Kixie is a sales-oriented business phone service and contact center solution. Self-branded as a sales engagement and acceleration platform, the software lets users call and text leads and customers and it integrates with many popular CRMs and helpdesk software options. It’s mainly utilized by inbound and outbound sales teams, but customer support centers and remote support reps can leverage its robust features as well.
Use this in-depth review to learn more about Kixie’s virtues, flaws, core features, and pricing, and determine if Kixie is right for your business.
Kixie: The Good and the Bad
After extensive research and testing, our team here at Crazy Egg identified Kixie’s strengths and weaknesses by analyzing customer reviews and comparing the software to similar tools on the market. Read on to see where Kixie shines and uncover the areas where it falls a bit short.
What Kixie Is Good At
Kixie is excellent for sales teams who want features to make their outbound calling more effective. It comes with everything salespeople need to conduct effective outreach at scale and everything managers need to train and manage their reps.
Business phone features: With Kixie, you get all of the business phone features you need in an enterprise-grade platform. This includes unlimited calling in the United States and Canada and affordable international calling rates. You can also use Kixie to get toll-free and local numbers in over 65 countries worldwide, helping your business establish a local presence wherever your customers are located.
The software comes with conference calling features, automatic forwarding to mobile devices, business SMS, and the ability to connect with VoIP desk phones. You can set up Kixie with your cell network as well, allowing your team to make calls from anywhere—even when the internet connection is weak.
Automation: Supercharge your calling capabilities with automation. You can connect Kixie with your CRM or other sales software to set up customized triggers based on the outcome of a call. For example, send an automated email with the next steps to prospects after they complete a demo call. Or, set up automated SMS reminders to help prevent no-shows on your calendar.
It’s also nice that Kixie can extend its integrations through Zapier, opening up the ability to sync this platform with over 3,000 different apps. If you need help setting up an automation that’s a bit more customized, just reach out to the Kixie support team for assistance.
Sales acceleration: Kixie is truly in a league of its own in the world of sales-specific power dialers. Your team can use it to call up to ten leads simultaneously without any lag time. This helps sales reps eclipse more than 1,000 calls in a single day—allowing you to scale without having to hire more reps.
Sales agents can use Kixie to leave custom voicemail drops so they spend less time leaving messages and more time dialing the next caller. The platform also comes with sales-specific SMS templates that will autofill the names of contacts to help you send timely messages to the right leads.
Team management: One unique standout of Kixie compared to similar tools is its admin and training features. Sales managers can use Kixie to help improve their team’s performance through features like call whispering and campaign management. You can also set up live leaderboards with your company’s most important KPIs to encourage friendly competition amongst your reps.
You also get access to tons of call center analytics and reporting tools. Use these to see where your reps need improvements and generate approaches for achieving those improvements. All Kixie plans come with call recording as well, which can be used to train new reps with good and bad examples and coach others on how to perform better on calls.
CRM integrations: To get the most out of Kixie, you’ll want to connect it with your CRM software. Fortunately, Kixie integrates with dozens of the most popular CRMs, including Salesforce, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Freshworks, and Zoho CRM.
If you receive a call from any number that isn’t already saved in your contact list, Kixie will automatically create a new contact in your CRM with the caller’s name, number, and business by scraping the web for databases associated with that number. Kixie also works really well with CRMs for scheduling tasks and follow-ups with callers, making it easier for you to track appointments at scale without having to bounce back and forth between multiple platforms.
What Kixie Is Lacking
While Kixie’s pros generally outweigh the cons, there are still a few drawbacks that need to be addressed. Kixie isn’t a complete communication platform, and it does have a few bugs. Keep these in mind when weighing your options.
No team chat or video conferencing: While Kixie has powerful voice and texting features, it’s not a true all-in-one business communication suite. It doesn’t have a built-in team chat feature, and it can’t be used for video calling.
You can integrate Kixie with Slack and other tools, but there are other VoIP phone systems on the market that are actually cheaper than Kixie and include these types of communication features. But, to be fair, those tools aren’t as powerful for sales automation and power dialing. So, this is a tradeoff that you’ll need to consider.
No low-usage plans: Kixie is not designed for individual users or small teams with occasional power dialing needs. Even the entry-level plan is built for scale and priced accordingly. This is slightly different from other VoIP phone systems on the market that offer free or limited plans designed for solopreneurs or small businesses with fewer requirements. If you don’t have at least three users that spend the majority of their days making and receiving calls, then Kixie probably isn’t worth it for you.
Inconsistent support: The customer support team at Kixie has received mixed reviews. There are plenty of users who say that support is friendly, responsive, and excellent. But there are an equal number of complaints saying that support is slow and unresponsive. Based on these comments, it’s fair to say that Kixie’s support is inconsistent and likely falls somewhere in the middle of these two extremes.
Kixie does have an extensive knowledge base and library of self-help articles available to peruse. However, you’ll be limited to email and ticket support for issues, which isn’t always ideal for time-sensitive issues or questions during odd hours. The lack of phone-based support is disappointing.
Difficult setup: Based on what we saw in verified customer reviews, it doesn’t sound like Kixie is something you’ll start using an hour after you sign up. This is especially true if you’re trying to link Kixie with specific devices and other phone hardware. In some instances, your existing hardware may not be compatible with Kixie or you’ll need to set up a workaround.
Since many of Kixie’s advanced features work best through integrations and automations, it can also take some time to set those up before you’re ready to hit the ground running. If you’re prepared for a few speed bumps in the first few weeks, it’s worth it in the long run.
Minor bugs and crashes: All software has bugs, and some downtime is inevitable when you’re dealing with these types of tools. We’re not going to fault Kixie for having the same issues as every other software platform on the planet. However, the number of customers complaining about bugs and crashes in their reviews must be pointed out.
Be prepared for the possibility of issues and glitches if you’re using Kixie. Some teams reported downtime during peak hours, while others said that integrations fail from time to time, even when connected through the API.
Kixie Pricing & Options
Kixie is a single-product platform with a straightforward pricing structure. There are three plans to choose from, with the cheapest starting at $35 per user per month and progressive plans priced at $65 and $95.
Kixie also has a fourth option, which is a custom-priced enterprise plan for businesses that need customized dialing solutions, custom integrations, and API developer support. You can try any Kixie plan for free with a seven-day trial—no credit card required.
Overall, Kixie’s platform works best for three main use cases. While the software is primarily designed for and marketed to sales teams, it can also be used for customer support centers and reps who work remotely.
Kixie for Sales Teams
Kixie is an exceptional tool for both inbound and outbound sales needs. It helps reps dial more numbers in less time and close more deals through its powerful sales-specific features.
In short, Kixie’s entire platform is designed to help sales reps spend less time doing manual tasks while they’re in between calls. This includes everything from listening to rings and leaving voicemails. Kixie puts all of this on autopilot so your staff can spend most of their time speaking to real people.
For outbound sales, Kixie’s power dialer software is second to none. Your team can dial up to 10 numbers simultaneously, helping you reach thousands of leads per day. This is ideal for any sales team that needs a boost for cold outreach.
It’s worth noting that the multi-line power dialer is only available if you’re on an Outbound Powerdialer plan or higher, which starts at $95 per user per month. This is nearly triple the cost of Kixie’s entry-level plan. So, just be aware that not every subscription comes with Kixie’s best outbound sales feature.
Kixie for Customer Support
For contact centers and customer support teams, Kixie has powerful automations to streamline the way calls are routed and reduce the amount of time your reps need to spend doing repetitive tasks.
Kixie has intelligent IVR technology that you can use to customize call routing to specific phone agents, departments, or call queues. It can even provide your customers with estimated wait times and give them the option for a callback when a rep is available.
In addition to sales CRMs, Kixie seamlessly integrates with popular help desk software. You can sync it with Zendesk, Gorgias, Intercom, and Kustomer with a single click, or set up custom integrations for other help desks.
By setting up custom ring groups, it helps route inbound callers to the right agent. This feature is available with every Kixie plan, including the entry-level tier. The IVR auto-attendant also comes with every plan, but you’ll need to upgrade to the Professional plan if you want to set up inbound call queues for your contact center.
Kixie Professional starts at $65 per user per month, and you can try it free for seven days.
Kixie for Remote Agents
If your company has remote employees handling outbound sales, inbound sales, or customer support, Kixie makes it easy to manage those users from anywhere.
Your phone reps don’t need to be at the same location to use Kixie. As an admin, it’s easy to onboard new agents with a single click, and they can access Kixie’s powerful features from the comfort of their home offices.
As a manager, the physical distance between you and your phone agents won’t prevent you from monitoring and training them. Kixie comes with live call monitoring, and you can even whisper to your agents for live coaching purposes.
Managers also have full access to a live call board, where they’ll see real-time insights for all reps, ensuring that people aren’t slacking off on the job. Kixie helps monitor different KPIs so you can measure the success of teams and individual agents alike.
The remote deployment feature also works well if you’re outsourcing to reps overseas. Teams can make calls from anywhere, and the software automatically ensures that agents only call people in certain time zones—regardless of where your staff is based.
Kixie’s call recording features work really well for training purposes and agent accountability, which is another nice benefit when managing remote teams.
Summary
Overall, we recommend Kixie to any business that wants to improve their phone sales, especially when doing a lot of outbound dialing. It’s a robust platform that supports advanced automations and it plays nicely with a wide array of CRM software. You can use it to establish a local presence in various locations and get detailed analytics about the performance of your team. Start your seven-day free trial to try Kixie today.
