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SubscribeEvery business focuses on creating a better customer experience. After all, a business’s success and failure are more or less dependent upon how well its services and products are received by its target customers’ needs and expectations. To ensure that a business is on the right path to organizational growth, they may juggle the options concerning business-customer communication.
And this is where the comparison of a contact center vs call center comes in. If you are also weighing your options that deliver an efficient customer experience, then then you need first to equip yourself with the basics of these two options. Understanding the differences between the two is key to operating a business that makes smarter customer-centric decisions.
In this blog, we have put together interesting key differences between a call center and a contact center.
Read on to learn more!
What Is a Call Center?
As the name rightly suggests, a call center is a centralized department within the organization that focuses on interacting with customers via voice calls. In some cases, call centers may be outsourced to a partner. Call center Employees, sometimes also referred to as agents or advisors, are expected to deal with incoming and outgoing telephonic calls from the company’s stakeholders, particularly its customers. These calls can come either from a new or an existing customer for various purposes, including sales, technical support, promotion, customer care, etc.
There are different roles that agents of a call center are engaged in, which include:
- Telemarketing
- Market research
- Handling customer queries
- Customer support
What Is a Contact Center?
Unlike traditional call centers that only handle telephonic calls, a contact center steps up further in its mode of communication channels of reaching out to existing and potential customers. In other words, a contact center handles any customer query that comes through at least five of these communication channels:
- texts
- emails
- web-enabled live chats
- forums
But does that mean the contact centers are merely the call centers with more communication channels?
Technically, it might seem like the case. However, simply adding more communication channels to a call center does not particularly classify it as a contact center. A contact center is a focal point where all customer contacts are managed and monitored. This suggests contact centers are required to coordinate and integrate people, processes, and technology across the company. Various performance metrics that are not only confined to average handle time are also embedded in the contact centers, thereby making the entire work process complex.
Virtual Contact Centers
When we think of call centers, we often imagine many people working over their phones in a crowded room while the phone rings are an everyday affair. While it is not an entirely wrong picture to imagine, many things have changed over the years. This includes: how the call centers function or how they have expanded their communication channels.
With call centers becoming more flexible, many virtual contact centers have emerged. Basically, virtual contact centers consist of individual agents working from home or a smaller group of agents working in multiple branch offices.
So, if these agents are home-working or working separately in various branch offices, how do they communicate? Well, they use the same cloud technology that helps these virtual contact centers function as one whole contact center.
Don't Settle! Reach The Full Potential Of Your Contact Center
Difference between the Call Center and Contact Center
These days, companies technically handle customer queries using various modes and query management technologies rather than merely traditional voice calls. However, the label “call center” is yet to wane, as companies continue to use the terms “call center” and “contact center” as if they mean the same.
So, now we have given you a short intro about the center and contact center, it is time to take your understanding a notch higher by comparing their fundamental differences. Later, we will also tell you which option is better for your business.
There’s a big difference between contact center and call center. So, let’s pit both these departments against each other and understand their individual features.
| Features | Call centers | Contact Centers |
| 1.Communication channels | traditional telephone-based
or voice calls |
|
| 2. Advanced Analytics | Not available | provides advanced analytics generated from various channels |
| 3. Self-service
or Automation |
Limited possibility | Due to the multiple channels approach, self-service has immense possibilities. Queries that are repetitive can be driven by artificial intelligence and machine learning approaches in future. |
| 4. Number of Staff | Usually more and can go high as 300 | Can choose to scale, but AI-driven approaches can be incorporated to reduce the cost associated with additional staffing. |
| 5. Traditional Way of communication | Yes, people still prefer communication over calls to texts | Contact centers may experience more queries over the phone than other mediums. This means that the majority communication happens traditionally over call. |
| 6. Cost | depends upon the number of employees | Costs involve both associated with employee staffing and technologies. |
Contact Center vs. Call Center: Which One to Choose?
Excellent customer support is the first step towards understanding the needs and expectations of your customers. When businesses look for options to enhance their customer experience, they often witness advisors who would suggest to opt for contact centers over call centers.
So, is a contact center always a better option?
Well, this may be true in some sense; but many businesses could also do well without using various communication channels or setting up a contact center. For instance, ideally, if your business can capture your customers’ needs using traditional call centers, then you do not need to invest in more staff and technologies. In short, it all depends on your assessment of the company’s needs and future goals. But, here is the good news, call centers can be easily scaled up into contact centers by interacting with omnichannel presence and automation tools.
One must note that robust customer service and enhanced operational efficiency are determined mainly by how well all the available technologies are combined across all touchpoints.
Conclusion
Call centers and contact centers are both responsible for customer support and outreach. However, they are not the same in how they function. In the debate between call center vs contact center, an understanding of the subtle differences between these two often interchangeably used terms can do wonders to the success of your business.
With JustCall, finding the right solutions to this perpetual decision battle concerning the contact center vs. the call center is always easy. Our cloud-based contact center software and outsourcing solutions can help you outsource the right contact center for your business to deliver the best and most seamless customer experience.
