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 8.5. Cisco holds a 10.5% mindshare in CCI, compared to Five9’s 11.6% 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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258 Comparison Views

100% willing to recommend

Five9

Read 24 Five9 reviews

2,161 Views
259 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

7.8

Number of Reviews

Ranking in other categories

Contact Center Platforms (2nd), Workforce Engagement Management (2nd), Sales Force Automation (4th), Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) (2nd)

Mindshare comparison

As of October 2025, in the Contact Center Infrastructure category, the mindshare of Cisco Unified Contact Center Express is 10.5%, down from 23.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Five9 is 11.6%, up from 9.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.

Contact Center Infrastructure Market Share Distribution
Product	Market Share (%)
Five9	11.6%
Cisco Unified Contact Center Express	10.5%
Other	77.9%

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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ThadaCele

Manager, Distribution at Jasco

Everything is on one dashboard, from the dialer to the workflows for transferring calls and creating tickets

Some of our clients use intelligent virtual agents, but it depends on what the customer wants. It's primarily used in help desks where multiple departments like finance, sales, and IT share a phone number. They can use the agent to go directly to the department they want. Banking, finance, or insurance companies can also use it to authenticate their customers. You can use the element of Five9 to do a security check. The chatbots are helpful as a repository of information a customer frequently asks about. The customers can have their basic questions answered instead of talking to an agent. I like Five9's workflow automation features. You can integrate Five9 with the CRM in the center, like Salesforce. You can take the workflow features of something like HubSpot and add a voice element. The workforce optimization feature is free once you have a ZenDesk license. It's useful for HR teams and companies that need to plan shifts for many employees. People who work HR will tell you that workforce management is a headache because you are optimizing workers' time and efficiency. It makes the HR personnel's jobs a bit easier because it's all automated. It takes much of the work off their plates. They need to take into account things like holidays and sick leave.

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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."

"Agent Assist and AI server are the two best features because they remind new and existing agents about tips and generate detailed case summaries, saving them the time and effort of making small modifications before posting."

"The most valuable feature is the simplicity of making scripts within the contact center solution itself."

"I rate the overall Five9 solution a nine out of ten."

"I like the ease with which we can make changes if necessary. Currently, we are using it for phone and email distribution, but we're talking about adding chat and delving into the omnichannel features more."

"The product’s IVR script editor is very easy and simple to use."

"I like the fact that I can customize the cadencing. I can drill in and create custom contact point cadencing for all of our different categories of leads. We attack some people more aggressively, but others much more softly. I have much more confidence that things aren't slipping through the cracks. It continues to bring customers up for us until they've either moved through the cycle or we've removed them from the cycle. It gives us greater peace of mind. The ability to get in quickly and customize many of those pieces easily was appealing to us."

"The admin tools are most valuable, such as using the UI to configure all the campaigns and all the settings that we use. Also, the monitoring panels it has are very good. Our supervisors and sales managers build dashboards in the solution so that we can understand how our operation is performing throughout the day. That is very useful."

More Five9 pros

Cons

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

"The reporting could be a bit better."

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

"For Five9, I would like a feature where reports such as AHT or workforce-related reports can be generated automatically without starting from scratch"

"What would make Five9 better is a partnership with an SMS AI solution, which would make Five9 pretty powerful."

"The technical support is inconsistent and has room for improvement."

"Five9 has an active-passive high-availability model. I would prefer active-active."

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

"The SMS feature could use some improvement as far as the opt-out process goes."

More Five9 cons

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available

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

"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."

"The product's pricing is flexible and reasonable."

"The cost is not at the lower end of the market, but it's worth it."

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

"Five9 is reasonable."

"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."

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

More Five9 pricing and cost advice

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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews

Financial Services Firm

14%

Insurance Company

Government

Computer Software Company

Financial Services Firm

13%

Manufacturing Company

11%

Computer Software Company

Insurance 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	6

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 ...

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What needs improvement with Five9?

Five9 ( /products/five9-reviews ) should improve its omnichannel feature, allowing partners to manage all tenants with a single account rather than needing multiple accounts for each customer. Addi...

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What is your primary use case for Five9?

We deploy Five9 ( /products/five9-reviews ) for our customers who use it as a contact center solution.

See all answers

Comparisons

Genesys Cloud CX vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 20% of the time

NICE CXone vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 13% of the time

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

Compared 13% of the time

Syntellect Communications Portal vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 11% of the time

Cisco Unified Contact Center Enterprise vs Cisco Unified Contact Center Express

Compared 9% of the time

More Cisco Unified Contact Center Express Competitors

Amazon Connect vs Five9

Compared 28% of the time

Genesys Cloud CX vs Five9

Compared 17% of the time

NICE CXone vs Five9

Compared 9% of the time

Cisco Webex Contact Center vs Five9

Compared 8% of the time

Vonage Contact Centers vs Five9

Compared 4% of the time

More Five9 Competitors

Product Reports

No data available

Buyer's Guide

Five9

October 2025

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.