Call Center

A call center is a place where inbound calls are received or outgoing calls are made by a particular company, usually to centralize the customer support functions or for making telemarketing calls. Call centers are currently very popular, as any company can outsource customer relations management or initial sales initiatives. A call center can be large or small, depending on the service and the size of the organization. A single call center office could have just a dozen people or even a 100 employees.

Some call centers specialize in handling inbound calls, such as a bank call center which gets calls from customers who ask for information or need assistance. All details of bank operations are conveyed to prospective and existing customers, and the staff needs to familiarize themselves with all aspects of the bank's operations. Other call centers may just make outgoing calls for research companies. Employees working at this sort of call center make calls to get information for a specific survey or to get responses to particular survey questions.

A call centers has certain obvious benefits. Centralizing service and support functions in one location, with specific people assigned the task of talking to customers, usually streamlines customer relations to a great extent. The number of employees can be increased if the call volume rises. With proper training, response to customer complaints is handled with sensitivity and patience. A call center can be at any location, thus enabling companies to choose those places where labor is affordable and infrastructure is available at a much lower costs.

A call center is usually a hub of technology, with various facilities being utilized to enhance performance and customer experience. Inbound call centers work with automatic call distribution, where calls are assigned to the staff according to the sequence that they are received. Call monitoring is another feature, where customer calls are monitored by quality control staff to ensure that the calls are handled properly by the company's representatives. Technology for call center infrastructure is continuously evolving, allowing staff to respond properly and to enhance the customers' experience.

Outsourcing is currently the "flavor of the season" and call centers are therefore becoming a popular alternative to in-house handling of telemarketing and customer support calls. Rather than employing more staff and equipping a full-scale department for these functions, companies are finding it more convenient and cost-effective to outsource the telephone handling to an external call center. The external call center would be manned by trained employees of a different organization, who may well be handling the telephone functions of several other companies.

Call center companies offer a broad gamut of services ranging from answering calls to more complex functions, such as lead analysis, retention and analytics. Call center companies can work as a back office, saving time, effort and money in employing of secretaries and office assistants for such work. A call center works as an adjunct office, providing backup services in the areas of customer service, telemarketing and other functions. A company may set up its own call center with its own staff or outsource to a company providing these services.

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