Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service

Contact Center as a Service Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

Key features and pros and cons of top Contact Center as a Service products:

Amazon Web Services - Leader

Pros:

Customizable solutions: In addition to supporting some preconfigured contact center functionality, Amazon Connect offers organizations the ability to develop and build their own customized solutions for customer service, either with in-house developer skills or through a network of development partners that can deliver turnkey solutions using the platform.
Agile for experimentation: Amazon Connect enables organizations to experiment with a variety of capabilities including AI, GenAI, voice, chat and self-service at a low cost without long-term commitments. Its consumption-based pricing approach means clients don't have to pay for unused capability or seats.
Ability to scale: AWS draws on the global reach of its cloud infrastructure, AI investments, and consulting and resale partners to deliver global solutions with very high levels of availability. Its ability to scale helps meet the needs of some of the largest contact center environments.

Cons:

Technical skills may be required: Organizations seeking to extend or customize Amazon Connect beyond its native out-of-the-box capabilities might need developers trained on AWS development tools, AWS' professional services, or a certified partner to develop and maintain customizations. Prospective buyers should consider any additional costs that this may add to deployment.
Reporting granularity and flexibility: Gartner client inquiry and Peer Insights reviews indicate that Amazon Connect presents challenges for some clients with reporting, analytics and dashboard data. Some note reporting capabilities within the UI lack the granularity and flexibility they require; others that they must export data to third-party analytics tools for improved data visualization.
Cost variability and pricing complexity: Amazon Connect's consumption-based pricing requires organizations to evaluate and forecast contact volumes to ensure they can predict ownership costs across the solution's pay-as-you-go features. This pricing model can make it challenging to compare with pricing from other vendors that use alternative pricing models.

Five9 - Leader

Pros:

Services and ease of use: Five9 technical account managers are widely praised by customers for their strong support after the sale and how they help customers derive value. Customers also give the solution high marks for ease of use in Peer Insights reviews.
Broadened market fit: Five9 is increasing its solution delivery capability beyond its focus historically on midsize contact centers, expanding deployment of its platform in environments with hundreds or thousands of agents, including those with complex deployment requirements.
On-premises system migration: Five9 provides strong programs and tools for migrating customers from on-premises systems.

Cons:

U.S.-centric operation: Five9 remains primarily a U.S.-centric CCaaS provider, despite its international growth. Prospective buyers who are not U.S.-based may find that service and support requires greater internal investment or assistance from certified partners to manage the supplier relationship.
Weak SLA credits: Five9's standard service agreement is relatively weak in the market when it comes to its compensation for missed system uptime SLAs. Prospective buyers should assess comparative SLAs and prepare to negotiate more meaningful credits for system downtime.
System challenges: Some Five9 customers report challenges with the system administrative user interface (UI), extent of languages supported in the UI and the solution's reporting capabilities. Prospective customers should evaluate whether recent updates to these capabilities meet their needs.

Genesys - Leader

Pros:

Large, complex deployments: Genesys has extensive experience providing support for the customer service needs of large, complex, multinational deployments, and supports a wide variety of languages in its agent and admin UIs. Organizations with such deployments should consider Genesys' experience in this area as an advantage.
Easy on-premises-to-cloud migration: Genesys' solution includes strong tools and processes to migrate customers either from its other offerings or from competitors' on-premises-based platforms to Genesys Cloud CX.
Customizable solutions: Genesys is known for its system's ease of use and customizability, and the frequent release of new capabilities. Customers give the company high marks in these areas in both Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights reviews.

Cons:

Reporting, analytics and workforce management (WFM): Genesys Cloud CX lacks full-featured support for reporting and analytics, digital functionality and WFM. Some customers have reported challenges with these aspects of the platform, while some find that they need to work with Genesys AppFoundry partners or Genesys Expert Apps to overcome these challenges.
Remote customer support: Some Genesys Cloud CX customers, in both Gartner client inquiry and Peer Insights reviews, continue to report frustration with the lack of responsiveness and product familiarity of the company's support staff.
Limited vertical market offerings: Genesys Cloud CX lacks the breadth of productized vertical market offerings that are available from some competing providers in the market. Customers may require additional customization or work with Genesys AppFoundry partners to integrate into some deployment environments.

NICE - Leader

Pros:

Large, global account support: NICE has earned a reputation for its ability to support large, global accounts. Organizations with such deployments should consider its experience in this area as an advantage.
AI and analytics: NICE's strong AI and analytics capabilities draw on the company's vast amounts of labeled data about customer intents and actions. These capabilities leverage data from WEM interactions that are captured and embedded across CXone, allowing NICE to build and refine self-learning customer interaction models.
Ease of use: CXone offers a simple UI and administrative environment, as well as strong technical account manager support. Customers praise the product for these characteristics in both Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights reviews.

Cons:

Reporting data: In both Gartner client inquiry and Peer Insights reviews, some NICE customers indicate frustration with CXone's lack of detail in its native reporting data.
Midsize customers' support challenges: Some of NICE's midsize customers have faced challenges with support services, as indicated in both Gartner client inquiry and Peer Insights reviews.
Legacy WEM integration: Some of NICE's optional legacy WEM capabilities aren't integrated into the platform. In some cases, these capabilities require additional resources to manage. Prospective buyers should ensure they understand the service proposition differences between NICE's various product offerings.

8x8 - Niche Player

Pros:

Focus on midmarket: 8x8 Contact Center is well-suited for the midmarket segment, offering a comprehensive "good enough" feature set composed of CCaaS, UCaaS and CPaaS in a single platform. It also offers ease of implementation and strong value for price, aligning well with purchasing requirements.
Microsoft Teams integration: 8x8's natively developed 8x8 Voice for Microsoft Teams leverages the Microsoft Operator Connect integration. This integration enables better quality connection to Microsoft Teams than other integration methods by enabling a direct peering connection over a common Microsoft Azure instance.
Data aggregation: 8x8's data aggregation across multiple customer information sources enables strong contact routing and analytics capabilities for midsize organizations that may otherwise lack such capabilities.

Cons:

Challenging fit for complex environments: 8x8's feature set best fits midsize contact centers with fewer than 300 agents. Prospective customers with large and more complex customer service requirements should confirm that it meets the needs of their customer services business unit.
Varying contact center skill among channel partners: A number of 8x8's channel partners lack strong CCaaS expertise, which can add risk and increase implementation times. Prospective buyers must validate the skill of the channel partner, in addition to determining the functionality fit of the solution.
Reporting granularity and flexibility: In both Gartner client inquiry calls and Peer Insights reviews, some customers indicated that 8x8's reporting capabilities lack the granularity and flexibility that they would expect of a large customer service organization.

Cisco - Challenger

Pros:

UCaaS and CPaaS integration: Webex Contact Center can be deployed with tight integration to Cisco's collaboration portfolio (UCaaS) and Webex Connect (CPaaS). It also stands out for its Microsoft Teams integration.
Support services: Cisco's long-established presence in the contact center market enables it to provide global support for clients, either directly or through channel partners.
Agent well-being management: Cisco's "Agent Wellness" capability provides an innovative approach to managing agent well-being by monitoring potentially stressful interactions and providing proactive suggestions to manage postinteraction stress levels.

Cons:

Multiple admin interfaces: Webex Contact Center may require the use of multiple administrative interfaces for different components, despite being bundled under the Webex Control Hub system management environment.
Weak SLA credits: Webex Contact Center's standard service agreement is relatively weak in the market, specifically its compensation system for missed system uptime SLAs. Prospective buyers should assess comparative SLAs and prepare to negotiate for more stringent service-level targets and more generous credits for underperformance.
Few third-party integrations: Webex Contact Center's applications marketplace program offers few third-party technology integrations to enhance the customer's overall solution. Prospective buyers seeking to enhance the system's base functionality must determine whether the partner options available will meet their needs.

Content Guru - Niche Player

Pros:

Large, complex deployments: Content Guru has extensive experience providing support for the customer service needs of large and complex deployments. Organizations with such deployments should consider its experience in this area as an advantage.
High service availability: Content Guru has strong references for environments with stringent system resiliency requirements, including those providing emergency medical services that require an availability service-level target of 100%.
User experience and customer support: Content Guru has received praise for its ease of use as a solution and its strong customer support. Customers offer high marks for both in Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights reviews.

Cons:

Weak SLA credit program: Unlike other vendors in this research, Content Guru does not publish a standard service agreement or information about credits for missing availability service-level targets. Prospective buyers should assess comparative SLAs and prepare to negotiate for meaningful terms.
Complex pricing: Content Guru's pricing model can make it difficult for customers to understand the solution's total cost of ownership. This is due to the multitude of "a la carte" licensing components and their charges, which can add to ownership costs.
Support outside Europe: Most of Content Guru's operations are located in Europe. Support in other regions is limited, a shortcoming that may require customers to invest more in managing their relationship with the vendor. Prospective buyers outside of Europe should consider the implications of limited support.

Talkdesk - Visionary

Pros:

Account managers and ease of use: In both Gartner client inquiry and Peer Insights reviews, customers report satisfaction with the responsiveness and consultative support from Talkdesk's technical account managers and customer success managers, in addition to ease of use and customizability of the system.
Vertical market capabilities: Talkdesk offers prepackaged industry-specific products for key vertical markets, including banking, insurance, healthcare (payers and providers) and retail. These provide deep integration with core systems, applications and workflows at the industry level.
Expanding market: Talkdesk, which historically sold primarily to midsize contact centers, is increasingly deploying its platform in contact centers with hundreds or thousands of agents.

Cons:

Tech support and reporting: The company continues to struggle with system reporting capabilities and its support organization. Customers report frustrations with these aspects of the Talkdesk solution in both Gartner client inquiries and Peer Insights reviews.
Limited geographic focus: Talkdesk's emphasis on the North American and European markets raises questions about its ability to effectively serve clients in other areas. Prospective buyers should verify that the company can meet their geographic requirements.
Third-party tech partners: Some customers report finding Talkdesk less willing to partner with third-party technology providers to enhance their solution than other vendors in this market. This reluctance can add to custom development costs and deployment timelines when customers are encouraged to build certain capabilities, rather than integrate prepackaged offerings from third-party vendors.

Vonage - Niche Player

Pros:

Tight UCaaS and CPaaS integrations: VCC can be deployed with tight integration to Vonage's collaboration portfolio (UCaaS) and API toolkit (CPaaS). It also supports integration to Microsoft Teams.
Salesforce Service Cloud interface: VCC has strong integrations with the user and administration interface for Salesforce Service Cloud. Customers consistently give it high ratings on Salesforce AppExchange.
Optimized capabilities for midmarket: A high percentage of Vonage's business is in midmarket. As such, its go-to-market capabilities in both direct sales and through channel partners are optimized for success at the midmarket range. Customers also find VCC's simple administrative interface to be a good fit for lower-complexity deployments.

Cons:

Limited multilingual UI support: VCC's system admin interface is English-only, and the company offers limited language support for agent interface. Global organizations may need to invest resources in managing multilingual operations if they choose Vonage.
System reporting challenges: Gartner clients have reported challenges with VCC's native system reporting, as well as the company's technical support services. Prospective buyers with limited expertise in creating custom reporting solutions for CCaaS should consider the implications of these potential challenges.
Reliance on CRM partners: Vonage's programmable communications platform approach relies on its CRM partners to deliver many innovative capabilities. Dependency on third parties may increase solution complexity and cost.

FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2024?

A: Amazon Web Services, Five9, Genesys, NICE

Q: What does "Leader" mean in MQ terms?

A: Leaders are best described as suppliers with strong support for a wide breadth of customer service capabilities, and an ability to serve multinational organizations with local sales and support organizations. Leaders are more likely to serve customers through channel partners and have strong brand recognition, which has resulted in a large installed base or above-average market growth as a result of customer demand. Leaders also benefit from being able to support varying levels of deployment complexity, including integrations with partners through established marketplaces.

Q: How do I interpret a Gartner Magic Quadrant?

A: https://www.gartner.com/en/research/methodologies/magic-quadrants-research

Report:

Top Vendor Products for Contact Center as a Service in 2024

Contact Center as a Service Vendor Product Comparisons 2024

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FAQs

Q: Which vendors are Leaders in 2024?

Q: What does "Leader" mean in MQ terms?

Q: How do I interpret a Gartner Magic Quadrant?

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