Genesys Cloud CX vs. HCL Sametime

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Genesys Cloud CX
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Genesys Cloud CX (formerly PureCloud, Genesys Cloud) is a contact center application optimized for automatic call distribution, interactive voice response, email, social media, chat, and text/SMS. It is also a VoIP interconnect service provider.
$75
per month
HCL Sametime
Score 7.5 out of 10
N/A
HCL Sametime (formerly IBM Lotus Sametime, acquired by HCL Technologies from IBM in 2018) is an enterprise-level unified communications and VoIP platform. It includes features such as instant messaging, web conferencing, voice and video integration, telephony capabilities, and presence information.N/A
Pricing
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Editions & Modules
Genesys Cloud CX 1 - Voice
$75
per month (billed annually) per user
Genesys Cloud CX 2 - Digital
$95
per month (billed annually) per user
Genesys Cloud CX 2 - Digital + Voice
$115
per month (billed annually) per user
Genesys Cloud CX 3 - Digital + WEM
$135
per month (billed annually) per user
Genesys Cloud CX 3 Digital + WEM + Voice
$155
per month (billed annually) per user
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing plans can also be billed hourly.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Contact Center Software
Comparison of Contact Center Software features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
8.1
382 Ratings
3% below category average
HCL Sametime
-
Ratings
Agent dashboard7.9365 Ratings00 Ratings
Validate callers7.9318 Ratings00 Ratings
Outbound response7.6283 Ratings00 Ratings
Call forwarding8.3307 Ratings00 Ratings
Click-to-call (CTC)8.4245 Ratings00 Ratings
Warm transfer8.5352 Ratings00 Ratings
Predictive dialing7.8208 Ratings00 Ratings
Interactive voice response8.3299 Ratings00 Ratings
REST APIs8.3251 Ratings00 Ratings
Call scripts8.4280 Ratings00 Ratings
Call tracking8.4343 Ratings00 Ratings
Multichannel integration8.3275 Ratings00 Ratings
CRM software integration7.8265 Ratings00 Ratings
Workforce Optimization (WFO)
Comparison of Workforce Optimization (WFO) features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
7.8
364 Ratings
6% below category average
HCL Sametime
-
Ratings
Inbound call routing8.5339 Ratings00 Ratings
Omnichannel inbound routing8.0257 Ratings00 Ratings
Recording8.4344 Ratings00 Ratings
Quality management7.9314 Ratings00 Ratings
Call analytics7.9325 Ratings00 Ratings
Historical reporting7.6338 Ratings00 Ratings
Live reporting7.8333 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer surveys6.7198 Ratings00 Ratings
Customer interaction analytics7.6240 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
-
Ratings
HCL Sametime
8.4
7 Ratings
2% above category average
Hosted PBX00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)00 Ratings9.02 Ratings
User templates00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Call reports00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Directory of employee names00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
-
Ratings
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Answering rules00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Call recording00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Call park00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Call screening00 Ratings8.02 Ratings
Message alerts00 Ratings8.06 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
-
Ratings
HCL Sametime
8.0
6 Ratings
3% below category average
Video conferencing00 Ratings8.06 Ratings
Audio conferencing00 Ratings8.05 Ratings
Video screen sharing00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Instant messaging00 Ratings8.01 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
Genesys Cloud CX
-
Ratings
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
4% below category average
Mobile app for iOS00 Ratings8.08 Ratings
Mobile app for Android00 Ratings8.07 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 10.0 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 9.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Google Cloud Contact Center AI
Google Cloud Contact Center AI
Score 8.9 out of 10
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Cisco Business Edition 7000 (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(406 ratings)
7.0
(10 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.2
(37 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
9.1
(68 ratings)
8.6
(2 ratings)
Availability
8.4
(6 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(6 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.1
(97 ratings)
8.3
(4 ratings)
In-Person Training
7.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.6
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.2
(18 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
8.2
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.6
(13 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.3
(7 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
8.4
(6 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Professional Services
7.6
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
8.4
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
8.4
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Genesys Cloud CXHCL Sametime
Likelihood to Recommend
Genesys
As I said, I really like the platform because you consolidate everything in the same place. But for Brazil, it still has to adapt. For example, the time zone, the dialing rules. Dialing control is still not clear, it is not transparent. It still needs to evolve.
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HCL Technologies
Sametime is well suited for very quick conversations, where you know the person is an active Sametime user. It also serves as an easy way to reach out to someone you may not know when looking for an answer to a quick question, as they are likely to be a Sametime user. Do not, under any circumstances, attempt to use Sametime for Audio or Video chat. The quality and reliability are horrendous.
Read full review
Pros
Genesys
  • One thing that we really love is the bot capabilities. On our inbound calls for our contact center, we've got a voice spot, and that routes all of our calls for us. We've managed to move away from a traditional IBR and move to a single question for the majority of cases and the customers go through so much faster. So at the moment, the time it takes for a customer to get to our queue is about 27 seconds. Previously that was well over a minute. We've seen huge improvements with it.
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HCL Technologies
  • Sametime's web-based interfaces are "zero load", requiring no plug-ins to be installed to join a meeting, launch a meeting, or use chat in a browser. A plugin is required only if you want to share your screen.
  • Integration with IBM Notes is very tight. Sametime's chat status can change according to your Notes calendar. You can easily see if someone who just emailed you is available to chat. Your chat History is right inside Notes as well.
  • IBM's mobile apps are top notch. We automated the apps for our users thanks to IBM's work with third party MDMs. This made it very simple for us to deploy the Sametime mobile apps -- Chat and Meetings -- and get new capabilities such as Audio & Video mobilized quickly.
  • No down time, ever. The rock solid WebSphere back-end of Sametime means the environment is always up. Period.
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Cons
Genesys
  • Mostly just little things I'd like to see. I know that, obviously, moving from one platform to another one, there's going to be bumps where we're used to doing something one way we have to learn the new way. So that hasn't been too much of a problem, but there are little quirks I think could be better.
  • I think searching through the menus could be a little easier instead of always having to go back to the main menu so then go to the next menu. That could be a little easier. And mostly just other little tweaks like with gamification on some of the scorekeeping would be a good thing.
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HCL Technologies
  • Not convenient for a large group meeting.
  • Very basic tool for internal communication only not available for third party communication
  • Very basic and limited mobile app features.
  • High speed connection is needed to connect to Sametime
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Likelihood to Renew
Genesys
The upcoming upgrades working with Genesys Cloud and Salesforce are very exciting. Even though we don't use Genesys Cloud to the fullest extent it can be used (we just migrated a year ago), when these upgrades roll out, I am very excited to see what it can do to for our agents. I think they are going to be very impressed
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HCL Technologies
Sametime is now an embedded experience for our users. They know it, they like it, they use it, and they expect it to be wherever they are. Because it is pretty easy to use and NEVER goes down, users know they can rely on it and won't be frustrated by it. Sametime is right up with there with Microsoft Office in terms of user adoption and appreciation.
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Usability
Genesys
Everything is very good. It is very useful, friendly to users and it makes our work easier than what we expected. I think that I don't need any help from someone on how to use Genesys coz basically they will directly feed it to you without any hassle on using it.
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HCL Technologies
Just about everything works the way you expect it would and it's relatively easy for users to figure out. Sametime was one of those things that we started with only a few people as a "test" and before the test period was done we discovered a few hundred people had figured out how to log in and most got it working all on their own. Many of our users want to use Sametime and do so regularly; we do not have to create policies enforcing its usage. Users find it practical to use Sametime to do things like chat, transfer files, share their screen, and so forth.
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Reliability and Availability
Genesys
We had a couple of times where there were application issues or unplanned outages, but they were resolved very quickly. We were never in the position where it was a total outage, which is very important.
Read full review
HCL Technologies
Typically if Sametime is not available, it's because Windows Updates were done on the servers and they were not rebooted. However, that's not a problem with Sametime -- in fact, if you have Linux you could probably run Sametime for years without any hiccups whatsoever. We have no internal Linux expertise.
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Performance
Genesys
The pages are loading quickly but not every time. There is a delay sometimes. About the integrations, everything is working as expected, there is no slow down.
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HCL Technologies
Generally very good. Occasionally AV or screen-sharing will stutter and every now and then I hear of it dropping out altogether, but in all cases it was easy to re-establish
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Support Rating
Genesys
Support does indeed resolve the issue but they seem to be really slow and I have to stay on them to get my ticket handled. Everyone I have interacted with is very professional and pleasant. Other than being slow its been a good experience
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HCL Technologies
I have not needed to use the Sametime support team. Our local support team was able to configure it for me.
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In-Person Training
Genesys
Genesys team that provide trainings are friendly and professional. They helped us to understand well the product and the functionalities. The training was detailed with use cases. At the end, we got a task to develop that ended with success and we got some Genesys rewards. It was amazing experience
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Genesys
I have taken the preparatory course for Genesys Cloud Certification. I must say that it is a good training for administrators and analysts. The bibliography is very clear and is easy to identify the topics, which are conveniently separated. It is, in my opinion, mandatory for those who want to exercise the position of Genesys Cloud platform administrators.
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Genesys
The support engineer that I partnered with during the implementation was exceptional. Every element of the process was done together and the end result of the efforts to grow the knowledge to be able to hand over at the end enabled a pretty smooth transition.
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Genesys
We actually evaluated quite a few products before we moved to Genesys Cloud CX. We had a vendor selection process which went for about six months, and it was pretty rigorous. Five9 was one of them. I think we didn't check out Topdesk so that they were out of the picture, but I think Nice inContact was also there as part of that. So those were the two top contenders. We like Genesys for their workforce management. Five9 - I think they were using some age-old software, to be honest, that was not as automated as Genesys, so we liked it.
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HCL Technologies
We use Jabber globally in our company and Symphony (no relevant app in able list) in some of the teams as well. All these are instant messenger tools, but Sametime is the easiest one to be used and its chat history is easy to be searched. Sametime can be used to contact almost all internal staff as it’s included in default computer package. Symphony is used to chat with front end business while Jabber is used for call.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Genesys
Genesys provides Licensing in 3 tier subscription types of licenses on top based on any business requirements then any sort of feature/functionality inclusion (or removal) is discussed openly. There are 2 types of billing models available which are "Named" and "Concurrent" based on the type of roles users will perform in Genesys Cloud CX environment (eg. Agent, Supervisor, Administrator, and Business Users) Also, the billing period/frequency starts on the actual day the platform is delivered.
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Genesys
We were able to successfully implement Genesys Cloud (formerly PureCloud) to multiple departments successfully with a range from low call volumes to very high.
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HCL Technologies
Sametime is rock solid. It runs on WebSphere, DB2 and other related IBM technologies. This does mean the back-end is highly complex and very difficult to learn and get comfortable with, however.
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Professional Services
Genesys
Professional services are definitely much more experienced than the support teams, and the price for their services is very fair. I wish that the support team could help answer simple questions about work that the PSS team does, however, so that we do not have to use our SOW for simple Q&A emails.
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HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Genesys
  • That's a good question. I've been with the company for seven months. I don't know if there's been a huge impact on ROI or finances.
  • Now, in Genesys, I need a carrier that fits directly into Genesys. So, for us, that's going to cut the costs of having a traditional SBC with a traditional Telco. Genesys offers us that. You can't do that with another traditional telephone system. So one of the advantages, I think, for the dollar, is that I can bring my own carrier that fits directly into Genesys and eliminate the physical layer, so I can also play with my channels on that side. I can manage my telephone according to the times of year when the call centers are busier or less busy. From a financial point of view, that can be a positive thing.
  • In terms of return on investment, the company I work for had already been on Genesys PureConnect for years. So moving to PureCloud was a logical one because PureConnect was disappearing. I'm not sure if I have the answer, whether we've made savings or huge savings. One thing's for sure: ease of use, the whole customer experience aspect, the fact that we can chat and interact by email, these are things that weren't possible with the old versions. That's a positive thing.
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HCL Technologies
  • Sametime keeps many of our team members in contact throughout the day which leads to increased productivity which makes everyone happy.
  • We use the team chat room feature every day. This allows a team to stay focused on the task without any extra messages that are not on topic.
  • The split between IBM Sametime, Slack and Google Hangouts has caused some issues when team members are not checking for messages on a certain app.
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ScreenShots

Genesys Cloud CX Screenshots

Screenshot of Genesys Cloud directories, used to find the right person in an organizationScreenshot of a dashboard where agents can see the activities in their queueScreenshot of a dashboard where contact center managers are shown key metricsScreenshot of the built-in Call Center Co-browsing capability