The Pros and Cons of Using Five9 as Your CCaaS Solution

If you’re running an SMB, you already know how hard it can be to find the right technology to support your customer experience (CX) efforts. With so many options to choose from, narrowing them down to one Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) platform often feels like navigating a maze of features, integrations, and pricing models. So, many SMBs try to “make do” with outdated on-premise systems or low-cost providers. But this often results in frustrated agents, poor visibility, upset customers and missed opportunities.

As someone who’s helped many businesses deploy and optimise CCaaS solutions for years, I can tell you that Five9 consistently stands out. It’s recognised globally — even ranking in the top-right of the Gartner Magic Quadrant — for its scalability, reliability, and rich feature set. But as I always tell customers, no platform is perfect. Five9’s power and flexibility come with nuances that every business should understand before investing.

In this article, I’ll walk you through the pros and cons of using Five9 as your CCaaS solution — from cost and complexity to AI, reporting, and integration. More importantly, I’ll share practical advice to help you decide if it’s the right fit for your business and how to make it deliver real return on investment (ROI) from day one.

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What This Blog Covers:

• The Pros: Key Strengths That Set Five9 Apart
• The Cons: Potential Pitfalls You Need to Watch Out For
• Your CCaaS Success Starts with the Right Partner
• Looking Ahead: How Agentic AI Is Changing the Way We Work
• Turning Insight into Action: Your Next Step
  

The Pros: Key Strengths That Set Five9 Apart

1. Scalability That Grows With You

By far, one of the biggest reasons SMBs choose Five9 is scalability. Its cloud-first design allows you to start small and scale as your business grows, without having to worry about downtime or hardware costs. Five9 uses a concurrent licensing model, which means you only pay for the number of users logged in at any one time. So, if you’ve got 100 staff but only 20 agents working at once, you only need 20 licences – which helps a lot when managing costs.

This is also a great solution for businesses that experience seasonal spikes, like the hospitality or travelling industries, because you’re able to increase licenses as needed. However, it’s worth noting that while you can add seats, you can’t reduce your licenses mid-contract (which are typically three years). At Babble, we give our customers licence utilisation reports, so you always know if you’re underusing or nearing your limits.

2. A Reliable Platform You Can Trust

When it comes to keeping your contact centre up and running, reliability is a non-negotiable. Your CX is heavily dependent on how your CCaaS platform performs. Five9 is known for its stability and 99.994% uptime, and that’s one of the main reasons we recommend it.

Beyond performance, it’s also intuitive for end users once they’re onboarded properly. As I always tell customers, the best platform is the one your team actually enjoys using.

3. User Training and Adoption Support

In this article, I spoke at length about how even the best tools fail without proper adoption. To tackle this, Babble enrolls every end user into Five9 University: an online portal that walks agents, supervisors, and admins through everything from taking a call to transferring one.

It sets you up from day one and structures the onboarding process. We track completion reports and follow up to make sure everyone is ready before going live. Thereafter, we provide remote support during the rollout to ensure a smooth transition and a faster ROI.

4. Powerful AI Tools That Drive Efficiency

Artificial Intelligence is a hot topic right now, and for good reason: it is quickly becoming increasingly embedded in customer expectations. This means AI is no longer just for the big enterprise players, but something all businesses should look to implement in one way or another. Five9’s award-winning AI suite can be integrated directly into your environment, and designed to meet your customers where they are, as well as assist your agents (not replace them).

From intelligent voice assistants (IVAs) to predictive routing, AI enables faster, more efficient customer interactions such as reduced call volumes and improved first-contact resolution. One of the best examples I’ve seen is a project with FCMS, where we deployed a postcode-recognition IVA. It improved their connection rate by 30% and significantly reduced irrelevant calls, so agents only spoke to the right people.

5. Reporting That Turns Data Into Decisions

If I had to pick one underrated strength of Five9, it would be its reporting and analytics. The reporting is very good and extensive. If you take the time to understand it, you can really see where your contact centre is performing and where you need to improve. You can measure answer rates, abandoned calls, handle times, and more. These insights remove any guesswork and help you identify where to invest time or training.

Many managers assume they know what’s happening, but the reports reveal the truth — and that’s where the real improvement begins. This level of analytics enables them to track performance and pinpoint areas that affect customer satisfaction and cost efficiency.

The Cons: Potential Pitfalls You Need to Watch Out For

1. It’s Not the Cheapest Option

In all honesty, Five9 is not the cheapest tool out there. It sits firmly in the top right of the Gartner Magic Quadrant, and it knows its place. That means licence costs can be higher than other entry-level providers.

However, for many SMBs, it’s a matter of long-term ROI over short-term savings. Cheap solutions might look appealing upfront, but they often lack the flexibility, support, or analytics needed to improve agent productivity and efficiency — and that ends up costing you more down the line.

2. It Can Be Complex Without the Right Expertise

Five9 is powerful, but that power comes with complexity. If you don’t have a dedicated person managing Five9, it can get out of hand. Because there are so many features packed into this solution, there’s a learning curve, especially for smaller teams without in-house telephony expertise.

That’s why at Babble, we always recommend having a dedicated admin or technical lead that has the time to invest in mastering the platform — even if that person works alongside us. Together, we can make sure the platform runs efficiently, your reporting is accurate, and new features are rolled out correctly.

3. Integration Capabilities That Keep You Connected

Five9 integrates seamlessly with mainstream CRMs like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zendesk, which makes it incredibly versatile. In other words, Five9 ‘plays nice’ with most systems. However, there might be cases where it’s not compatible out of the box with older or bespoke systems. But Five9’s application programming interfaces (APIs) are extensive. You can usually build a tailored integration, though it may come with additional professional services costs.

This is another instance where working with the right partner is crucial: you’ll get that bridge built properly the first time, without the hidden costs that can creep in later.

Your CCaaS Success Starts with the Right Partner

I can’t stress enough the importance of working with the right implementation partner. At Babble, we act as the middleman between you and Five9: we speak both languages — technical and business — and help our clients articulate what they really need. We’ve also got in-house developers who can customise features and integrations.

Our gold partnership status means that you’ll receive top-tier support. In fact, only 10% of our support cases ever get escalated to Five9 – we resolve the other 90% ourselves. That’s something we’re really proud of.

Lastly, we also provide ongoing optimisation, with CX specialists and account managers who continuously review your setup to make sure you’re getting maximum value from your investment.

Looking Ahead: How Agentic AI Is Changing the Way We Work

Earlier, I mentioned how AI is a hot topic in the contact centre space, and the next wave of innovation is already here. We’re seeing some exciting developments in AI and agent assistance. More specifically, Five9’s new agentic AI tools are designed to help agents respond faster, find data quicker, and deliver better service. For SMBs, this means higher efficiency, more personalised service, and faster resolutions — all without adding to your headcount.

Turning Insight into Action: Your Next Step

The bottom line is that Five9 is one of the most powerful and scalable CCaaS solutions out there. When implemented correctly, it can completely transform how you serve your customers and manage your teams. The key is making sure it’s configured, supported, and adopted in a way that fits your business goals.

Over the years, I’ve seen SMBs struggle with tools that looked cost-effective on paper but couldn’t deliver in practice. The real challenge isn’t just choosing the software: it’s making sure your people, processes, and integrations work together to deliver the CX your customers demand.

I’m here to make sure you’re not just buying a platform, but building a long-term solution that delivers measurable ROI and customers that keep coming back.

If you’re ready to modernise your contact centre or want to see whether Five9 is the right fit, book a free CCaaS consultation with Babble. We’ll assess your current setup, uncover hidden inefficiencies, and design a Five9 roadmap that aligns with your growth, budget, and customer ambitions.