Cisco Unified Contact Center Express vs Five9 comparison

Cisco and Five9 are both solutions in the Contact Center Infrastructure category. Cisco is ranked #3, while Five9 is ranked #1 with an average rating of 8.4. Cisco holds a 9.9% mindshare in CCI, compared to Five9’s 11.4% mindshare. Additionally, 100% of Cisco users are willing to recommend the solution, compared to 100% of Five9 users who would recommend it.

Cisco Unified Contact Cente...

Read 1 Cisco Unified Contact Center Express review

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252 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Five9

Read 25 Five9 reviews

2,165 Views
281 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Cisco Unified Contact Cente...

Five9

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Categories and Ranking

Cisco Unified Contact Cente...

Ranking in Contact Center Infrastructure

3rd

Average Rating

9.0

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

IVR Systems (3rd)

Five9

Ranking in Contact Center Infrastructure

1st

Average Rating

8.6

Reviews Sentiment

6.5

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Contact Center Platforms (3rd), Workforce Engagement Management (2nd), Sales Force Automation (8th), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) (3rd)

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Contact Center Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Cisco Unified Contact Center Express is 9.9%, down from 19.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Five9 is 11.4%, up from 9.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Contact Center Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Five9	11.4%
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express	9.9%
Other	78.7%

Contact Center Infrastructure

Featured Reviews

Gamil Radman

Operation Director at Dammam University

Interactive voice response and automatic call distribution help to improve our customer service

Our primary use case is for customer service, in higher education and healthcare This solution provides uni-channel service support and is fully integrated with our DB. The new Cisco Finesse is really amazing. The most valuable features of this solution are the IVR (Interactive voice response)…

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Nupur Singh

Sr Specialist - Analytics Metrics and Reporting at Mercer

Real-time monitoring and reporting help with better operations

The Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) feature helps to monitor the agents. We can see if an agent is getting stuck. For example, if an agent has not been logged out properly, we can log out that particular agent from a particular session because it hampers productivity. It helps us to be more productive. Our call center agents use the Agent Assist feature. Our call center leaders are also using it to monitor agents' quality metrics. We are also using Qlik Sense along with Five9. Five9 is for monitoring, and Qlik Sense is for service-level reports. Five9 provides us with real-time information, whereas solutions like Verint take a lot more time. Qlik Sense can have intermittent logging issues where it might not work properly, whereas Five9 works properly. Among these three, Five9 is the best. Five9 also gives more bifurcation options. Five9 is good and intuitive. It helps to know how things are. I love it and use it every day. There are always new reports to generate. There are a lot of opportunities within Five9. Additionally, the real-time agent monitoring and ability to skill agents based on calls in the queue are invaluable and much easier than previous solutions like the AWS application. Previously, using the AWS application involved cumbersome steps to manage users and agents, making Five9 a welcome change. Overall, Five9 has made my job easier compared to before, and I do not struggle with it. Five9 has helped improve our call center’s speed to answer. Our leaders are using Five9 to monitor everything. It is not a time-consuming application.

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Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:

Pros

"This solution provides uni-channel Service support and is fully integrated with our DB."

"Five9's most critical feature is a common user interface that delivers consistent customer service across various channels."

"The technical support for Five9 has been exemplary."

"I really appreciate Five9 because I do not have to do much creatively, as everything is automated."

"Overall, Five9 has made my job easier compared to before, and I do not struggle with it."

"Queue callback, agent skill-based routing, call reporting, and the flexibility to log in from anywhere are some of the most valuable features for our organization."

"When it comes to drop calls, we don't have a problem. They are performing to our satisfaction."

"I like the capability of call and screen recording. It has helped us to hold our agents accountable to the expectations for the role. It creates a clearer picture than giving feedback that is just based on calls that we may have listened to, but we do not have anything to show the agents themselves."

"The complex call routing capabilities were valuable, as I was able to set up fairly complex call routing, capturing data via internal IVR for potential customers' geography and then conducting lookups to determine which skill to route calls to, while also setting up complex rollover and integrations between our CRM to leverage that data for complex call routing, and it all worked well."

More Five9 pros

Cons

"This solution could be improved with better support for higher education and healthcare."

"I would like to see more of the functions from the original Five9 adapter included in the Salesforce Plus adapter, as they do not automatically update when Five9 releases new features."

"There have also been some challenges in being able to keep the format of an original email. The solution acts as a proxy, but it's not bringing over the full format that the email came in with... Five9's email channel isn't as good as some other vendors' email channels that I've seen. But there is an upgrade coming..."

"Downtime happens occasionally, about two days a month, likely because of heavy usage by many agents, but I have not faced that issue as a supervisor."

"It would be ideal if they could combine the tools into one suite."

"Maintaining the original DNS on Five9 across campaigns is difficult."

"Integration with third-party solutions can be difficult and has room for improvement."

"The pricing could be improved. It is set in US dollars, so it doesn't account for the exchange rate with other regions."

"The reporting could be a bit better."

More Five9 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

"Five9 is expensive, but most companies would find that using it is worth the cost."

"The pricing seems reasonable. I had anticipated that whatever solution we went with would be more expensive. I was actually pleasantly surprised that the features that we had in Evolve IP, one-to-one, did not cost significantly more in Five9."

"Five9's pricing wasn't quite as flexible as I'd hoped, but it ended up being reasonably priced overall."

"The product is not the most expensive, but it's not cheap."

"Their license structure, out of the box, is better than that of other providers and their pricing is much less than other vendors we've looked at."

"Five9 is reasonable."

"I prefer Five9's licensing model."

"Five9 is a little expensive because of our company's size. That said, it scales pretty well. The daily usage costs and monthly fees seem about right. It's not out of line with what we'd expect from other companies. However, they seem to have a one-size-fits-all implementation fee. Most of their clients have hundreds if not thousands of seats in the call centers, so $5,000 or $10,000 is not a huge cost. It would be nice if they had a sliding scale for smaller companies."

More Five9 pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Insurance Company

23%

Financial Services Firm

12%

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

12%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Insurance Company

Healthcare Company

Company Size

By reviewers

Large Enterprise

Midsize Enterprise

Small Business

No data available

By reviewers
Company Size	Count
Small Business	7
Midsize Enterprise	7
Large Enterprise	7

Questions from the Community

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What do you like most about Five9?

I like the capability of call and screen recording. It has helped us to hold our agents accountable to the expectations for the role. It creates a clearer picture than giving feedback that is just ...

See all answers

What needs improvement with Five9?

The reporting suite needed improvement. I saw recently that Five9 released a new platform for reporting, as the reporting was not great previously.

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What is your primary use case for Five9?

I was using Five9 in the senior living space.

See all answers

Comparisons

Genesys Cloud CX vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 13% of the time

Verint IVR and Voice Self-Service vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 12% of the time

NICE CXone vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 12% of the time

Syntellect Communications Portal vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 10% of the time

Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 10% of the time

More Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Competitors

Amazon Connect vs Five9

Compared 23% of the time

Genesys Cloud CX vs Five9

Compared 16% of the time

NICE CXone vs Five9

Compared 8% of the time

Cisco Webex Contact Center vs Five9

Compared 7% of the time

8x8 Contact Center vs Five9

Compared 6% of the time

More Five9 Competitors

Product Reports

No data available

Buyer's Guide

Five9

January 2026

Download Five9 product report

Also Known As

CCX

No data available

Overview

Cisco Unified Contact Center Express provides a secure, available, and sophisticated contact center software solution for up to 400 agents and interactive voice response (IVR) ports that is easy to deploy and manage. This omnichannel solution is ideal for formal and informal small to medium-size contact centers.

Cisco

Five9 is a comprehensive cloud contact center and customer service solution offering a broad range of features and benefits designed for effective contact center operations. Its virtual contact center products encompass inbound, outbound, and multichannel contact center software features, distinguishing it among cloud contact center software vendors. Five9 is recognized for its constant innovation, which has led to its position as a leading cloud contact center software vendor.

Five9 provides a feature-rich cloud contact center platform designed to streamline and enhance customer engagement. The solution offers a comprehensive suite of features including:

Omnichannel routing - Intelligently routes interactions across voice, email, chat, social media and SMS.
IVR and self-service - Sophisticated IVR applications and self-service options powered by natural language processing.
Workforce optimization - Tools for tracking metrics, monitoring interactions, coaching agents, and enhancing productivity.
APIs and integrations - Open platform to connect Five9 with ACD, CRM, workforce management and other business systems.
Flexible deployment - Public, private or hybrid cloud deployment options.

Five9 aims to transform customer experiences with AI-powered interactions, actionable insights, and seamless integration between channels. With advanced analytics and reporting capabilities, Five9 helps businesses improve customer service and increase operational efficiency.

According to our interviews with Five9's users, Five9's solution emerges as a highly scalable and adaptable contact center platform that seamlessly integrates with Salesforce and provides valuable real-time reporting and analytics. Its AI-powered features and omnichannel capabilities further enhance customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. Users praise Five9 for its efficient inbound/outbound calling, reliable voicemail and messaging, and easy remote agent access. However, some cite issues with call quality, interface design, system stability, and customer support responsiveness. Mobile app availability and social media are seen as areas for improvement. However, there is really little info on the mobile app.

Below are several quotes from Five9's users:

"Five9 is a highly flexible and adaptable solution that can handle increased workloads and accommodate growth without any issues."
- Business Operations Manager, Retail Industry
"Five9's real-time reporting and analytics are incredibly valuable. They give us insights into agent performance, customer interactions, and overall call center operations."
- Contact Center Manager, Retail Industry
"Five9's AI-powered features, such as chatbots and virtual assistants, have helped us to improve customer satisfaction and reduce handle times."
- Customer Service Manager, E-commerce Industry

Overall, Five9 provides a robust, innovative contact center platform with extensive features and flexibility. It's a strong option for organizations seeking to optimize customer engagement across channels within a secure, scalable cloud environment.

Five9

Sample Customers

Aegean Motorway, BC Hydro, City of Biel, Houston Methodist, Linz AG, Logicalis, London Hydro, Pirelli, SickKids Foundation, Sony Corporation, Sony Marketing (Japan) Inc.

Agilysys, BISSELL, From You Flowers, SumUp, Kyndryl, PING, Alaska Airlines, Omaha Steaks International, NextRep, AdventHealth

See our list of best Contact Center Infrastructure vendors.

We monitor all Contact Center Infrastructure reviews to prevent fraudulent reviews and keep review quality high. We do not post reviews by company employees or direct competitors. We validate each review for authenticity via cross-reference with LinkedIn, and personal follow-up with the reviewer when necessary.