Contact Center Features to Look for in 2025

Looking for a contact center software solution for your customer communication needs but overwhelmed by the number of contact center providers out there on the market and the features they are offering? You’re not alone! Though many factors come into play when it comes to selecting contact center software for your business – first, you need to figure out what features are critical for you.

In this blog, we’ll walk you through some of the key contact center software features to look for in 2025, and how exactly they can improve your customer communications. And while you don’t necessarily need them all, at least you’ll have a better understanding of what’s currently available with many providers – and that might help you narrow down your choices based on what matters most to your business. Let’s get straight to it!

The Evolution: from Call Centers to AI-powered Omnichannel Communication Hubs That Drive Revenue

First things first, contact centers have gone a long way from being traditional call centers focused solely on voice communication. Thanks to technology advancements, the rise of automation, and changing customer expectations, they have actually transformed into AI-powered omnichannel hubs that handle customer interactions across multiple (voice and digital) channels.

Most importantly, while traditionally seen as cost centers, contact centers are now transitioning to revenue drivers, as they’ve become crucial in shaping customer experiences and driving customer loyalty. In fact, according to Calabrio’s report, 97% of consumers say their interactions with contact centers influence their loyalty to a brand, with two-thirds stating these interactions are very or extremely impactful.

The bottom line: if you want to make sure your contact center delivers on your customer expectations and drives revenue for your business, it’s time to upgrade your contact center tech stack.

Recommended reading: Contact Center Industry Trends for 2025 and Beyond

Contact Center Software Features to Look for in 2025

Let’s take a closer look at some core and innovative features to look for when evaluating different contact center software providers. Again, based on your goals, business type, size, and industry – you might not necessarily need all these features. But having a better understanding of what’s available and how you could potentially benefit from these capabilities might simplify your selection.

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

If you think IVR is becoming a thing of the past, as AI chatbots are gradually taking over customer support – think again. The reality is, when people want service, many would still prefer to pick up the phone and interact with a real human. That’s why IVR remains the most important connection between companies and customers in many sectors, accounting for five times more interactions than text-based chat, according to McKinsey.

If you’re looking for a call center software solution to handle your inbound voice communications, Interactive Voice Response is a must-have feature. IVR systems can help route incoming calls to the right destination based on each caller’s input, reduce frustrating call transfers, improve first call resolution (FCR) rates, reduce the average handle times, and ultimately increase your CSAT scores. Better yet, IVR menus can be an effective self-service tool for answering FAQs and addressing basic issues without human involvement.

Skill-based Routing

Customer expectations are now higher than ever. In addition to being able to get immediate support, they also want to get their issues resolved during a single interaction. Based on Salesforce, 83% of customers expect to solve complex problems by speaking to only one person, yet only 13% say it takes little effort to get their issues resolved. And here’s where skill-based call routing can help, making it an essential feature alongside Automatic Call Distribution and IVR for inbound call centers.

Skill-based routing enables you to route inbound calls to call center agents who are most qualified to handle certain types of issues rather than just sending calls to the next available agent. Typically, you’ll be able to organize these skill groups based on factors like language, location, subject matter expertise, and experience. By matching customer requests with the right agents, you’ll be able to:

• Use reps’ skills more effectively
• Reduce call transfers and escalations
• Resolve customers’ issues faster
• Improve your FCR rates
• Increase customer satisfaction scores (CSAT)
• Reduce customer effort scores (CES)

In-queue Callback

Call queue management features and in-queue callbacks are critical for call centers dealing with high volumes of inbound phone calls. This is because being put on hold creates nothing more than a frustrating experience for callers – and numerous studies prove that. For example, research from Invoca found that 28% of people will hang up after waiting on hold for five minutes or less, while only 6% are willing to stay on hold for 30 minutes or longer. Fortunately, they don’t have to if you offer them a callback option.

With an in-queue callback feature, you enable callers to maintain their position in a virtual call queue without having to remain on the line. And once they reach the front of the queue, they’ll receive a callback from an agent who becomes available.

No wonder that according to Software Advice, 63% of consumers prefer a callback as an alternative to waiting on hold when they call customer support. On top of that, over one-quarter indicated they’d always prefer a callback over any amount of time spent on hold.

AI Predictive Dialing

This one relates to outbound call centers, in particular. If your team handles large volumes of outbound calls – AI predictive dialing can make your reps a lot more productive and efficient. Predictive dialers initiate multiple outbound calls per agent before an agent becomes available while automatically adjusting the dialing pace based on the number of available reps and metrics like the average call duration and call abandonment rate.

That reduces the idle time between calls and ensures each agent is connected to the next call as soon as they finish their current interaction. Ultimately, it allows your reps to handle more calls and reach out to more prospects in less time.

VoiceSpin’s AI dialer is an excellent example. It uses predictive and machine learning algorithms to intelligently score leads and connect them to the best-suited agents based on the probability of converting a lead successfully. It also skips busy signals and unproductive numbers and leaves pre-recorded voicemails automatically, connecting your reps only to calls answered by prospects. And it avoids calling numbers in the Do Not Call Registry to help you ensure compliance with outbound calling regulations.

Omnichannel Readiness

Omnichannel has become the norm, as more customers expect to be able to interact with companies across the channels of their choice and seamlessly transition between them. According to data from Salesforce, 71% of customers prefer using different communication channels depending on context, while 78% use multiple channels to start and complete a single transaction. At the same time, when switching channels, consumers want a consistent experience without having to repeat themselves multiple times.

And here’s the thing: you simply can’t deliver that consistent experience to your customers if you use multiple disjointed solutions to handle customer interactions across different channels. Luckily, with an omnichannel-ready contact center software solution, you can unify multiple channels under one roof – while your reps will always have the context of previous interactions no matter what channels customers used to reach out to your brand.

And again, VoiceSpin’s AI Messaging is a great example. It allows you to integrate multiple channels (including email, social media, live chat, and instant messaging apps) into a single platform. And that enables your agents to handle customer interactions across these channels from a unified, AI-powered omnichannel inbox and deliver that seamless experience across all customer touchpoints.

Third-party Integrations

Your contact center doesn’t operate in isolation – it must work in sync with other business systems you are already using. In 2025, the ability to integrate with CRM systems and other third-party tools is one of the key differentiators for contact center software platforms.

Here’s a quick example: integrating with CRM systems allows reps to access a 360-degree view of the customer, including their past interactions with your brand, purchase history, preferences, and other information. That enables agents to deliver a more personalized experience with every interaction. And we know that the demand for personalization is real, and it’s growing. McKinsey research shows that 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions. But the story doesn’t end there: 76% get frustrated when this doesn’t happen.

And it makes the experience better not just for your customers, but for your reps too. According to a CX Trends Report from Zendesk, 62% of agents agree that having access to customer data would help them personalize interactions and do their jobs better.

AI Chatbots

If you want to automate your customer service operations and support your customers 24/7, look for contact center providers that allow you to integrate AI chatbots. AI-powered chatbots can operate tirelessly around the clock (including outside of your business hours, on weekends, and holidays), interact with your customers and prospects in multiple languages, and improve over time by continuously learning from past interactions.

What’s even better, a typical customer service AI chatbot solution isn’t only capable of providing basic information and answering FAQs. Modern AI-driven chatbots can integrate with multiple backend systems (like CRM, calendar software, and e-commerce platforms), instantly retrieve information from them, and perform specific actions like updating account information, scheduling appointments, tracking orders, renewing subscriptions, and so much more.

Integrating an AI chatbot can help you improve customer experience by meeting your customers’ expectations for instant support and save your human agents a bunch of time and effort while also freeing them up to focus on more complex interactions. Based on Intercom’s report, businesses using AI have found that AI chatbots successfully resolve up to 30% of their support requests.

Recommended reading: Customer Service Chatbots: a Complete Guide for 2025 

AI Voice Bots

As more businesses increasingly rely on AI to enhance customer experiences, improve efficiency through automation, and reduce costs, AI voice bots are becoming an essential feature for modern contact centers in 2025. AI-powered voice bots can handle voice interactions automatically, engaging with your customers or prospects in a truly human-like way without human involvement.

With an AI voice bot (or an AI call answering service), you can support your customers 24/7, no matter when they call you. And considering that over 80% of customers expect to interact with someone immediately when they contact a brand, it’s a great way to extend your customer support operations without hiring more support reps. Similarly to AI chatbots, when integrated with third-party systems, AI voice bots can also perform specific actions like booking appointments and modifying subscriptions, to name just a few.

Plus, in addition to answering inbound calls independently, many solutions can also initiate and handle outbound calls. For example, an AI calling bot can call your prospects, provide information about your products or services, and handle the initial lead qualification. And since a voice AI sales agent can handle cold calls and qualify leads automatically, that means your sales reps can focus on interacting with only high-potential leads.

Recommended reading: Customer Service AI Voice Bots: The Ultimate Guide

Custom Reporting

Every business has unique needs – and custom reporting capabilities will allow you to monitor the metrics and KPIs that matter most to your business. With customizable reports, you can drill down into specific metrics and evaluate your operational efficiency and agent performance, spot inefficiencies, quickly identify areas for improvements, and make more data-driven decisions. The last thing you want is to purchase contact center software that gives you incomplete data and doesn’t meet your specific needs.

The best providers will also allow you to track your metrics and KPIs in real time so you can stay on top of your contact center operations and make adjustments instantly. Additionally, if you support customers across different channels, you’ll also need to be able to track channel-specific metrics and KPIs.

AI Speech Analytics

Custom reporting is a solid foundation for measuring your contact center’s operational efficiency. But if you want to get even deeper insights into every voice interaction, look for contact center software providers offering advanced AI-driven speech analytics capabilities.

Modern AI speech analytics tools go beyond basic call transcription. While the exact capabilities will, of course, differ across providers, these tools can help you automate your call center quality assurance process by analyzing every call, evaluate agent performance, monitor customer sentiment across interactions, and identify recurring issues. 

Most importantly, these tools can track specific keywords and key phrases in real time to help you ensure compliance with industry regulations and avoid hefty penalties. VoiceSpin’s contact center AI Speech Analyzer does exactly that and more. For example, it can spot non-compliance issues in conversations, such as the use of prohibited language or failure to disclose required information, and instantly alert managers. Overall, by leveraging AI speech analytics, you’ll be able to:

• Automate your call center QA monitoring
• Identify recurring customer issues and trends
• Track customer sentiment across voice interactions
• Measure your call center team’s performance
• Spot agent knowledge gaps and training opportunities
• Track specific keywords and prevent non-compliance issues

AI Call Summary

Lastly, an AI call summary is a valuable feature to look for in a contact center software solution in 2025. It basically gives you brief insights into every voice conversation, including key points discussed during the call, action items, resolutions offered, customer sentiment, and other important details.

With an AI call summary feature, your call center reps don’t have to spend time manually summarizing calls after each interaction, reducing after-call work. It also ensures better consistency and accuracy in customer records. In addition, many providers will allow you to create customizable summary templates tailored to your specific needs.

Besides, with AI call summaries, agents can quickly review past interactions without having to read full call transcripts or listen to call recordings whenever they need to follow up. And that not only reduces the time reps spend for follow-up preparation but also enables them to better personalize follow-up interactions.

Looking to Upgrade Your Contact Center Tech Stack? Give VoiceSpin a Try

Choosing a contact center software solution for your business doesn’t have to be complicated and time-consuming. Once you have a clear understanding of what features are a must-have for your team, you’ll be able to shortlist providers offering these capabilities and streamline the selection process starting from there. And here’s why VoiceSpin might be just the right choice, whether you’re looking for a basic call center solution to handle your inbound customer calls or a complete AI-powered omnichannel contact center platform:

• Inbound Call Management: VoiceSpin is packed with dozens of both basic and advanced call center features like IVR, custom call routing, call queue management, in-queue callbacks, missed call alerts, call recording, real-time call monitoring, call whispering, and more to help your service team resolve customers’ issues effectively.

• AI Predictive Dialing: Our AI predictive dialer is built specifically for sales teams handling large outbound call volumes. It uses AI and predictive analytics to intelligently connect leads to the best-suited sales reps to help you maximize conversions. Plus, with access to local numbers from 160+ countries, you can dramatically improve call answer rates and the efficiency of your outbound calling campaigns.

• AI Chatbot: VoiceSpin’s AI chatbot can support your customers around the clock, provide instant, personalized answers, schedule appointments, and qualify inbound leads when your agents aren’t available. The bot supports multiple languages and can seamlessly hand off conversations to human reps while preserving the full context of the interaction.

• AI Voice Bot: Our AI voice bot can handle your inbound and outbound calls independently, provide accurate, contextually relevant information, book appointments, and instantly capture and qualify leads – all while interacting with your customers and prospects in a natural, conversational way, just like your human reps would.

• Omnichannel Messaging: With VoiceSpin’s AI Messaging platform, you can unify multiple digital communication channels (including email, social media, and WhatsApp) under one roof so your reps can manage customer conversations across all of them from a single omnichannel inbox and deliver a seamless CX no matter what channels customer use.

• AI Speech Analytics: Our AI speech analyzer allows you to monitor 100% of your calls (both inbound and outbound) in real time to help you evaluate the quality of interactions by tracking custom metrics and measure your team’s performance. What’s more, it can track specific keywords and help you prevent non-compliance issues through real-time alerts.

• CRM integrations: VoiceSpin’s contact center platform natively integrates with 50+ most popular CRM systems (like Zoho, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Pipedrive), helpdesk tools, and automation apps so you can keep all data in sync across your systems and automate your team’s workflows. And these integrations are available across all subscription plans.

Book a demo call now to see VoiceSpin’s AI contact center solutions in action and learn how they can help you improve customer experience, optimize processes and operations, boost your team’s performance, and reduce operational costs through automation.