Contact Center vs. Call Center: Which one does my company need?
As companies seek better ways to deliver a superior customer experience, distinguishing between a Contact Center and a Call Center can be tricky. The world of contact centers can be confusing, and you might be thinking of a Contact Center because that's where customer interactions take place. And you're right. But in the tech industry, there are very different definitions when it comes to Contact Centers versus call centers.
You have the option to acquire a Contact Center if your company requires:
- Manage call flows.
- When your customers only call to get in touch.
- Outbound calls are more important than interactions with inbound customers.
- Your customers demand (and use) other digital channels.
- Evaluate multichannel reports.
- You're ready to expand and scale.
What is a contact center?
When defining what a Contact Center is, we arrive at "a business function responsible for communicating with customers." This usually happens by phone, SMS, email, social media, or video.
A contact center is also the business unit that assists customers through all contact methods. Typically, a contact center is located in an office. However, the pandemic led many customer service teams to work from home. The transition to working from home has been successful, and some agents continue to work remotely.
We now see hybrid contact centers; some work in the office and others from home. Contact center software describes the technology used in these office or hybrid environments. However, we primarily associate it with people handling inbound transactions or making outbound calls.
When it's just about phone calls, that's a call center.
A contact center manages all types of customer contact. It is expected to support the following digital channels:
- Telephone calls.
- Emails.
- Video.
- Live chat.
- Chatbot climbs.
- Social networks.
- Text messages (SMS).
A contact center solution offers a single interface for managing multichannel customer inquiries. It also provides a sophisticated suite of back-end reports. All the data captured in your contact center is useful for forecasting and planning.
What is a call center?
Everyone is familiar with a traditional call center. It's where customers call and agents answer their questions. These can be desks, cubicles, or an open-plan office environment. Agents typically wear headsets connected to the phone system to make and answer calls.
In technical terms, a call center is a voice-only deployment. SIP trunks are the foundation for the call center software to handle large call volumes. The call center then routes these calls to the IVR system or call distribution features.
Unlike a multichannel contact center, agents don't have access to web chat, social media, or other channels. While these support channels may be offered, many call center agents keep these touchpoints separate. So, for example, when a customer calls and requests an update to their Twitter message, the call center agent doesn't have access.
But they have access to a range of features and functions to help callers.
Call center technology includes the following features:
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR).
- Automatic Call Distributor (ACD).
- Automatic assistants.
- Call control.
- Call recording.
- Call queue.
- Call disposition and KPIs.
- Agent availability.
- Integrated reports.
- Supervisor dashboards.
- Live call status.
- Panels with waiting times.
- Computer telephony integration (CTI).
- CRM integrations.
- Whispering ads in the queue.
Key differences between Contact Centers and call centers:
What is the difference between a contact center and a call center?
The difference between a call center and a contact center lies in the channels customers can use to contact you. In call centers, they can only use the telephone. In a contact center, digital channels such as web chat, email, social media, and SMS are available.
Keep the following differences in mind when choosing between a contact center and a call center.
1) Call centers only support voice calls
If your customers are currently contacting you through other channels, a call center limits how they can reach the right people. Your call center agents should be the first line of support for any incoming inquiry.
What if they aren't?
When your teams work without platforms that streamline processes, customers are not up to date and agents cannot see what other team members are saying to their customers.
It happens all the time when customers send tweets and emails, but your agents only answer calls.
2) If a customer uses an unsupported channel, their experience is disjointed.
When other contact channels exist, but you keep them isolated from your call center, the customer experience is disjointed.
3) Call centers lack expansion capacity
Today, it's not just your agents and customers who are affected when you choose a call center instead of a contact center. And we're not just talking about call volume.
If your plans include channels like SMS, email, and social media, it means moving from a call center to a modern contact center.
This new technology also requires training for agents. It means implementing new software. It means change. The likelihood that your customers will want to use another channel is high. Just because your company doesn't offer them centrally doesn't mean they can't find them or don't want to use them.
If you have an Instagram account, you might only use it to promote new products. But what happens when a customer prefers Instagram to calling you?
You receive a DM that you don't check. After all, you schedule your posts and use Instagram as a one-way promotional communication channel. Your client doesn't know, doesn't receive a response, and gets frustrated. In the end, they go to the competition.
Moreover, multichannel contact centers often give you an advantage over the competition.
In fact, the 92% of organizations that consider customer experience as a differentiating factor offer multiple contact channels.
Don't fall behind if there's a possibility that your customers will use channels other than voice.
Contact center and call center similarities:
Although there is no doubt that Contact Centers and call centers are different, there are some fundamental similarities to consider.
1) Both support voice calls
The selling point of a contact center compared to a call center is the additional channels it offers. But that doesn't mean it can't handle voice.
In fact, most contact center customers use voice as their primary channel. They use channels like web chat, email, and social media as complementary solutions.
When wait times are high, send a message to the customer encouraging them to use self-service options, such as contacting your help center. In such cases, other channels are useful when customers still need assistance and don't want to wait on hold. That said, all the features and capabilities available in a cloud-based call center are accessible when you choose a cloud-based contact center.
2) Both can include comprehensive reports and analyses
When your company receives a lot of incoming calls or any contact with customers, it generates a large amount of data. This information includes conversations and data from your customer relationship management tools.
What you do with this data depends on your company's needs. But both contact center and call center solutions include extensive reporting and analytics.
In call centers, analytics provide real-time and historical call details for your business. This data is invaluable in high-volume situations, such as inbound technical support. Historical trends can also be used to optimize staffing during vacation periods.
With contact center reports, you'll get all the call details, plus information about customer behavior on other channels. It's like having more canaries in the coal mine. If your website goes down, you'll almost certainly hear about it on social media first.
The added advantage is that everything is available in one place and to all agents. When access and information are shared across contact channels, we call it an omnichannel contact center.
Omnichannel contact centers serve customers across all channels and at any time.
3) Both are available via the cloud
These days there's not much that can't be put in the cloud.
Although there are some specific use cases for on-premises deployments, only 41% of companies resist migrating to the cloud.
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is the term for cloud-based implementations of contact centers. This is instead of installing a call center module on your phone system and adding many individual servers per channel that you need.
Instead, you download a desktop application or connect to a web URL and access all the channels you need through the cloud.
A cloud-based call center works in a very similar way. For example, you can start with a VoIP phone system with features like call flows and call queues, and then upgrade to an advanced package with IVR, intelligent callback, and quality assurance.
Contact center versus call center: Which to choose?
Choosing the right combination of a Contact Center and a Call Center can be the difference between increasing customer satisfaction and losing previously loyal customers.
Here are some principles to follow when choosing between contact centers and call centers. See which one best describes your business.
Choose a call center when:
If your customers only use the phone to get in touch, and you're sure they won't use new channels like web chat and SMS, then choosing a contact center is unnecessary. As a result, you'll end up with empty reports and have spent money on unused contact center technology.
For some businesses, a simple call center is all they need. And that's perfectly fine. In cases like outsourcing customer service functions, an inbound call center is all you need.
If your business model involves handling calls from your customers (or your customers' customers), a call center is a good option. Your primary focus will be managing call flows. You may need to manage complex call flows in addition to receiving simple calls.
Choose a contact center when:
Your customers use multiple channels. Sometimes, you have no choice but to use a contact center instead of a call center. If your customers already use email and social media to contact your company, you need to seamlessly integrate the experience.
It's about strengthening the customer journey. If you can't provide a good enough response every time a customer calls to find out what's happening with their Facebook inquiry, you're setting them up for the next big step: looking for another option.
In most cases, the advantages of a multichannel contact center are:
- Multipurpose agents.
- Shorter waiting times.
- Profitable staff.
- Improve brand consistency.
- Greater customer satisfaction.
- Improved customer retention.
- Higher first-call resolution rate.
- Free agents for specialized support.
- Multichannel reports and analysis.
Ultimately, offering a contact center (as opposed to a call center) allows you to serve your customers through their preferred channel. And that's a huge benefit in itself.
Contact centers are the future of call centers.
Ultimately, using a contact center (instead of a call center) allows you to serve your customers through their preferred channel. And that's a priceless advantage in itself.
Fountain: Contact Center and Call Center
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