Blog
Call centre software for a five-person team
What a five-person team needs from call centre software, what the category charges for that a small team never opens, and how to read a quote.
John · Owner and CEO · 4 min read · · updated
A five-person team needs one number, two or three named teams behind it, a wait that says something, a callback, a clean hand-over and a way to hear what happened. It does not need forecasting, wallboards or a dialler, and most call centre pricing charges for those anyway.
What does a five-person team actually need?
Five things, and five seats: one published number, two or three named teams behind it, a wait that speaks, a hand-over that loses nobody, and a way to hear what happened afterwards. Nothing on that list needs a floor, shift patterns or a full-time manager.
Seats, minutes and the spend ceiling are the three lines that decide what a quote actually costs over a year.
Reuse this figure anywhere, including commercially, with credit to Ringfully and a link back to this page. CC BY 4.0.
You are shopping for call centre software in Quebec because the line rings out while you are with a customer, or because the person doing sales keeps getting the billing calls. That is not a call centre problem. It is a problem of who answers what, in what the Office québécois de la langue française calls an informal call centre: everybody answers, between other tasks.
The list fits on one hand:
- One published number and, behind it, two or three teams you name: sales, service, billing. Each team says who may take its calls, which calls go first, and what happens when nobody picks up in time.
- A wait that speaks. Music, a rough idea of how long, and the 1 to be rung back instead of staying on the line.
- A hand-over that loses nobody: hold, a word with the colleague, then hand over with an introduction.
- A way to know what happened: the recording, and a say in who may listen to it.
What the category sells that you will never open
Call centre software is built for fifty people in rows, with somebody whose job is to watch them. That is where the features at the top of the brochure come from, and each of them assumes something that is not true of five people.
| What the brochure sells | What it assumes | Your five people |
|---|---|---|
| Forecasting and shift scheduling | You hire to the curve of incoming calls | The curve is “Julie is in on Tuesdays” |
| The wallboard | Somebody is watching a screen on the wall | You are on the phone, and there is no wall to look at |
| The dialler | You place calls from a list | You do not cold-call, you answer |
| Live listening by a manager | A manager who does not take calls | Everyone answers |
None of it is bad. It is that you pay for it whether you open it or not, and the plan price was set with those fifty people in mind.
How do you read a call centre quote?
Find three lines, in this order: seats, minutes and the ceiling. If any of the three is missing, ask for it in writing before comparing anything.
Seats
A seat is one person who can sign in and answer. Check the minimum: plenty of quotes start above the number of people you have, which is paying for empty chairs. Then check whether teams (routing by team, by skill) are in the price or in a separate “contact centre module”, often with its own minimum.
Minutes
How many are included per seat, and the rate past that. Ask whether calls between colleagues count.
The ceiling
What happens in the month something goes wrong: a stolen login dialling abroad all night. A quote with no spend ceiling is a bill with no maximum.
What we do, and what we do not
At Ringfully, teams are in every plan, not in a second product. You name a team, tick who may take its calls, decide which calls go first and where the caller goes when nobody picks up in time. Underneath, each team is a queue with a priority, required skills and a maximum wait. The mechanism is on the teams and waiting page; when to add a team, and when the wait is a symptom is the longer read.
While waiting, the caller hears music (your own audio or the standard hold music), roughly how long is left, or presses 1 and is rung back automatically. On every call: hand over with an introduction, pass straight through, or add a third person. Recording is a company setting with a spoken announcement; who may listen to recordings, or see what, is a box you tick in a role.
The price is per seat, minutes included, with a spend ceiling on every plan and no minimum number of seats, and the figures are published rather than quoted on request.
What you will not find here: no chat, email or social media gathered into one desk; no workforce management, so no forecasting and no shift schedules; no wallboard; no dialler. A manager cannot listen in on a live call. If you are shopping for a full contact centre, this is not that product.
If your question is really whether a cloud system replaces the box on the wall, what it changes for a small business comes before this one.
Ringfully is set up with you rather than bought from a form: who answers the phone, and how many numbers you have, is settled before anything is provisioned.
Questions people ask
- Do five people need call centre software?
- Rarely the whole category, often four of its parts: one published number, two or three named teams behind it, a wait that says something, and a hand-over that loses nobody. Forecasting, the wall display and the outbound dialler are what most of the price pays for, and a team of five never opens them.
- What should a call centre quote include?
- Three lines: how many seats and the minimum you are obliged to buy, how many minutes are included per seat and the rate past that, and the monthly spend ceiling. If one of the three is missing, ask for it in writing before you compare two quotes.
- Is routing by team an extra module?
- Not here. Naming a team, ticking who may take its calls and deciding which calls go first are in every plan rather than in a contact centre module with a minimum of its own. Recording is the one thing that depends on which plan you are on.
- Can a manager listen in on a live call?
- No. Nothing in Ringfully lets a supervisor join a call silently or speak only to the person answering. Calls can be recorded and played back afterwards by whoever your roles allow, which is a different thing, and it is the honest limit to know before you buy.
- What does a spend ceiling do?
- It caps what your account can spend in a month, so a stolen sign-in dialling abroad all night stops at a figure you chose instead of arriving as a bill. Every plan has one.
About the author
John
Owner and CEO
Owner and CEO with over 10 years of experience in the IT industry, including more than 5 years specializing in VoIP and cloud communications. Experienced in designing, deploying, and supporting reliable communication solutions for businesses.
Keep reading
A free tool for this, in your browser: the Erlang C calculator.
If calls ring out while everyone is with a customer, tell us how many people answer and what kinds of call come in, and we will set the teams up with you.