manuals, troubleshooting guides, and best practices, making it easily accessible to agents.
• Integrations: Connects with other business systems such as ERP software, ticketing systems, and analytics tools.

These features collectively enable call center CRM systems to streamline operations and enhance customer service quality.

Top 5 Best Call Center CRM Software

In this section, we've gathered the top 5 CRM systems that incorporate call center software according to customer reviews and reports from industry analysts.

1. Creatio

Best for: midsize and Enterprise-level companies that are looking for an integrated CRM platform with superior customization capabilities or have unique processes that must be easily changed

Creatio offers an end-to-end CRM platform with a robust set of features to enhance customer service automation incorporated in its Service Creatio product. Its contact center gives agents access to a single window interface with customer data and request queues that enables them to perform bulk communications, share the information with team members and monitor their own performance.

Service Creatio excels with its AI-powered service automation tools. An integrated call center software leverages AI tools to enhance agent training and performance by offering relevant recommendations and materials.

Service Creatio also features a suite of AI/ML models for tasks like service data classification, case routing, prediction, prioritization, intelligent search, recommendations, and customer segmentation.

By analyzing past cases and inquiries, Creatio provides valuable case resolution suggestions, including relevant knowledge articles, similar cases, best practices, and playbooks. Its AI goes beyond basic routing by considering agents' current workloads and case timelines, ensuring optimal case assignment.

Creatio also offers real-time assistance with custom workflow design and optimization. Using its no-code technology and composable architecture, organizations can easily create complex workflows with pre-built components and templates. Creatio’s AI can identify areas for improvement and provide actionable recommendations for streamlining processes.

Creatio’s capabilities can be expanded through seamless integration with over 700 third-party applications available in the marketplace and native CRM solutions.

With flexible plans and comprehensive features, Creatio offers a low total cost of ownership and rapid time-to-value without needing additional IT or vendors.

Key features:

• An end-to-end unified platform for CRM automation
• Intelligent case management and service automation for registration, classification, AI-based routing, and comprehensive data integration
• Omnichannel communication
• Collaboration tools and Enterprise Social Network (ESN)
• Customer 360 view
• GenAI and machine learning tools to empower automation
• AI-Based call analytics
• Call queue management
• Call routing
• Power Dialer for high productivity of outbound call center agents
• Knowledge management
• Dynamic call scripts
• Email follow-ups and scheduling follow-up calls

Customer rating:

Gartner: 4.8
Capterra: 4.7

Pricing:

Creatio offers a flexible pricing structure, allowing you to choose between the all-in-one CRM or individual products. The core no-code platform starts at $25 per user per month, with a free trial available. The Service Creatio product costs $15 per user/month.

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2. Freshworks

Best for: smaller, digital-first companies seeking a full-featured call center CRM solution

Freshworks offers a comprehensive customer service suite featuring two main products: Freshdesk, a ticketing platform, and Freshchat, which includes bots and chat functionalities.

Its all-in-one contact center solution provides advanced inbound routing and call recordings, post-call transcripts, and call-lifecycle information. To free up the agents, Freshworks provides AI-powered voice bots and speech-enabled IVR.

The CRM software is very easy to use and allows customization. The digital service capabilities of Freshworks are noteworthy, offering multilingual bots and support for modern messaging channels.

Agents can benefit from an AI-powered bot that suggests optimal resolutions based on case history, provides communication guidance, and helps generate service replies. Conversational intelligence tools extract sentiment and recommend the next best actions in real time, while a post-resolution quality coach scores interactions and identifies training opportunities.

Key features:

• Omnichannel communication
• Voice bots
• IVR tools
• AI-powered automation and analytics
• Call scripting
• Easy integration with marketplace apps

Customer rating:

Gartner: 4.4 
Capterra: 4.5 

Pricing:

The prices vary from $18 to $83 per agent/month. A free version of the tool is available.

3.  Zendesk

Best for: midsize and larger enterprises that have high interaction volumes and a strong digital presence

Zendesk is a widely recognized customer service automation solution known for its user-friendly interface and robust functionality. Its intuitive ticketing system, automation tools, and omnichannel support capabilities enable businesses to streamline case resolution and provide exceptional customer service experiences.

The platform offers omnichannel support, including voice, messaging, chatbots, and portals, all enhanced by automation. AI-powered automations assist with customer responses, call summaries, transcriptions, and identifying congested channels, enhancing team productivity. The IVR system gathers customer information, routes calls intelligently, and provides information without the need for human agents’ involvement. The Voice API enables easy embedding of a call button on websites.

Managers can track phone support with real-time analytics and call monitoring, using insights to improve performance.

Key features:

• Omnichannel Agent Workspace
• Interactive voice response (IVR)
• Call routing and transfers
• Customer callback
• Task management
• AI-powered automation
• Customer callback
• 1,500+ apps and integrations

Customer rating:

Gartner: 4.2 
Capterra: 4.4

Pricing:

Zendesk Service CRM software prices range from $69 to $149 per user/month.

4. ServiceNow

Best for: organizations in telecommunications, media and technology, healthcare and life sciences, and public sector, or those already leveraging ServiceNow products

ServiceNow Customer Service Management is part of a comprehensive suite that includes employee experience (EX), customer experience (CX), and enterprise service management (ESM) solutions. ServiceNow aims to streamline customer workflows beyond front-office operations, continuously measuring performance to enhance both customer experience and operational efficiency.

ServiceNow offers robust self-service capabilities encompassing knowledge bases, processes, communities, and chatbots. The platform excels in case management, guiding agents through the entire lifecycle with features such as case progress tracking, activity summaries, timelines, and SLA monitoring.

AI models predict resolution times to prevent bottlenecks and manage costs effectively. Workflows are built using low-code tools and reusable components, with out-of-the-box solutions available for common service processes.

Key features:

• Agent desktop
• Case management
• AI tools for routing and case analysis
• Knowledge base
• Self-service options
• Low-code tools and Flow Designer for customization
• Integrations with external platforms

Customer rating:

Gartner: 4.6 
Capterra: 4.3

Pricing:

A custom quote is available on request.

5. Zoho CRM

Best for: B2B and B2C organizations with simple customer service processes

Zoho Desk is an integral part of Zoho’s unified CRM, designed to customer service quality. It achieves this by offering omnichannel self-service and agent-assisted service, identifying areas for service operation optimization, and simplifying IT support.

Zoho’s AI-assist tools support agent operations by identifying key terms and sentiments in tickets to suggest relevant knowledge base content. AI also analyzes ticket types and volume spikes, enabling managers to adjust staffing accordingly.

Zoho's call center is built into its Contact Center offer that is heavily integrated with the main CRM software. It offers powerful automation and monitoring features to enhance the quality of your calls.

Customer service operations include SLA management with rules-driven guidance and next best actions. Customers appreciate Zoho’s ease of deployment, user-friendliness, low cost, and configurability but note the need for more feature depth and best practice guidance.

Key features:

• Case management
• Virtual phone numbers
• IVR trees
• Call monitoring and analytics
• Queue performance metrics
• Call notes
• Power Dialer

Customer rating:

Gartner: 4.3 
Capterra: 4.3

Pricing:

The price for Zoho's call center ranges from $34 to $79 per user/month.

How to Choose a Call Center CRM

Choosing the right call center CRM involves several key steps:

• Identify your needs and budget: Start by pinpointing the features and CRM integration your business requires and determining your budget.
• Consider scalability: Ensure the CRM can grow with your business, accommodating future expansion and increased demands.
• Study the reviews: Read user reviews to gain insights into the CRM's performance, reliability, and support.
• Look for success stories: Seek out case studies or testimonials from businesses in the same industry to see how the CRM has benefited them.
• Sign up for a trial and check user experience: Take advantage of free trials to assess the user experience and ensure the CRM meets your needs in a practical, real-world setting.

Revolutionize Your Customer Service with No-Code CRM Call Center

Enriched by CRM integration, call center software helps you meet the ever-growing expectations of customers and provide top-notch service for each individual case. Thus, your choice of a call center or a contact center CRM can have a lot of impact on your business. Service Creatio CRM is a uniquely customizable CX automation platform that can be modified depending on your specific needs at minimum effort. Sign up for Creatio's free trial and try automated service for ultimate customer satisfaction.