Five9 vs. NICE inContact: An In-Depth Breakdown

Five9 and NICE inContact offer omnichannel contact center as a service (CCaaS) software with a voice over internet protocol (VoIP) phone system. 

These contact center platforms offer omnichannel routing across multiple channels, such as voice, SMS, and social media. But what features and differences make one option better than the other? Here, we’ll dig into the differences between Five9 and NICE contact center software solutions. By the end of this article, you’ll know which CCaaS provider is right for your company. 

Five9 vs. NICE inContact: Comparing the Benefits

Five9: Exploring the pros

Below are some features that make Five9 stand out in the market.

Unified chat experience

Five9 states that 74% of customers access customer service using three or more channels. Five9 provides users with a unified messaging interface to keep these conversations in the same place. It uses automation to bring all customer interactions on email, social media, SMS, or chatbot into one place. The platform routes conversations to the most suitable agent using intelligent omnichannel routing. 

Five9 offers a seamless messaging experience and simplifies routine tasks like sending appointment reminders or other critical account updates. It allows agents to instantaneously escalate live calls into video meetings with screen sharing to support clients, increasing customer satisfaction.

Comprehensive user interface

The Five9 desktop app’s agent interface lets agents connect with customers via different communication channels. Agents can access the customer’s information and journey, ensuring personalized engagement. 

Agents have the option to monitor multiple phone numbers simultaneously, and various agents can collaborate on one phone number, enabling queue functionality. The interface gives actionable insights into agents’ performance metrics via visibility into their call distribution status, wait times, etc. 

Any new inbound task can be easily tracked via notifications on the left-hand menu. The “My Activity” tab allows agents to view their activities and supplies information like call logs and messages sent, with details like talk time, relevant campaigns, and comments.

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

Dynamic phone system

Five9 offers HD voice quality on five continents. The platform directs inbound queries to the right agent based on their skills and availability. It allows agents to share inbound call responsibilities and organize calls in a visual queue. The platform has an IVR that customers can navigate using app-style buttons or dual-tone multi-frequency audio selections. 

With Five9, agents record calls and transcribe the audio in real time. These transcripts support artificial intelligence (AI) coaching, helping improve their performance.

Call center supervisors monitor all incoming calls and agents in real time from their dashboards. Five9 supports outbound auto dialer software with predictive, progressive, power, and preview dialers. These tools allow agents to rapidly dial large groups of customers according to preset campaigns, which can be configured in your CRM system or database. The company delivers robust call center software for diverse use cases. 

NICE inContact: Exploring the pros

NICE inContact shares some pros with Five9. But some stand out.

Diverse communication channels

NICE inContact helps agents connect with customers via more than 30 mediums, which are categorized into seven channel types. One of these channels is voice, which supports features like autodialers. Agents can reply to emails, send messages, and post on social media platforms, all via NICE inContact. 

You can build or import automated chatbots on the NICE inContact platform. It automates customer messaging and lets agents connect with clients on live chat to resolve their issues quickly. 

Unique dashboard

NICE inContact’s desktop app dashboard, My Agent eXperience, offers a user-friendly, intuitive omnichannel inbox. It handles multiple customers, tasks, and queues simultaneously. The multichannel inbox also alerts agents to new functions, and agents can monitor and respond to social media posts, messages, and inbound calls.

It forwards tasks and lets agents add comments and notes for future reference. The dashboard gives complete visibility into calls in queue, wait time, call history, voicemail, and daily schedules. It makes agents more productive, allowing them to better plan their days and prioritize tasks. 

Superior phone system

NICE inContact’s virtual phone system offers global VoIP telephony capable of making HD voice calls to over 130 countries with 99.99% uptime. NICE inContact helps administrators purchase local and toll-free direct inward dialing numbers anywhere and manage them in the administrator portal. It makes international operations seamless. 

The phone system includes built-in inbound routing and automatic call distributor technology, directing calls to the most suitable agent. The outbound autodialer functionality makes proactive outbound calls from campaign lists, reducing the load on agents. 

Five9 vs. NICE inContact: Comparing the Drawbacks

While both platforms have some incredible features, they have their shortcomings too. Let’s find out what they are.

Five9: The cons

Users talk about challenges around implementation, interface, and a few other things while working with Five9. 

Below are some more notable things users suggest looking out for. 

• Intermittent login issues: While Five9 offers a unified chat experience and an intuitive dashboard, many users report issues when trying to log in. Some users face intermittent login problems where they can’t log in for short periods, leading to operational disruptions. Moreover, their troubleshooting experience isn’t the best.
• Significant delays: Many businesses face significant lag of up to three seconds between the time a caller picks up the phone and an agent responds. These delays can prove to be expensive, as companies can lose out on prospects because of them. 
• Steep learning curve: Five9’s advanced features often require more detailed, in-depth training to get agents up to speed. The learning curve makes training new users or teams with limited cloud contact center software experience more challenging.
• Complicated user interface: Some customers have found the interface not to be very user-friendly and have consistently asked for a better user interface. During live calls, users have limited access to the keypad/dialer.
• Complicated reports: Five9’s extensive reporting module can be a bit complex for smaller businesses that need simple reporting, making it confusing for users to understand.

NICE inContact: The cons 

NICE inContact’s reporting and forecasting module is tricky for some users to understand and navigate. 

Below are a few things you should consider before moving ahead. 

• Price: NICE inContact comes at a premium price with advanced features, making it expensive for many small businesses. Its pricing details are only available on request, making it more challenging for businesses to compare with other solutions.
• Usability: Customers feel NICE inContact’s user interface is a bit outdated and clunky. The platform has limited third-party integrations, making it challenging for companies to sync with other business applications. 
• Reliability: NICE inContact sometimes faces connectivity issues and downtime, making it challenging for businesses to continue operating. 

Contact Center Comparison: Nextiva, Five9 & NICE

Let’s compare Five9 and NICE inContact with Nextiva, which has a rating of 4.6/5, as per Software Advice. The following table gives you a quick overview of what to expect when working with these three platforms. 

	Nextiva	Five9	NICE CXone
Set up in hours	✅	❌	❌
Monthly price	$129+ per user	$149+ per user	$94+ per user
UC + CC integration	✅	✅	✅
Free trial	❌	Custom proof of concept	60 days
24/7 support	✅	✅	✅
Omnichannel	✅	✅	✅
Workforce management	✅	✅	✅
Outbound and inbound	✅	✅	✅
AI agent assist	✅	✅	✅
CRM integration	✅	✅	✅

As you can see, Nextiva’s pricing is competitive, given the range of features it offers for contact center personnel. The tool provides excellent service across all plans, greater value for money, and superior customer support.

Below are some notable advantages of Nextiva over Five9 and NICE inContact.

• It’s suitable for many different industries: Approximately  78% of the people who reviewed Nextiva on G2 are employees of small businesses, which shows that Nextiva delivers affordable hosted contact center solutions with great ease of use. 
• It meets user expectations: Nextiva easily wins when it comes to delivering a user-centric product. In their G2 reviews, 2,465 Nextiva users indicate that it meets their requirements. 
• It offers high-quality support: A total of 2,451 Nextiva users claim that they receive remarkable 24/7 support from the team, helping them resolve issues faster. 

These data points are based on G2’s comparison of the three products, which was done on April 4, 2024. 

Five9 vs. Nextiva comparison

Curious about how Five9 performs against Nextiva Contact Center? We’ve got you. Here’s a head-to-head matchup of the two platforms.

🔍 Dive Deeper: Is Five9 Better Than Nextiva? [2024 Comparison]

Nextiva: The Best Contact Center for Every Business

While Five9 and NICE inContact offer comprehensive contact center solutions, Nextiva combines the positives of both. It offers an easy-to-use platform that small businesses prefer because of its intuitive interface and simplified reporting capabilities. 

Nextiva adds affordability to advanced features. It offers several pricing plans to help companies select one based on their needs. 

For mid-market and enterprise businesses, Nextiva delivers a comprehensive set of features with the advanced capabilities that bigger companies require. It offers call recordings, APIs to integrate with other business systems, workforce engagement features, and a robust cloud platform to deliver decent customer engagement and support. You have a comprehensive knowledge base to promote self-service and enable customers to resolve issues faster.

🏇 Case Study: Communications Platform Built for an American Icon