Maintaining an in-house call centre is key to delivering outstanding customer service. But what happens if the contact centre software gives more headaches than solutions?

That’s why selecting the right contact centre provider is crucial to avoid such troubles.

This blog is your guide for choosing the best contact centre solutions for the African market.

We thoroughly researched multiple providers to identify Africa’s top 9 contact centre solutions, evaluating them on their features and pricing. 

Ready to pick the best contact centre software for your business?

Let’s begin.

How do you choose a contact centre solution?

To ensure you make the right choice, consider these six essential questions.

1. What kind of contact centre do you run?

There are different contact centre solutions. Some cater to inbound calls, and some to outbound calls. 

Then, others offer both inbound and outbound, and even omnichannel communication. 

Watch out for these distinctions.

2. How much communication information do you want to see?

Depending on your chosen service, you can access varying reports and analytics.

Some contact centre solutions offer more details than others, so take note of this.

3. How easy-to-use is the contact centre software?

You want to start using the new contact centre software right away.

So, pick one with little to no learning curve but rich features.

You’ll gain more by reducing employee training, turnover and fatigue.

4. Does the software allow integrations?

Sometimes, 3rd-party integrations make up for a missing feature.

For instance, some contact centre platforms don’t have CRM features built-in.

But if they allow integrations, your work will be easy.

Ensure the integrations are smooth.

5. Are calls backed up in the event of downtime?

The idea is to have contact centre software with zero downtime. But given unforeseen circumstances, you need to know if there’s a backup option.

If, for instance, the server is down, will you see how many inbound calls you missed?

6. Is the contact centre solution cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid?

Many contact centre solutions are cloud-hosted. So you can use the service without having physical servers.

But if you want to install the software on your company’s private servers or you want a hybrid setup. Then, take note of the contact centre solutions that offer such options.

Bear in mind that cloud-hosted software:

• Requires no maintenance
• Scales with ease
• Updates fast

Amongst all these considerations, the most crucial factor is the set of features that the contact centre solution offers.

See the difference between a call centre and a contact centre.

What features must a good contact centre solution have?

A contact center solution might dazzle with a sleek UI. But if it lacks essential core features, it could exacerbate issues instead of resolving them.

So here are 12 essential features a good contact centre solution should have:

• Single-window: See all your customer communication details in one place.
• Comprehensive admin control: Managers and team leads could assign permissions and tasks.
• Supervision and monitoring: Supervisors should see agents’ activities and records.
• Integrations: The best contact centre solutions allow 3rd party integrations.
• Robust analytics: To improve your customer experience, you need data. See how many inbound communications you get daily and if you need more agents. 
• Role-based dashboard: Agents, managers, and team leads should have separate dashboards.
• Missed call service: Don’t leave any customer unattended. This feature helps you see which customers to call back.
• Virtual receptionist: Increase work efficiency and customer satisfaction with automatic support.
• Voice mail: Get customer feedback without any cost to the customers.
• Omnichannel customer communication: Go beyond calls. Send and receive SMS, WhatsApp messages and emails.
• On-prem and cloud options: Pick an option that offers this flexibility. In case you wish to switch both hosting options in the future.
• Blended call: The contact centre software should offer both inbound and outbound calling. Some even automate call routing to agents based on skills.
• Scalability: You need a solution that will grow with your business. Some software can’t handle heavy traffic, and your business doesn’t need such.

Pick a contact centre solution that as many of these features. Let’s see which of our shortlisted nine contact centre solutions have all 12 of the features.

9 best contact centre solutions in Africa for your business

Below are the top 9 contact centre software solutions that have made it to our list.

They are:

• TelebuHub
• Ameyo
• Cisco
• Amazon Connect
• Avaya
• Euphoria
• Exotel
• Vonage 
• Five9  

Let’s take a close look at each contact centre solution’s features to find the best pick for you.

1. TelebuHub

TelebuHub is a simple but advanced omnichannel contact centre solution. 

With this software, you can provide multichannel customer support from one screen.

You can use TelebuHub on the cloud or host it on your private server. You can also pick the hybrid software version.

Whichever option you select, you’ll enjoy all the must-have features mentioned above. 

Unlike other contact centre solutions, TelebuHub is scalable and customisable.

So your location, industry, or company size doesn’t matter.

This single-window software is everything a modern contact centre needs, and your customer support team will surely appreciate its features.

Features of TelebuHub

As mentioned earlier, TelebuHub has all 12 non-negotiable features. 

But there are more.

These features will enhance your contact centre operations:

• Automatic Internal Call transfer/distribution
• Daily agent performance report
• Customisable CRM
• Live call scripts
• Customer data security
• 99.9% uptime
• Call recording
• Interactive voice response (IVR)
• Create tickets from social media DMs/comments
• Pair agents with customers
• 24/7 support
• Conference customer calls
• Auto follow-up SMS/Emails after calls
• Agent and customer priority management

Pricing of TelebuHub

Discuss the pricing structure of this contact centre solution.

Why should you use TelebuHub?

If you need a contact centre product that won’t crash under pressure, then TelebuHub is your best choice.

Serve customers better and save their info fast with TelebuHub’s inbuilt CRM.

Plus, TelebuHub’s intuitive interface will ease your customer team’s work.

And the internal call distribution will delight your customers by reducing wait time.

But the best reason you should stick with TelebuHub is that it has the best support team in the business. 

So you’ll get fast and accurate responses to your enquiries.

What’s TelebuHub’s best use?

TelebuHub is flexible and offers 3 hosting options. These make it suitable for many uses.

Here are a few below:

• Single-window customer support operations
• Outbound and inbound calling
• Customer surveys
• Omni-channel customer communication
• Lead generation
• Market research
• Interactive chatbot setup
• Blended call and contact centre

2. Ameyo

Ameyo is a contact centre solution that supports inbound and outbound communication.

Ameyo’s cloud contact centre solution is a Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS). 

Users can install this solution for remote access on iOS and Android mobile devices.

Among other features, Ameyo provides cloud hosting for contact centre software. But their call centre services are available on-premise.

Features of Ameyo

Users can enjoy Ameyo’s several features.

• Inbound call support
• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
• Auto dialer
• Protect customer privacy
• Call monitoring app integration

Pricing of Ameyo

Ameyo’s contact centre software pricing is private. But users have complained about the high pricing. 

Why should you use Ameyo?

This contact centre software provides detailed reports and is scalable for growth.

But you can’t customise Ameyo or integrate it with other apps.

Users have also complained about delayed responses from Ameyo’s customer support team.

What’s Ameyo’s best use?

Based on Ameyo’s features, it’s suitable for the following:

• Customer engagement
• Help desk operations
• Interactive voice response (IVR)
• Sales dialer
• Social media customer service

3. Cisco

Cisco Unified Contact Center is an on-premise call centre management software. As such, Cisco caters to large organisations. 

This software allows agents to take calls, chat, and send emails.

Cisco checks most of the boxes a contact centre software should have. But as an on-premise solution, scalability is an issue.

Also, there are other shortcomings.

For example, installation and deployment take longer than expected. And users have complained about instability and bugs. 

Even though it depends on third-party integrations, integration on Cisco is a hassle.

Features of Cisco

Cisco boasts several features that power a contact centre. Yet, to record calls on Cisco, you’ll need 3rd party apps. 

But here are Cisco’s inbuilt features:

• Agent dashboard
• Call forwarding
• Outbound response
• Warm transfer
• Predictive dialling
• CRM software integration

Pricing of Cisco

Cisco’s pricing information is not public. You’d have to request it on their website.

But, according to user reviews, Cisco’s pricing is expensive.

Why should you use Cisco?

Cisco offers conversational, interactive voice response (IVR). This is helpful for companies to provide self-service to their customers.

However, the UI is not as intuitive as TelebuHub’s. So if you’re considering Cisco, you need more technical knowledge.

What’s Cisco’s best use?

Here are the best uses of Cisco’s contact centre software.

• IVR self-service
• Inbound calls
• Outbound calls
• Customer contact analytics
• Collaboration between different call centres
• Customer Survey

4. Amazon Connect

Source: amazon.com

Amazon Connect uses machine learning. 

This cloud contact centre service is by Amazon web services. 

Amazon Connect helps set up interactive voice response (IVR) and chatbots.

Yet, users have complained that Amazon Connect’s support queue is always long.

Features of Amazon Connect

Here are the key features users can expect to enjoy on Amazon contact centre software.

• Telephony and voice call.
• Chat
• Task management
• Customer profiles
• Caller authentication
• Case tickets
• Voice ID

Pricing of Amazon Connect

Amazon Connect is a pay-as-you-go software.

Its pricing varies according to the location and destination of the calls.

Inward call pricing starts at $0.0022 per minute and goes as high as $1.5. And outbound calls cost between $0.0048 and $5 per minute.

Users in the USA get the lowest prices.

Why should you use Amazon Connect?

The top selling point for this solution is its scalability. Amazon Connect users can grow their businesses without thinking of switching providers.

What’s Amazon Connect’s best use?

With all its features, Amazon Connect enables businesses to carry out the following:

• Outbound campaigns
• Customer support
• Auto call distribution
• Web-based scripting
• Easy chat deployment
• Call recording
• Customer heat check
• Detailed reporting
• Live monitoring

5. Avaya

Source:betterbuys.com

Avaya is a cloud-hosted contact centre solution many users have touted as ‘easy-to-use’. 

An on-premise hosting option exists for companies that prefer that option.

Avaya employs artificial intelligence in its customer authentication functions. Agents can also identify customers using Avaya’s voice and facial biometrics.

Avaya needs 3rd-party extensions for some basic features, but integration could be unstable.

Also, customers have complained about low call quality and poor customer service.

Features of Avaya

Here are some of the features Avaya offers its users. 

Please note that for many of these features, you’ll need 3rd party apps.

• Central dashboard
• Real-time reporting
• Task Editors
• Intelligent Routing
• Customer self-service
• Video calls
• Hands-free calling
• Agent monitoring
• Screen recording

Pricing of Avaya

Avaya’s pricing details are private. But they have four pricing tiers: 

• Digital, 
• Voice, 
• All media, 
• Create Your Own

Some sources put the prices between $48 and $109 monthly per user.

Also, Avaya doesn’t offer Pay-as-you-go pricing.

There is no free trial, and you’ll pay a setup fee different from the subscription fee.

Why should you use Avaya?

Besides call recording, Avaya allows screen recording too.

But, this contact centre software serves small and medium-sized businesses best. That means if you grow into a large enterprise in the future, you’d have to switch providers.

What’s Avaya’s best use?

Avaya excels in the following areas:

• Agent monitoring

• Call management
• Automated self-service
• Reporting and analytics
• Virtual employee login

6. Euphoria

Source:euphoria.co.za

Euphoria’s software is on the cloud. This South African-based contact centre solution helps businesses manage their customer relationship.

Euphoria helps ensure agent monitoring and assessment. They offer different dashboard access for managers and agents.

Since it is on the cloud, Euphoria is scalable. But, users have reported low productivity due to downtimes.

Features of Euphoria

Like other contact centre solutions, Euphoria boasts a few features. These are the key features that attract users.

They are:

• Call scripting
• Call recording
• Data reporting
• Task assignment
• Power dialer

Source:euphoria.co.za

Pricing of Euphoria

Euphoria offers two pricing options: Agent and Agent + Dialer.

They cost $17.24 and $23.09 per extension monthly.

Why should you use Euphoria?

Euphoria works well with Zendesk. So, businesses already using Zendesk will be happy with Euphoria.

What’s Euphoria’s best use?

Euphoria is best suited for:

• Blended campaigns
• Voicemail calls
• Inbound calls
• Outbound calls

7. Exotel

Source:exotel.com

Exotel is an affordable cloud contact centre product. This software has most of its users in the Central Asian market.

This solution is capable of managing omnichannel business communications.

It supports inbound and outbound calls, social media (WhatsApp interactions), and texting (SMS).

Being a cloud-hosted solution, Exotel fairs well in scalability.

But, their customer support and communication analytics could be much better.

Features of Exotel

These are Exotel’s key features:

• IVR calls
• Mass texting
• Toll-free numbers
• Call recording
• Call routing
• Automatic call distribution

Pricing of Exotel

Users can pick from 3 pricing plans: Dabbler, Believer, and Influencer. The starting prices for these plans are $200, $500, and $1000.

Why should you use Exotel?

Exotel caters to call-intensive businesses that are small and medium-sized. And they are affordable.

What’s Exotel’s best use?

Although Exotel has many contact centre functions, these are its strong points: 

• Inbound calls
• Outbound calls
• Phone number masking
• Lead management for marketplaces
• Call tracking
• Automated surveys and feedback
• Missed call services
• Automated delivery scheduling

8. Vonage

Source:g2.com

Vonage is a cloud solution for unified customer communication. Vonage provides flexibility for customer service agents to build their workflow.

Agents using Vonage can also see customer data by integrating with external CRMs.

Also, call monitoring, tagging, and native messaging are Vonage’s strong suit.

Features of Vonage

Users who subscribe under Vonage’s advanced plan get to enjoy the following features:

• Call transfer, hold, and call forwarding
• Mobile and desktop apps
• Call waiting
• Visual voicemail
• Paging groups
• Call logging
• On-demand call recording
• Call queue management

Source:getapp.co.uk

Pricing of Vonage

The Vonage contact centre is available in three plans. Vonage doesn’t disclose pricing information on their website. But, unofficial sources put the prices at;

• Priority: $19.99 monthly per line
• Premium: $29.99 monthly per line
• Add-on options: $39.99 monthly per line

Why should you use Vonage?

This solution interests contact centre managers who want more accountability from their agents. Its reporting and analytics help in that regard.

What’s Vonage’s best use?

Based on Vonage’s top features, here are its best uses:

• Inbound and outbound customer call campaigns 
• Omnichannel customer support
• Agent management
• Voice recording for training

9. Five9

Source:five9.com

Five9 is a cloud-based contact centre management platform. This product supports 130+ integrations, including Hubspot.

Five9’s iOS application is cloud-based. 

But unlike TelebuHub, Five9 is not a single-window solution. Five9 opens new tabs for each feature.

Though Five9’s omnichannel capability supports email and social media communication.

Users have lost call recordings and experienced software crashes during peak hours.

Features of Five9

Here are the top features of Five9:

• Omnichannel routing
• Predictive dialling
• Intelligent virtual assistant 
• Real-time and historical dashboards
• Workflow automation
• Outbound dialer
• Call recording
• Web call back

Source:appvizer.com

Pricing of Five9

Five9 has four pricing tiers charged monthly: 

• Core – $149
• Premium – $169
• Optimum – $199
• Ultimate – $229

Why should you use Five9?

With the many complaints, users praised Five9’s interactive response feature. It helps when agents are on break and during off-work hours.

What’s Five9’s best use?

Although Five9 spots many integrations and functions, this contact centre software shines in:

• Cloud-based calling
• CRM integrations
• Call recording
• Real-time analytics
• Predictive dialling

Level up you customer services with TelebuHub contact centre solution 

After accessing all the providers’ good, bad and ugly aspects, it’s safe to say that TelebuHub excels in areas where other solutions fall short.

You can choose from TelebuHub’s cloud-hosting, on-premise, and hybrid hosting options. 

Enjoy all the features of an excellent contact centre solution on one single platform. And that includes stability and immediate support when you need it.

Schedule a free demo to experience all these. Or sign up for free to get started on TelebuHub now.