Five9 vs. Genesys: Which Contact Center Platform Is Better?

When comparing contact center solutions, it’s important to pit the selections at the top of your short list against each other.

This kind of head-to-head comparison helps you better understand the technology you’re about to make a significant investment in. That’s why we’re comparing Five9 and Genesys, which are two titans of the cloud-based contact center world.

Read on for the pros and cons, key features, and guidance on which is best for your business; plus, we’ll compare these two solutions to Nextiva.

Five9 vs. Genesys: The Pros

Pros of Five9

Robust suite of features

It goes without saying that Five9 has a robust suite of features. Almost every cloud contact center solution offers omnichannel functionality to enhance customer satisfaction. In fact, differentiation in a standard list of features is nearly impossible in 2024.

Five9 features that come standard include:

• Global voice capabilities to deliver customer experiences worldwide
• Comprehensive agent and supervisor desktops
• Engagement workflows
• CRM integrations
• Unified communications integrations
• APIs and SDKs for customization
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation tools
• Employee engagement features
• Cloud voice

In addition to its competitive stock list of features, there are three areas where Five9 stands out.

1. Customizable KPI reporting

With over 120 customizable reports on real-time and historical data, Five9 leads the way in the number of reports it offers.

If you’re a large business with tons of data, having access to these reports and the ability to make each one unique to your business are definite benefits.

2. Conversational AI

Aragon Research named Five9 a leader in conversational AI. Five9’s message has always been about improving practical customer experience through automation and AI.

By using the Five9 conversational AI designer, you can create smart interactive voice response (IVR) systems and intelligent virtual assistants that make self-service your first port of call for all customer interactions.

With deep integration into your business tools and internal databases and backing from generative AI platforms, Five9 makes chatbots and key presses crucial functions for your business, often reducing the need for agent intervention and improving first contact resolution.

3. Verticalized outbound functionality

Rather than providing a single outbound contact center and hoping for the best, Five9 has a predictive dialer, autodialer software, and blended contact center options, all of which are suitable for different markets.

Whether you’re inside sales, appointment setting, or telemarketing, Five9 focuses on improving efficiency and decreasing the cost per lead while ensuring dialing compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

Pros of Genesys

Robust set of features

Genesys has all the stock features of an omnichannel contact center solution too.

These include:

• Inbound and outbound call management
• Call routing
• Real-time monitoring
• AI-powered capabilities such as an intelligent virtual assistant and agent assist
• Workflow automation
• Comprehensive reporting and analytics
• Call center gamification
• Workforce management

Like Five9, Genesys has its own eye-catching features, including:

1. Contact center analysis

Genesys sets a high standard for enterprise contact center analysis with a 360-degree view of customer interactions and features like real-time and predictive analytics and comprehensive KPI and metrics tracking​.

If you need a full view of everything that’s happening in your contact center, Genesys provides a central hub for all your contact center reports.

2. Quality management

Genesys offers an extensive automated quality management solution with searchable transcripts, scoring methodologies, and a hands-on approach to scheduling and agent management​.

Inefficient processes where agents and supervisors lose hours to manual scoring become a thing of the past when you introduce agent behavior scoring, sentiment analysis, and screen recording.

3. Self-service

Genesys provides self-service tools that are similar to Five9’s, as well as customer tone analysis for agent preparation and AI-powered virtual assistants for chat messaging.

With Genesys, you get advanced IVR and smart chatbots, all configurable in a simple builder. And with Genesys’ ability to detect sentiment as well as content and context, your self-service tools understand and process matters of high urgency or emotion, too.

No longer will you have emotionless robots serving customers and risking your business’ reputation. It’s all about natural language understanding and providing the best response.

Five9 vs. Genesys: The Cons

It would be unfair to compare Five9 and Genesys and only mention the good parts. It’s also important to understand where contact center software is weak and users and admins feel it falls short.

Cons of Five9

1. Call quality and system stability

Some users have reported inconsistent call quality, leading them to check out Five9’s competitors. For example, customer have reported that the microphone cuts out when they use specific headsets with the Five9 softphone.

Moreover, Five9’s platform availability dropped to 99.57% in Canada in August 2023 and 99.99% in the US in September 2023.

2. UI complexity

Five9’s user interface has been described as less intuitive, with a preference for more consolidated handling.

When comparing user reviews, it seems like experienced agents don’t have an issue with the Five9 interface. However, the software may take some getting used to for those coming from a strictly virtual call center background. People who are learning the omnichannel ropes struggle to adopt Five9 quickly.

3. High price point

The starting price for Five9’s Core package may be high, particularly as it doesn’t include omnichannel support. The Ultimate option costs over $220 per agent per month, making it one of the most expensive packages on the market. However, using every feature in the Five9 repertoire may make you feel like you’re getting your money’s worth.

Related: Five9 Pricing: How Much Does Its Cloud Contact Center Cost?

4. Complex setup and implementation

While it’s clear that Five9’s functionality is top-grade, some users report that setting up advanced features and integrations requires significant effort and technical know-how.

For example, the Salesforce integration is demonstrably a powerful tool, and users love it once it’s set up and working. However, to get there, you have to navigate through “thousands of settings in various places,” according to one review.

Cons of Genesys

1. Workforce management and reporting

Genesys’ workforce management and engagement features are noted as needing improvement, with some data accessibility issues highlighted. This isn’t something that’s seen in competing Genesys alternatives.

As such, it’s advisable to keep the known issues page bookmarked when using Genesys for workforce management.

2. System routing and voice quality

The Genesys user forum reports occasional scripting issues with call routing through virtual edges that have required provider support intervention. Genesys is thought of as one of the best options for complex technical deployments, which means it can lead to time-consuming fixes that require expert help.

3. Implementation and transition challenges

Some users report configuration complexities during their transition to Genesys Cloud CX, which is an issue some Five9 customers report too.

“When Genesys is implemented incorrectly, there are many things that go wrong, which in turn can have a serious impact on your customers and your team’s productivity and costs.” 

~Jamie Coutts, VP of Client Development at Star Telecom

4. Support and escalation

While Genesys drinks its own champagne by embracing self-service, complex issues that require escalation can have slower resolutions.

The nature of Genesys’ technical deployments does leave the door open to scrutiny when things go wrong. But that’s not to say customers are okay with a lack of proactive contact or the fact that they have to wait for new features to be released.

Comparing Five9 & Genesys to Nextiva

In most conversations involving Five9 and Genesys, there’s a third option. In comparisons of cloud contact center solutions (as opposed to hosted, on-premises, or hybrid models), that third option is Nextiva.

Functionality	Five9	Genesys	Nextiva
Plan	Core	Digital + Voice	Professional
Monthly price	$149+	$115+	$119+
Restrictions	Needs Nextiva UCaaS to power voice	Has long implementation times	Doesn’t yet support every type of social media
Key features	Generative AI studio Advanced automation workflows	Specialists in complex deployments In-house professional services	UCaaS integration Simple implementation Built-in AI
Customer rating (G2)	3.9 out of 5 (385 reviews)	4.3 out of 5 (1,311 reviews)	4.5 out of 5  (3,100 reviews)
Best for	AI-ready organizations looking for self-service	Large businesses with complex requirements	Sales, service, and support teams

Nextiva contact center pricing

Nextiva’s newest contact center solution offers different omnichannel capabilities in each plan. Its Professional and Premium plans, which are priced at less than $150 per agent per month, are the most competitive against Five9 and Genesys.

Ease of use

Nextiva is praised for its user-friendly interface, surpassing Five9 with higher ease-of-use scores​​​​. Admins love the portal where you can set up phone schedules, configure IVRs, and turn on omnichannel support.

While Genesys has its merits, Nextiva’s focus on providing user-friendly features, robust customer support, and a reliable platform gives it an edge in the comparison between the two providers​​.

Nextiva boasts a 5/5 networking rating on Down Detector and scores 94% in Gartner’s “Willingness to Recommend” category.

Customer support

Nextiva provides a reliable support experience by offering specialized 24/7 support with hands-on service. You get access to self-service knowledge bases, product documentation, and a library of tutorial videos. You also get to speak to human beings without having to jump through hoops.

“What I like most about Nextiva is their support. It’s always a one-call close. When you call in for support, the person on the other line — if they can’t fix it — they’ll find the person who can fix it and stay with you through the entire call.”

~James Carter, CTO at Integration Works

Nextiva knows that you need assistance when you first move to a cloud contact center or try to get used to managing omnichannel queries and understands that these things take time. So, the company’s approach to implementation, onboarding, and support is more hands-on. 

With over 1,000 dedicated team members, Nextiva helps its own customers and helps you support yours.

Value for the cost

We’re talking about more bang for your buck. While there may not be as many options for complex integration and hybrid deployments, not everybody needs them.

When you need a reliable, cost-efficient, omnichannel solution, Nextiva offers more benefits relative to its cost and provides better value for its customers than Five9​​ and Genesys do.

With Nextiva, your access to features includes:

• Blended inbound and outbound integration
• Omnichannel support for SMS, email, web chat, and social media
• Workforce optimization with a mobile-accessible strategic planner
• Quality monitoring scorecards and screen recording
• Interaction analysis for sentiment scoring

Integrations out of the box include:

• Salesforce
• HubSpot
• Zendesk
• Oracle Sales Cloud
• Microsoft Dynamics
• Many others, which you can see here

And you get all this for a fraction of the price of both Five9 and Genesys.

Learn More: Nextiva vs. Five9 at a glance

Reliability and security

Nextiva emphasizes military-grade security, geo-redundancy, and regulatory standards compliance, ensuring high reliability and data protection​​.

You get 99.999% uptime with eight points of presence and carrier-grade data centers. 

Thanks to 24/7 monitoring, any potential network issues are immediately flagged and resolved. And you’ll always be aware of what’s going on via the Nextiva status page.

Nextiva can also help your contact center become compliant with HIPAA, PCI DSS, and FINRA.

Through the use of smart call recording, disposition tracking, and AI-assisted call auditing, your business is in safe hands when you choose Nextiva.

Nextiva Is the Reliable Contact Center Platform Your Business Needs

Five9 and Genesys are solid solutions in their own rights. If you’re looking for a comprehensive suite of features and have complex technical deployment needs, they’re good options. In fact, Nextiva works with Five9 to provide telephony functionality when Five9 is the right option for businesses with technical deployments.

However, Nextiva comes out on top in usability, reliability, and ease of use. And it’s packed with all the features you really need.

So, if you’re in the market for an omnichannel contact center that’s simple to get started and that users and admins love, why not take Nextiva for a spin?