Top 4 Gladly Alternatives in 2023

~50% of organizations have invested in conversational AI capabilities for contact centers, with ~45% planning to adopt such capabilities.¹

Adopting advanced contact center software and implementing AI is crucial for organizations to optimize and streamline their customer service operations. Gladly appears to be an option for companies in pursuit of a tailored solution, however, some users state that the software does not meet their expectations as it fails to provide efficient reporting, pricing structure, messaging features, and notification system.

This article will examine Gladly and its top four alternatives or competitors and discuss their core technologies, pros & cons, user ratings, and pricing.

Comparison of Gladly and its top 4 alternatives

Table 1: Comparison by market presence

Vendors	Total # of employees*	Total reviews**	Average rating**	Ease of use***	Quality of support***	Free trial	Pricing (Starts from per seat/month)
Gladly	198	937	4.7/5	9.5/10	9.4/10	✖	$180.00
Salesforce Service Cloud	70,338	4,609	4,4/5	8.1/10	8.1/10	30-day	$25.00
Talkdesk	1,421	3,453	4.3/5	9.1/10	8.8/10	30-day	$75.00
NICE CXone	10,419	2,943	4.5/5	8.8/10	8.4/10	60-day	$71.00
Genesys Cloud CX	7,461	2,681	4.4/5	8.9/10	8.1/10	30-day	$75.00

*Based on the total number of employees on LinkedIn as of 11/14/2023.

**Based on the total number of reviews and average rating data on the Capterra, G2, and Trustradius software review platforms as of 11/14/2023. 

***Ease of quality and quality of support data is based on G2 ratings as of 14/11/2023.

Table 2: Comparison by features

Vendors	Low code – no code	AI chatbots	Advanced analytics	Custom reporting	Deployment	# of integrations*
Gladly	✅	✅	✅	In premium plans	-Cloud (SaaS) -Web-based	30+
Salesforce Service Cloud	Low code	In premium plans	In premium plans	✅	-Cloud -Mobile	2,500+
Talkdesk	✅	Add-on	In premium plans	In premium plans	-Cloud (SaaS) -Web-based -Desktop	60+
NICE CXone	✅	In premium plans	✅	In premium plans	-Cloud -Desktop -Mobile	100+
Genesys Cloud CX	Low code	In premium plans	✅	In premium plans	-Cloud (SaaS) -Web-based	100+

* # of integrations for Salesforce Service Cloud product data represents the total # of integrations for Salesforce Company.

Note: With Gladly at the top followed by Salesforce Service Cloud (sponsored) other vendors are sorted in descending order according to the total number of review data.

Vendor selection criteria

Bearing in mind that there are numerous cloud contact center providers, the lists above have been limited based on the vendor criteria provided below. 

• Employee size: 150+ employees on LinkedIn
• Number of reviews: 900+ total reviews on Capterra, G2, and Trustradius. 
• Average rating: 4.0+/5 on Capterra, G2, and Trustradius.
• Ease of quality and quality of support rating: 8.0+/10 on G2.

Gladly

Gladly is a contact-center software that differentiates itself with its no-ticket structure, which keeps customer communication in historical conversation channels.

The software primarily provides phone, IVR, chat, and self-service solutions to businesses in a range of industries, such as financial services, e-commerce, and retailers, with Shopify, Medallia Agent Connect, and Klaviyo integrations. Glady offers security features including PCI & GDPR compliance, and data centers in 9 regions around the world.²

Some of the features include: 

• Programmable interactive voice response (IVR): Gladly provides an in-built IVR that employs extensive consumer information. The IVR is cloud-based, and programmable, with touch-tone and voice recognition and text-to-speech capabilities offered in 30 languages.³
• Proactive voice: The proactive voice support feature helps users schedule automatic outreach to customers in large quantities, with customized interaction. Then, if callers ask for human assistance, a proactive voice feature routes the call by phone or SMS to a human agent.

Pros

Ease-of-use: Some users evaluate Gladly as a simple platform that allows them to view previous chats and calls and the notes linked to them. They also complement the AI capabilities of the platform, noting that AI helped them to improve their tone to the customer.⁴

Customer support: Gladly customers were satisfied with the platform’s customer support team performance, which enabled them to assist and close issues in a shorter period.⁵

Contact center functionality: Users appreciate the ability to switch between emails and phone conversations when engaging with clients on several platforms.⁶

Cons

Reporting: Some users note that reports could certainly be improved. It’s difficult to acquire precise analysis from the reports; numbers and metrics cannot be easily managed without bringing the data into your own data repository.⁷⁸

Pricing: A more economical cost structure for small to medium- firms can be offered.⁹

Notifications system: Some users state that Gladly’s notification system isn’t simple to use, especially during busy periods when important alerts might get missed.¹⁰

Messaging feature: Some users contend that the platform requires enhancements in messaging features since customers cannot view text messages after they are sent.¹¹

User Ratings

• Capterra: 4.8/5
• G2: 4.6/5
• TrustRadius: 4.7/5

Pricing (starting price per seat/month, billed annually)

• Hero: $180.00 (requires minimum 10 users) ¹²
• Superhero: $210.00 (requires minimum 45 users) 
• Free trial: Not available.

Top 4 Gladly alternatives 

1- Salesforce Service Cloud

Salesforce Service Cloud is a US-based cloud contact center software product with over 70,000 employees and 150,000 users globally.¹³

The software offers voice calls over Internet Protocol (VOIP) networks that can leverage several contact center technologies such as automated workflows, artificial intelligence (AI), low-code / no-code, and customer service chatbots to help organizations decrease repetitive tasks and streamline contact center operations for support teams through email, live chat, phone calls, and digital channels.

Service Cloud offers a variety of tools that can be integrated with contact center technologies for a $50 per user per month starting price such as Service Cloud Einstein.¹⁴

Einstein can utilize AI to leverage several initiatives used in contact centers:

• Case classification: Einstein may review previous months’ occurrences and optimize data entry for new instances by categorizing them.
• Multilingual chatbots: Einstein may interact with customers in their language and use natural language understanding (NLU).
• Customized customer service: With AI, Einstein can boost agent productivity while offering more tailored customer service platform, based on their specific wants and needs.
• Next best actions: Einsteins can guide employees with AI recommendations by leveraging historical user data to optimize recommendations and categorize them into groups with distinguishing features.

Figure 1: Einstein AI chatbot providing personalized support

Source: Salesforce¹⁵

Pros

Contact center functionality: Some users claim that Service Cloud has helped them to increase service organization efficiency by improving customer satisfaction ratio and decreasing service resolution time in their customer support solution.¹⁶

Messaging and chatbot feature: Chatbot and instant messaging services have been helpful to automate the ticket creation process.¹⁷

Computer telephony integration (CTI): Some users say that CTI functionality, connecting a call center’s phone systems to its business applications for call handling, works well with Talkdesk integration.¹⁸

Cons

Set-Up: According to some users, initial building and setup can be time-consuming.¹⁹

Pricing: Some consumers are concerned about the Service Cloud’s high running costs.²⁰

Client requests: Some users expect to be able to structure incoming client requests.²¹

User Ratings

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.3/5
• Trustradius: 4.4/5

Pricing (starting price per seat/month, billed annually)

• Starter: $25.00²²
• Professional: $80.00
• Enterprise: $165.00
• Unlimited: $330.00
• Free trial: 30-day 

2-Talkdesk

Talkdesk is a contact center as a service (CCaaS) platform with AI capabilities that has 1,800+ clients, including global organizations such as IBM, Canon, and Fujitsu. Talkdesk comes with an AppConnect app market with 80+ integration options.²³

Contact center teams can use Talkdesk’s automation, customer intelligence insights, and analytics features to foster personalized customer experience based on customer input, customer segmentation, and chatbot sentiment.

Talkdesk claims their product leveraged automation in their customer’s CIA (a global technology services firm with over 8,500 associates with 500,000 customers globally) by increasing agent time savings by 8+ minutes and speeding incident management processes with automated call summaries.²⁴

Pros

Calls: Users appreciate that they can follow all of their calls by just inputting the phone number or the agent’s name, and Talkdesk shows when the call has been made and how long it took.²⁵

IVR customization: Users remark that the IVR feature offers considerable customization options, enabling users to create detailed graphs or statistics regarding the cases, incidents, or customer interactions they are responsible for.²⁶

Reporting: Some users stated that Talkdesk has a comprehensive reporting system that helps them to manage teams and projects effortlessly.²⁷

Cons

Pricing: Users frequently complain about the pricing of Talkdesk, noting that the software has much higher pricing than some of their competitors such as Five9 or Dialpad.²⁸

Inn-app customer conversation: Some customers claim the conversations app is problematic and frequently drops agents from calls.²⁹

Notification features: Some users think that it would be beneficial to have some form of dynamic pop-up alert or visual notification.³⁰

User Ratings

• Capterra: 4.5/5
• G2: 4.4/5
• Trustradius: 4.3/5

Pricing (starting price per seat/month)

• Essentials: $75.00³¹
• Elevate:  $95.00
• Elite:  $125.00
• Enterprise: Contact Talkdesk
• Free trial: 30-day

3- NICE CXone

NICE CXone is an AI-powered self service customer portal and agent-assisted customer service software equipped with cloud-native contact center with advanced features, CXone. NICE collaborates with over 25,000 organizations in over 150 countries, including over 85 of the Fortune 100.³²

NICE CXone claims that they have enabled flexibility in The Toronto-Dominion Bank’s (the sixth largest bank in North America by assets, with over 27 million customers) contact center operations by increasing operational efficiency, responsiveness, and accountability by allowing contact center agents to control their schedules independently.

The company further states that the employee engagement manager (EEM) feature in NICE CXone has helped their customer streamline the procedure of monitoring compliance and saved up capacity for contact center staff—about one full-time employee’s worth, for cost reductions totaling $105,000.³³

Pros

Reporting: Some users say that the dashboard interface with detailed reporting features is easy to understand for their agents.³⁴

Connection:  NICE CXone is said to have a seamless connection, the product rapidly connects calls to the embedded phone system, reducing the number of missed connections.³⁵

Messaging: Users note that the SMS messaging capability of NICE CXone is useful.³⁶

Cons

Reporting: While some users compliment on the reporting features of NICE CXone, a few found that reporting is time-consuming since they think it is complicated to interpret the agent’s activity history.³⁷

Call monitoring: Some users complain that the dashboard lacks the ability to monitor, record, and analyze phone calls missed.³⁸

Customization: Users expect greater flexibility in built-in reports that satisfy their unique requirements.³⁹

User Ratings

• Capterra: 4.2/5
• G2: 4.3/5
• TrustRadius: 4.1/5

Pricing (starting price per seat/month)

• Digital agent: $71.00⁴⁰
• Voice agent: $94.00
• Omni-channel agent: $110.00
• Essential suite: $135.00
• Core suite: $169.00
• Complete suite: $209.00
• Free trial: 60-day 

4- Genesys Cloud CX

Genesys Cloud CX is another Gladly alternative with a customer service portal offering cloud contact center solutions. The software offers more than 350 AI-assisted capabilities including interactive voice response (IVR), low-code / no-code, customer service chatbots, and workforce analytics.⁴¹

Genesys Cloud CX points out that they have positively affected their customer Electrolux Group’s, a manufacturing and retail sales company, strategy by implementing tools such as omnichannel routing, contact center AI-powered technology, resulting in an increase in first-contact resolution (FCR), Net Promoter Score (NPS), and staff satisfaction, along with a 25% reduction in average handling time (AHT).⁴²

Pros

Reporting: Users note that management can easily conduct reporting from the dashboard while monitoring their agents’ status at any given time, allowing managers to seamlessly alter and modify agent queues.⁴³

Ease-of-use: Most users agree that the software has several user-friendly capabilities for handling calls and chats.⁴⁵

Integrations: Some users appreciate the Salesforce integration, noting that they can take all of the calls and emails through the AppExchange app in Salesforce which enables them to automate the creation of an activity record for each contact.⁴⁶

Cons

Reporting: While few users find the platform’s reporting helpful, several reviewers noted that Genesys Cloud CX reports are confusing, lack customization, and malfunctions.⁴⁷⁴⁸⁴⁹

Learning curve: According to reviewers, it may be quite complex to learn how to use Genesy Cloud CX.⁵⁰

Call quality: Some reviewers claim that call quality is poor while using low-bandwidth web connections.⁵¹

User Ratings

• Capterra: 4.4/5
• G2: 4.3/5
• TrustRadius: 4.2/5

Pricing (starting price per seat/month, billed annually)

• Genesys Cloud CX 1 (Voice plan): $75.00⁵²
• Genesys Cloud CX 2 (Digital plan): $95.00
• Genesys Cloud CX 2 (Digital + Voice plan): $115.00
• Genesys Cloud CX 3 (Digital + WEM plan): $135.00
• Genesys Cloud CX 3 (Digital + WEM + Voice plan): $155.00
• Free trial: 30-day

5 compared features of Gladly alternatives

1- Low-code / no-code development

Low-code and no-code development is an approach to using and developing apps that use simple drag-and-drop technologies to decrease or remove the requirement for traditional coders.

2- AI chatbots

AI Chatbots are single-purpose programs that execute a specific function. They provide automated yet conversational replies to user inquiries using natural language processing (NLP). Conversations with aı chatbots are extremely detailed and organized, and they are ideal for support and service functions—imagine comprehensive, conversational FAQs or contact center service agents. Task-oriented AI chatbots may answer routine questions, such as inquiries about company hours or basic interactions. 

3- Advanced analytics

Advanced analytics refers to the process of gathering and analyzing call center data utilizing complex algorithms and techniques (predictive modeling, machine learning algorithms, deep learning, business process automation) to predict future trends and behaviors to get important insights regarding agent efficiency, contact center support performance, customer retention, or feedback.

4- Custom reporting

Custom reports allow users to choose the particular data points, parameters, and attributes they prefer to evaluate, according to the user’s specific needs.

5- Deployment

Software deployment is the method of making software available for use on the machine by end-users.

The major deployment types are specified below:

• On-premise (desktop): On-premises software is downloaded and executed directly on the customer’s personal computers or local servers, i.e. on actual hardware rather than separated hosting.

• Web-based or cloud: Cloud deployment entails developing a virtual environment that governs how servers are used and maintained. The three most prevalent cloud deployment options are software as a service (SaaS), platform as a service (PaaS), or infrastructure as a service (IaaS). 

Note: A constant internet connection is required for a web-based application to operate. A cloud application runs processing operations on the local machine.

5- Number of integrations

Application integration bridges the gap between on-premises systems and rapidly changing cloud-based apps by streamlining data and workflows, enabling companies to oversee a range of operations across their entire networks via completely networked processes and data transfers, 

Transparency statement

AIMultiple serves numerous tech companies, including Salesforce.

Further reading

Read our transparent, up-to-date articles to learn more about cloud contact centers.

Please check our transparent and data-driven software list of our contact center vendors.

Find the Right Vendors

External Links

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