HCL Sametime vs. Talkdesk

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
HCL Sametime
Score 8.0 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
Talkdesk
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Talkdesk® supports CX with Customer Experience Automation (CXA), using AI agents to replace manual workflows. Powered by the Talkdesk Data Cloud, CXA delivers real-time context and fast deployment—to transform CX without a rip-and-replace.
$85
per month per user
Pricing
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
CX Cloud Digital Essentials
$85
per month per user
CX Cloud Voice Essentials
$105
per month per user
CX Cloud Elite
$145
per month per user
CX Cloud Elite
$165
per month per user
Industry Experience Clouds
$225
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeOptional
Additional Details*Talkdesk also offers per hour login consumption pricing and concurrent pricing. Prices are based on a minimum 3 year commitment to these Editions. Additional telco and usage fees not included. Due to foreign exchange rate approximation, list price is not the exact price that will be quoted.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Features
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Cloud PBX
Comparison of Cloud PBX features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.4
7 Ratings
5% above category average
Talkdesk
-
Ratings
Hosted PBX9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Multi-level Interactive Voice Response (IVR)9.02 Ratings00 Ratings
User templates8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Call reports8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Directory of employee names8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Call Management
Comparison of Call Management features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Talkdesk
-
Ratings
Answering rules8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Call recording8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Call park8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Call screening8.02 Ratings00 Ratings
Message alerts8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
VoIP system collaboration
Comparison of VoIP system collaboration features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
6 Ratings
0% above category average
Talkdesk
-
Ratings
Video conferencing8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio conferencing8.05 Ratings00 Ratings
Video screen sharing8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Instant messaging8.01 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile apps
Comparison of Mobile apps features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
8.0
8 Ratings
1% below category average
Talkdesk
-
Ratings
Mobile app for iOS8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app for Android8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
Contact Center Software
Comparison of Contact Center Software features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
-
Ratings
Talkdesk
8.1
485 Ratings
3% below category average
Agent dashboard00 Ratings8.1464 Ratings
Validate callers00 Ratings7.9408 Ratings
Outbound response00 Ratings8.3426 Ratings
Call forwarding00 Ratings7.8418 Ratings
Click-to-call (CTC)00 Ratings8.6386 Ratings
Warm transfer00 Ratings9.0439 Ratings
Predictive dialing00 Ratings8.8226 Ratings
Interactive voice response00 Ratings8.4311 Ratings
REST APIs00 Ratings7.4245 Ratings
Call scripts00 Ratings7.9220 Ratings
Call tracking00 Ratings8.5433 Ratings
Multichannel integration00 Ratings6.7318 Ratings
CRM software integration00 Ratings7.7372 Ratings
Workforce Optimization (WFO)
Comparison of Workforce Optimization (WFO) features of Product A and Product B
HCL Sametime
-
Ratings
Talkdesk
8.4
469 Ratings
2% above category average
Inbound call routing00 Ratings8.7429 Ratings
Omnichannel inbound routing00 Ratings8.0312 Ratings
Recording00 Ratings8.9453 Ratings
Quality management00 Ratings8.8411 Ratings
Call analytics00 Ratings8.4426 Ratings
Historical reporting00 Ratings8.4433 Ratings
Live reporting00 Ratings8.2426 Ratings
Customer surveys00 Ratings8.2238 Ratings
Customer interaction analytics00 Ratings8.3273 Ratings
Best Alternatives
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Small Businesses
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
CloudTalk
CloudTalk
Score 7.5 out of 10
Enterprises
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Cisco Unified Communications Manager (Call Manager)
Score 8.9 out of 10
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Bright Pattern Contact Center
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Likelihood to Recommend
7.0
(10 ratings)
8.3
(498 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.5
(39 ratings)
Usability
8.6
(2 ratings)
8.6
(313 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.9
(8 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(8 ratings)
Support Rating
8.3
(4 ratings)
6.8
(131 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
8.9
(5 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.2
(222 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Ease of integration
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(7 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.1
(3 ratings)
User Testimonials
HCL SametimeTalkdesk
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
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Talkdesk
If I was building a contact center from scratch with the intent of integrating AI features into my operations, Talkdesk would be a top choice. If you do not plan on integrating AI, you might find a lot of Talkdesk's offerings extraneous. Talkdesk's Copilot (real-time agent assistant, summarization, etc.) is very accurate for shorter calls. We have an ATT that is much higher than their customer base average, and the summary can start to become less succinct the longer the call goes on. We've noticed the same for automated QA scoring. This is more of a limitation of AI in general, rather than for Talkdesk itself.
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Pros
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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Talkdesk
  • Talkdesk excels at reporting. It offers a wide range of reports, such as Aux, AHT, and productivity reports, which are great for monitoring performance.
  • Talkdesk has speech-to-text analytics. This is an AI transcript system. The AI detects speech and transcribes it.
  • Talkdesk is easy to integrate with other apps. Such as Calabrio and Zendesk.
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Cons
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
Read full review
Talkdesk
  • From experience, customer service is terrible, we've had 5 account executives over 18 months, extremely difficult to get timely answers to pressing issues.
  • Integration with other tools, such as ServiceNow, is not truly integration (in my opinion). There was a marked difference between what the salesperson communicated during the evaluation period and what we actually got once we purchased and implemented the product.
  • We continue to have stability issues which force our agents to restart the Talkdesk client. I frequently receive vague error messages ('something went wrong') that can be frustrating as there's no actual detail to what happened. To be fair, it has improved since we implemented the tool, but if you were to ask our agents what frustrated them, Talkdesk would be at the top of their list.
  • Being a multi-channel platform was one of the things that drew us to Talkdesk; however, the chat channel lags way behind voice in customization and reporting.
  • Lack of training resources. The 'Talkdesk Academy' is often very out-of-date. Would be nice to have actual webinars or online training (even paid training) for various functions of the tool like reporting, WFM, IVR, etc.
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Likelihood to Renew
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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Talkdesk
One of the best tools our there to tackle alot of our needs or issues within the organisation's and is value for money as you find alot of the features already in bedded and the Ai features are user friendly no need for additional training and Talk desk support when any issues arise is amazing
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Usability
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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Talkdesk
Talkdesk is helpful because we use it to receive calls in our BPO. Not only do we track live ques and statuses from agents, but we also receive feedback from our assessors through the talk desk as well as coaching, and it also stores customer contact data; I can track all my calls, and It records all the calls so we can come back to review them. You can also listen live and track your daily productivity. You can change your aux statuses very quickly, and there was an update talk desk that allows you to queue another status while you are on a call or after-call work, which is a great feature.
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Reliability and Availability
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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Talkdesk
Talkdesk is very handy but, sometimes we do face issues were the system can just kick you out and not be able to do calls or receive calls but, what I like about the system once you start refreshing or troubleshooting, everything becomes normal it is a unique system and very modern we don't usually have system issues with Talkdesk.
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Performance
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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Talkdesk
reports are good until a report is a big one in size then the wait is longer and some call reports delay by an hour or so which is not ideal as we pull these hourly and need them from Work force management perspective and Quality reports are perfectly fine
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Support Rating
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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Talkdesk
If Talkdesk had a dedicated phone support line I would have given this rating an overall 10. Their knowledge base is absolutely HUGE and at times very helpful. It's easy to search through and their customer support chat system works perfectly fine, but there are just some times that you need to speak to a human on the phone to ensure you are always on the same page.
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In-Person Training
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Talkdesk
The training that was given to us was very smooth and professional. I give my trainer 10/ 10 rate the training was so smooth and very helpful she would make sure we also watch videos of how to use the system which made it very easier for us and what was interesting it is because, the system is also easy.
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Online Training
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Talkdesk
Nothing is perfect!! Needing the ability to repeat the training so everyone was on board was important. Not real sure how many people had to repeat the training as they trained on their own and given 30 minutes at a time.
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Implementation Rating
HCL Technologies
No answers on this topic
Talkdesk
We were very satisfied with the implementation of Talkdesk. The team was able to gather all the data and information about the system we had in place at the moment and delivered us a Talkdesk plan that suited our needs. We had a few calls after implementation where our questions were answered and gave us the confidence to continue using the system.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Talkdesk
Talkdesk is used to take inbound and outbound calls, which helps improve customer experience. It also provides evaluations through quality management. Talk desk scores are sometimes behind, but they still work well regarding taking and receiving calls. Some agents blame the Talk Desk because they lack knowledge of how to use it.
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Scalability
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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Talkdesk
talk desk has helped us massively with flexibility of one system giving us all the relevant information we need to be able to drive improvement and also good service from work force management to quality improvement to the reporting of the work and inputs going in and assess outputs to determine the success of our work and remaining development areas
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Return on Investment
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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Talkdesk
  • Reduced hold times with callback feature = better CX
  • Easy transfer option between teams where we can talk rep-rep first before bringing the caller in = less repeated information the customer has to provide = better CX
  • Modified call dispositions allows for better call management & organization = less work on our end!
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ScreenShots

Talkdesk Screenshots

Screenshot of Talkdesk Guardian™, which is an AI-driven, native cloud compliance solution that enables contact centers to gain visibility and take control of their WFH and hybrid workforce.Screenshot of Talkdesk Autopilot™, which is a tool that handles common customer queries, like orders, returns and billing, and automatically responds with conversational answers. And when complex cases are detected that need human empathy and expertise, the virtual agent will redirect customers to a human agent.Screenshot of Talkdesk AI Trainer™, which equips customers with tools to observe, simulate, and put guardrails on AI, according to their needs. This way, generative AI can be used responsibly, preventing AI mishaps, and protecting the brand from potentially poor AI experiences.