What Is A Call Center? What Are The Major Types Of Call Centers?

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Whether you want to start your own call center or you are interested in switching your call center software, you need to know every important detail. This article shares what a call center is and the major types of call centers.

What is a call center?

A call center is an organization (or a team or department within a large organization) that handles both incoming and outgoing calls using a specialized solution, called a call center solution.

The people who answer incoming calls or make outgoing calls are known as customer service representatives using call center software.

Some call centers are subsidiaries of enterprise-level organizations and they handle all customer issues, requests, and queries of their parent company.

Whereas some call centers are independent organizations that provide customer service for various clients.

What are the major types of call centers?

Depending on the nature of the calls made and the channels used, there are seven types of call centers.

1. Inbound call centers

As you can guess from the name itself, inbound call centers handle incoming ...
... calls, which can range from customers’ requests, queries, issues with products or services, tech support, and more. In inbound call centers, using inbound call center software can streamline incoming calls and enable agents to handle all calls as efficiently as possible.

2. Outbound call centers

As the name suggests, outbound call centers enable companies to make outgoing calls, which include sales calls, feedback surveys, telemarketing campaigns, and market research. To make outgoing calls, these types of call centers use auto-dialers (predictive dialers or progressive dialers). The right outbound call center software can immensely help businesses to make outgoing calls and generate high-quality leads.

3. Blended call centers

A blended call center merges both inbound call centers and outbound call centers into one. This type of call center handles every type of call ranging from telemarketing sales calls to customer support calls. Companies or organizations that want to provide effective customer service as well as make sales calls can benefit from using blended call centers.

4. Virtual call centers

A virtual call center is a cloud-based call center that enables customer service representatives to work remotely, from various locations across time zones, instead of working from a centralized location. Virtual call centers are extremely flexible and less expensive to run and manage.

5. Automated call centers

As the name suggests, an automated call center automates a large chunk of the calling process by employing computer-based systems. In these call centers, human call center representatives only take some extremely important calls, handle specific responsibilities that the automated call center solution can’t complete as well as maintain the systems.

6. Multichannel call centers

Multichannel call centers are those call centers that enable businesses to interact with clients using multiple communication channels. In the present time, many contemporary call centers use multiple channels such as audio calls, video calls, faxes, emails, and other channels to connect with customers. Call center software providers offer integration of required communication channels into the call center solution.

7. Omnichannel call centers

Omnichannel call centers are one step more advanced than multichannel call centers. While multichannel call centers use multiple communication channels to connect with customers, omnichannel call centers use cloud-based software and nearly all available channels to do the same. Using omnichannel contact center software, customer support representatives can handle customer interactions using a wide range of channels such as audio calls, video calls, text messages, instant messages, live chats, social media, and more.

Conclusion

The call center industry is flourishing and therefore, new inventions are taking place every day. This article has shared details of a call center and the top 7 types of call centers. It also shares major types of call center solutions.

For more information please visit https://www.acinfosoft.com/ac-smart-call-center-software/