Want to jump straight to the answer? The best call center service for most people is Nextiva.
Call centers are essential for helping medium and large businesses manage communication with customers. But trying to organize an in-house call center can be costly and labor-intensive, especially if your company has limited resources.
That’s why we recommend using a call center service to outsource all of your calls. This takes a huge responsibility off your shoulders and allows you to provide outstanding service to your clients or customers. We’ve identified the top six call center services for you to choose from.
The 6 Best Call Center Services
- Nextiva — Best overall (For a limited time get 25% off, plus a free phone, when you sign up!)
- Go Answer — Best inbound call center outsourcing for small business
- TeleDirect — Best call center service for managing reservations
- Five Star Call Center — Best outbound call center outsourcing
- SAS — Best outsourced call center answering services
- Signius — Best call center service for low-volume calls
This guide contains an in-depth review, including the top features, benefits, and other information about these companies below.
Best Call Center Service Reviews
Nextiva – Best Overall
One of the drawbacks of fully outsourcing your call center is being in the dark about the people handling your callers. It’s no good if you’re getting poor feedback from customers and you don’t have the means to train current staff to improve or replace poor performers with new hires.
Nextiva offers you an in-between solution that still delivers savings.
Nextiva’s call center software allows you to run it entirely from the cloud. That means you can have a fully distributed network of independent contractors manning your call center phones from any location.
Yes, you’ll still pay for some labor, but there’s no need to outfit a wing of your building with a full PBX phone system and the expenses that come with that. With Nextiva, you’re saving money while still maintaining full control over your call center and the people fielding calls.
Nextiva’s call center software runs on its Nextiva One platform. That may sound like a big investment in itself, but it’s not. There’s no need to install new equipment. Since it is a VoIP solution, Nextiva implementation is a snap.
Plus, it’s altogether affordable. Nextiva’s pricing is as follows:
- Essential – $21.95 per month/user
- Professional – $25.95 per month/user
- Enterprise – $35.95 per month/user
Get the best of both worlds—keep control of your call center workers while still saving money by letting them work from anywhere (including their own mobile phone) with Nextiva.
Go Answer – Best Inbound Call Center Outsourcing for Small Business
Go Answer is the go-to when it comes to inbound call services for small businesses. In addition to handling inbound calls, Go Answer also provides answering services as well as legal intake services. This company is trusted by more than 5,000 businesses across the United States and Canada to provide outsourced contact center needs.
Though Go Answer specializes in using the phone to communicate with your customers, that’s not all they’ll do. They will also interact with your customers via email, web chat, and SMS.
Here are some of the top features and benefits you’ll experience by using Go Answer as your call center service provider:
- 24/7 live agents
- Order entry
- After-hours availability
- HIPAA compliance
- Appointments
- Legal intake
- SMS and email alerts
- Real-time mobile app and dashboard
Any messages and voicemails from your customers are always available to you via the Go Answer mobile app. With this app you can also get real-time updates and notifications delivered via push notification, text, or email.
The contact center services from Go Answer are designed for medium to large businesses with a high call volume. They provide customized solutions for a wide range of industries. The agents become an extension of your team.
Go Answer supports multi-channel communication and ticketing for customer support inquiries as well. It also boasts some of the fastest pickup times in the industry.
You’ll also have free access to their mobile app, AlwaysOn, and you can try the answering service risk-free for 30 days with a trial.
The answering service is geared toward smaller organizations. It’s a reliable way to make a professional impression on your customers. Some of the most common industries using Go Answer include legal, real estate, publishing, finance, and ecommerce.
Like most call center services, the rates for Go Answer are unavailable online. You’ll need to contact their sales team for a custom quote based on the specific needs of your organization.
TeleDirect – Best for Managing Reservations
TeleDirect works with Fortune 500 companies, startups, and everything in between.
It offers both inbound and outbound call center services for businesses. Teledirect also has specific solutions for reservations and managing leads.
Businesses can use TeleDirect’s inbound call services for things like processing orders, qualifying leads, tech support, and help desk assistance. Since TeleDirect has agents available 24/7/365, it’s a top solution for after-hours support and call overflows.
TeleDirect has experience handling calls from a wide range of businesses. Common industries that trust this call center service include retail, financial services, healthcare, insurance, and tech.
The outbound calling services from TeleDirect are exceptional as well.
Your business can use this call center service for things like appointment setting, market research, lead generation, customer retention, event registration, surveys, and callbacks.
TeleDirect specializes in registration services. The company has handled over 1.6 million customer reservations across multiple industries. It’s a fast and efficient way to get people to RSVP. This service is perfect for seminars, events, workshops, and open enrollments.
The call center reps at TeleDirect are friendly and professional. They know how to make an excellent first impression for both inbound and outbound calls, regardless of the reason for the call.
We’d recommend TeleDirect for businesses of all sizes. It’s even a top solution for smaller businesses that just need assistance with after-hours calls and overflow.
Five Star Call Center – Best Outbound Outsourcing Service
Five Star Call Center has everything your business needs to manage customer service calls. They provide call center outsourcing, inbound voice, outbound voice, contact center software, and call center consulting.
This company has 35+ years in the call center outsourcing industry.
Common inbound call center outsourcing services from Five Star Call Center include:
- Scheduling
- Referral services
- Tech support
- Help desk
- Upselling and cross-selling
- Reservations
- Order management
- Customer loyalty programs
- Consumer information
Five Star Call Center also provides outbound calling for both B2C and B2B companies. Here are some of the popular outbound calling services:
- Lead generation and lead qualification
- Sales for products and services
- Market research, surveys, and polls
- Quality assurance
- Customer retention programs
- Crisis management
- Membership renewals
- Email and direct mail follow-up
- Payment reminders
As you can see from both lists, the services offered by the outsourced professionals at Five Star Call Center are extensive. All of the call center hubs are based in the US. There are five call centers in the midwest located in South Dakota, North Dakota, Kansas, and Oklahoma.
With over three decades in the call center service industry, Five Star Call Center knows it all. They’ve helped businesses across every industry you can imagine.
However, there are certain industries that Five Star Call Center specializes in. That includes retail, hospitality, product support, finance, healthcare, and professional services.
Many call center services on the market today offer inbound and outbound calling. But sometimes, these providers have an edge in one category over another.
Five Star Call Center definitely qualifies as a top outbound call center service.
The outbound services are robust and results-driven. The agents go above and beyond just reading from a script. They know how to connect with the caller on the other end of the line to accomplish whatever goal you’re trying to achieve.
SAS – Best Outsourced Call Center Answering Services
SAS stands for Specialty Answering Service. As the name clearly implies, the SAS call center’s primary focus is on being an answering service.
In addition to answering services, SAS provides call center outsourcing, dedicated call centers, lead generation services, and virtual receptionists.
SAS has bilingual receptionists and virtual office capabilities for their live operators.
The answering service is very diverse. While it’s obviously geared toward businesses, many people use SAS for personal use. Entrepreneurs, business owners, and busy professionals rely on SAS as a personal receptionist.
SAS has dispatching services with operators that answer calls in three rings or less. You can also get toll-free numbers, emergency answering services, and support on international calls.
Unlike most call center services, SAS has simple and straightforward pricing listed on its website. Here’s a quick overview of those plans and prices:
- Economy — $38 per month + $1.39 per minute
- 100 minutes — $139per month + $1.29 per additional minute
- 220 minutes — $239 per month + $1.29 per additional minute
- 500 minutes — $589 per month + $1.99 per additional minute
- 1,000 minutes — $1,089 per month + $1.15 per additional minute
- 2,500 minutes — $2,650 per month + $1.09 per additional minute
- 5,000 minutes — $5,099 per month + $0.85 per additional minute
- 10,000 minutes — $9,599 per month + $0.99 per additional minute
SAS has a plan for everyone. Whether you need 10 minutes per month or 10,000+ minutes per month, this answering service is perfect for you. As you can see, higher-volume businesses get a better discount per minute. But even the low-volume plans are affordable.
While SAS specializes in answering services, it also provides outsourced calling for lead generation, dedicated customer service reps, and other popular call center services.
Signius – Best for Low-Volume Calls
Signius is a call center service that is 100% US-based. They work with small businesses, Fortune 500s, and everyone in between.
Your business can benefit from a custom live call center that matches your brand image and fits within your budget. Signius offers call center services as well as answering services.
Some of its popular call center services fall into the following categories:
- Customer care
- Direct response
- Hotlines
- Help desk
- Order taking
- Disaster backup
Signius takes the time to understand your business. They go through this process to become an extension of your existing team. You have the ability to outsource all or just a portion of your call center functions.
Signius is known for its quick pickup times and modern technology. You’ll also have access to online reporting 24/7.
Your client portal gives you the ability to measure the effectiveness of your call center strategy. The platform gives you information related to single calls as well as your historical data at scale.
Common industries that take advantage of the call center services provided by Signius include:
- Small business
- Contractors
- Property managers
- Franchises
- Government
- Legal
- Utility Companies
- Healthcare
- Universities
For us, the small business call center and answering services from Signius stand out the most.
As a small business owner, you likely won’t need a full call center of agents on-site handling phone calls 24/7. That’s obviously not an effective use of your resources. But Signius is available 24/7 and can answer calls even when your store is closed.
Signius has call transfer services, customized scripts, and bi-lingual solutions. Even if you don’t get a high volume of calls, this will be an excellent option for you to choose.
How to Choose the Best Call Center Service For Your Business
Reviewing the top call center services on the market today is a good start. But how do you choose the right one for your business?
There are certain factors you should take into consideration when evaluating a prospective service. This is the methodology we recommend and use at Quick Sprout.
Use these criteria to narrow down your options.
Variety of Services
Most call center services do much more than just answer phone calls. They usually offer a wide range of other services for things like market research, lead generation, event registration, and call forwarding.
What does your company need help with?
If you’re a small business owner that wants your customers to speak to a live agent instead of an answering machine when they call after hours, you can get by with just an answering service.
But if you’re a larger organization that needs outbound calls for things like lead qualification, sales, payment reminders, or membership renewals, you’ll need a company that offers these extra functions.
Availability and Call Center Locations
The best call center services have live agents available 24/7/365. I wouldn’t consider a call center service that doesn’t offer this.
In addition to consistent availability, it’s essential there are enough agents to quickly answer inbound phone calls. Consider only working with larger services that have multiple locations and plenty of staff on hand.
If a US-based call center is important to you, there are plenty of great choices to consider. You don’t have to outsource your call center overseas if you don’t want to.
Industry
Your call center is an extension of your business. While the live agents making and receiving calls don’t work directly for your company, they are the face of your business to customers when they call.
It’s important to find a call center service that has experience working in your industry.
For example, a B2B company that is using an outbound call center service for event registrations and a doctor’s office using an answering service for post-discharge patients will have very different needs.
Custom Solutions
As consumers, we’ve all experienced phone support where the agent is clearly using a generic script. Those canned responses are applied to every business, regardless of industry or customer need.
It’s frustrating when this happens. You don’t want your customers to have this same experience.
That’s why you need to find a call center service that will take the time to understand your business and its needs. They’ll help you come up with a custom solution to improve the customer experience via phone support.
For further personalization for your customers, some call centers offer dedicated agent services. This means that you will have a few agents who have special training to answer questions specific to your business.
If you need to provide things like technical support for your customers, you may be able to hire a call center that will specialize in helping with these customer queries.
Some call centers may even give you custom overflow capabilities. If all your own salespeople are on the phone, one customized service of the call center may be to take overflow calls as needed.
The pricing structure for most answering services will be completely customized as well. Make sure you understand how you’re being charged before you commit to a contract. In many cases, it’s the most cost-effective to be billed based on usage.
The Top Call Center Services in Summary
Traditional call center services help with a variety of tasks, including recording incoming calls, taking messages for team members, and responding to customer queries based on your company script. Many businesses prefer using the service to enhance their lead generation and lead marketing campaigns.
Nextiva is hands down the superior call center solution, but you can always opt for other solid solutions we’ve reviewed above. In the end, it all boils down to your specific requirements, budget, and locations.