Building a successful call center requires ongoing efforts to track agent performance, improve call times, and increase customer satisfaction. If you’ve tried monitoring these metrics with spreadsheets or other manual methods, you probably found them to be inefficient at best and inaccurate at worst.
With call center analytics software, you can efficiently track the metrics that matter to your team. The right analytics platform can also provide actionable insights to guide your strategy and automated reports to share with stakeholders or clients.
Which is best for you? In this contact center analytics software buying guide, we cover the key features you need and the best platforms for common use cases so you can choose the most cost-effective option for your organization.
3 features you need from call center analytics software
You might not need the most complex contact center software on the market. However, you should look for a platform with these essential features:
1. Automated insights: When you manage a busy call center, you can’t afford to waste time on manual analysis. Look for a platform that goes beyond basic reports and provides automated insights you can act on quickly.
2. Maximum uptime: Whether you run an inbound or outbound call center, you need reliable analytics software that you can access virtually any time. Seek a platform that offers a service-level agreement (SLA) promising at least 99% uptime.
3. Software integrations: Your team likely handles more tasks than just making or answering calls. Prioritize an analytics platform that can link with software you already use, such as task management and customer relationship management (CRM) tools.
11 best call center analytics software platforms
All our top software picks have those 3 key features plus time-saving tools for workforce optimization. Let’s start with our platform, Time Doctor.
1. Time Doctor: Best for call center workforce management
Time Doctor is an employee monitoring platform that simplifies call center management and tracks agent productivity. Designed for distributed teams, Time Doctor offers real-time visibility into agent activity and insights to improve performance and employee retention.
Attendance monitoring
Need to know when your call center teams log in for their shifts? Time Doctor’s attendance tools make uploading regular call center schedules or adding one-off shifts easy.
The platform automatically monitors attendance and tags on-time shifts, late arrivals, and absences. From the dashboard, you can quickly find agents with patterns of absences or tardiness.
Time tracking
Time Doctor can track agent time manually or automatically. If you opt for the latter, the software runs silently in the background when employees log in to their work devices.
If your team opts for manual time tracking, agents can turn the software on and off as necessary. Although this option can be slightly less accurate, it offers more transparency and control for employees.
No matter which method you choose, your management team can automatically see both total time and idle time for each agent. You can use idle time reports to improve call routing and make better use of employee time.
Task management
Time Doctor integrates with 60+ apps, including popular help desk and CRM tools. The platform can automatically track the apps, projects, and tasks agents work with throughout the day.
With these analytics, you can understand how your team spends time and help them manage their workdays more efficiently. These analytics can also improve resource allocation and project budgeting.
Productivity insights
Wondering if your teams spend time wisely? You can label websites and apps as productive or unproductive on the Time Doctor dashboard. The platform can then track call center agent productivity automatically.
Using these insights, you can identify and reward top-performing agents. If you spot either dates or agents with lower productivity percentages, you can take steps to identify the problem and keep your team accountable.
Work-life balance reports
Call center agents are susceptible to burnout, but in many cases, you can identify the signs before they escalate. Time Doctor’s work-life balance reports automatically spotlight the employees putting in more hours than most.
With these automated insights, you can connect with overworked employees and help them rebalance their work-life mix. By taking a proactive approach to work-life balance, you can improve employee engagement and your chances of retaining your best agents.
Pricing
Time Doctor plans start at $7/user per month. Plans with advanced analytics and productivity insights begin at $10/user per month.
2. CallMiner: Best for AI-powered insights
CallMiner is a conversation intelligence platform that analyzes interactions across channels to provide actionable insights. The platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) technology to connect customer interactions and help your team perform better.
Features
- Employs AI to find trends and predict outcomes so you can plan more effectively
- Analyzes customer engagement across channels to offer a complete picture
- Offers net promoter score (NPS) insights to help reduce customer churn
Pricing
CallMiner pricing is available on request.
3. CallRail: Best for inbound marketing analytics
CallRail is a conversation-tracking platform that measures marketing campaign performance. Its AI-powered analytics evaluates customer calls, reviews SMS and live chat messages, and helps businesses build more efficient marketing and advertising campaigns.
Features
- Offers conversation intelligence tools to turn customer conversations into actionable insights
- Includes marketing AI that’s trained on more than 650,000 hours of voice calls
- Transcribes and summarizes calls so you can review and act on them quickly
Pricing
Subscriptions start at $45/month for call tracking and $140/month for call tracking plus premium conversation intelligence.
4. Dialpad: Best for outbound call centers
Dialpad is a customer engagement platform engineered for outbound sales teams. It offers a suite of AI-powered tools that analyze calls and customer sentiment, provide coaching, and automatically transcribe meetings.
Features
- Tracks call abandonment rates and missed inbound calls to improve call center operations
- Generates heat maps to assess call volume and available agents at high and low periods
- Analyzes sentiment in real time so call center managers can address challenges
Pricing
Standard Dialpad plans start at $23/user per month, which include unlimited calls and video meetings. Contact Dialpad for Enterprise pricing.
5. Zendesk: Best for sales and service
Zendesk is a customer experience-driven solution with separate platforms optimized for inbound and outbound teams. Zendesk offers in-depth insights engineered to improve customer service response times and provide complete visibility into your sales pipeline.
Features
- Offers pipeline analytics to help you understand deal progression efficiently
- Automatically predicts deal volume and forecasts sales for effective planning
- Analyzes customer service operations to improve agent performance and help reps develop skills
Pricing
Zendesk Suite plans for inbound teams start at $59/agent per month. Pricing for outbound team plans begin at $25/agent per month.
6. Talkdesk: Best for enterprise users
Talkdesk is a customer service platform designed for inbound contact centers and customer success teams. Although it works for companies of all sizes, Talkdesk is ideal for enterprise users and large businesses needing powerful customer experience analytics.
Features
- Mines call center data with AI-powered tools to identify customer pain points
- Offers customizable analytics dashboards to monitor SLAs in real time
- Analyzes customer interactions across channels to identify intent and sentiment
Pricing
Basic Talkdesk plans start at $75/user per month, and enterprise-level Experience Cloud packages have custom pricing.
7. Five9: Best CCaaS option
Five9 is a customer experience platform that works across voice, chat, email, and other communication channels. This contact center as a service (CCaaS) option has AI-powered analytics that offer greater visibility into agent performance and business agility.
Features
- Converts cross-channel customer interactions into actionable insights
- Analyzes customer speech and text to assess topics and sentiments
- Automatically tracks first call resolution (FCR) and customer churn
Pricing
Five9 plans start at $149 per month for voice-only or digital-only support. Plans with voice, chat, and email support begin at $169 per month.
8. CloudTalk: Best for VoIP business calling
CloudTalk is a VoIP calling solution ideal for both inbound and outbound call centers. With its robust analytics, CloudTalk helps sales and customer service agents improve performance and increase call efficiency.
Features
- Uses skill-based call routing to improve agent performance and reduce customer effort scores (CES)
- Provides complete call statistics, including missed calls and call queues, to improve resource allocation
- Generates emotion analytics using customer behavior and sentiment
Pricing
Starter plans cost $25/user per month (billed annually). CloudTalk offers three standard plans plus enterprise pricing.
9. Genesys: Best EaaS option
Genesys is an experience as a service (EaaS) solution that optimizes contact center operations using customer experience as a North Star. Whether you use Genesys for customer service or debt collection teams, the platform’s analytics can improve customer journeys.
Features
- Connects cross-channel customer analytics to serve as a single point of truth
- Analyzes speech and text to confirm compliance and spot training needs
- Automatically recommends coaching when agents need a hand
Pricing
Plans for voice tech start at $75/month, but pricing is relatively complicated. Check the Genesys pricing matrix for complete details.
10. Aircall: Best for simple contact center setups
Aircall is a simple call center software platform that simplifies sales and support channels. It integrates with many popular help desk, live chat, and CRM tools to provide a complete contact center solution.
Features
- Generates both individual and team analytics so you get the level of detail you need
- Automatically tracks metrics like missed calls, response times, and call queue wait times
- Offers APIs for easy connections with CRM and project management tools
Pricing
Aircall pricing is location-based. For United States-based businesses, plans start at $40/user per month (3-user minimum).
11. RingCentral: Best for voice and video analytics
RingCentral is a complete communications platform that provides conversation intelligence for phone, SMS, video, chat, and even fax. The software is ideal for marketing, sales, IT, and HR teams, from startups to small businesses to enterprises.
Features
- Monitors quality of service across channels to help you optimize call center performance
- Provides real-time insights so your team can troubleshoot problems instantly
- Tracks agent key performance indicators (KPIs) so you can reward top performers
Pricing
Plans start at $30/user per month for basic analytics. Advanced plans with essential business analytics begin at $35/user per month.
How call center analytics can help your business
Is a call center analytics platform really worth the investment? Here are a few ways these tools can benefit your business.
Decrease agent response time
Suspect that your call handling time could use some improvement? With analytics software, you can track average handle times and identify outliers. Then you can analyze the shortest calls with the best outcomes and use what you’ve learned to optimize efficiency across the board.
Improve seller performance
Want your sales reps to increase their closed-won rate? By analyzing their outbound calls and emails, you can find areas for improvement and coach them to convert more leads more efficiently. Then you can build a better sales team and drive more revenue with less effort.
Increase productivity
Is your team using workdays wisely or wasting time on non-essential tasks? Analytics platforms can show you exactly which apps, sites, and tasks your team spends time on, often in real time. Using this data, you can help agents improve time management and work more productively.
Address agent burnout
Call centers can be high-stress environments, and agents’ performance can suffer when they’re overworked. With automated analytics, you can see who’s at risk of burnout before it happens. You can then take steps to lighten their workloads and reduce employee turnover.
Reward top performers
Call center metrics can also clue you into your team’s accomplishments. Many platforms automatically identify highlights like top sellers, agents with the highest call volumes, or most productive employees. Using this data, you can reward top performers and motivate your team.
Setting up your call center analytics platform
Want to see for yourself how call center analytics can benefit your business? Book a demo to see how Time Doctor’s performance metrics can help your call center agents improve productivity by 30% or more.
Andy is a technology & marketing leader who has delivered award-winning and world-first experiences.