Call Center & Contact Center: What’s the Deal?
| January 12, 2024
It’s undeniable. Any business worthy of being calles such has customer needs tending at its core. Finding the right operator or agent able to support a client is no easy job. There’s patience to be mastered and a vast array of knowledge, both in theory and through practice, that needs to be held to deliver the best Customer Experience possible. Reaching clients must be done with a certain touch for their loyalty to the company is the business life itself. That’s the main reason Call Center and Contact Center were born.
In the dynamic landscape of customer service, Call Center and Contact Center are words often used interchangeably. Yet they represent distinct facets of communication hubs and cater to diverse customer needs. But what are their differences? Where to start understanding their roles, features and activities? These are but few of the questions BeCloud kept in mind in creating its finest CX solutions and integrations.
CALL CENTER: A HISTORY OF CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
The first Call Center dates back to the 1960s. Birmingham Press and Mail, a UK tabloid newspaper business, needed quick and swift customer feedback and support. The service, known as PABX (Private Automated Business Exchanges) was also a way to handle customer contacts. It was in March 1973 that Call Centers popularity boomed, thanks to NASA’s Mission Control. The events of the “Skylab” were aired internationally, alongside NASA’s powerful Call Distribution System. And it paved the way for Call Centers Distributors.
A BRIEF LOOK AT CALL CENTERS FEATURES
Traditionally, Call Centers are centralised facility focused solely on handling voice-based interactions. Their function being Inbound/Outbound calls management thanks to agents and operators. It offers a dedicated channel for Customer Support. Many are the advantages contact center offer through time. It is cost efficient, due to its location centralization and reduction of dispersed support team costs. Its agents availability can be 24/7 and it can offer dedicated and specialised operators different kinds of support. It can also offer remote work opportunities.
Yet Call Centers work only on one single communication channel. The Voice one. New technologies and innovations are growing on different kinds of markets and sectors. New ways of communication sparking everyday. How can one business rely on one single channel, when customers themselves voiced their need of having different channels to choose from? Giving choice is essential.
That’s why, in time, Call Centers evolved into Contact Centers.
CONTACT CENTERS, CHANNEL MANAGEMENT AND BEINCONTACT
The concept of Contact Centers has emerged as a response to Customer Engagement changing dynamics. A Contact Center goes beyond Call Center limitations, incorporating a vast array of communication channels. And that’s the real innovation. Contact Center does not abandon Voice channel. It just implements Mail, live chat, socials, messagistic and more channels alongside it. Customers will choose their preferred communication channel and, thanks to BeCloud’s application, agents will always be in control.
Our newest 100% Cloud Omnichannel solution, BeInContact, helps manage all business contact channels with simplicity and effectiveness. The platform revolutionizes customer connection and Contact Centers, offering simultaneous interactions on different communication channels.
One single interface is all agents need to manage all customer support and communication, allowing easy channel switch with latest technologies. Business won’t need any hardware component installation to make BeInContact properly work.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Call Centers have played a pivotal role in history of Customer Service.It’s evolution to Contact Centers reflects the changing landscape of communication. Its ability to reach different communication channels and grant customer choice isn’t just essential but the focus of nowadays business. As organisations strive to deliver superior customer experiences, the transition from Call Centers to Contact Centers becomes not only a strategic imperative but also a testament to the adaptability of Customer Service in the digital age.
Thanks to BeInContact, organisations can manage channels altogether without ever worrying of loosing context nor information. You’ll be granted full accessibility to your datas. We protect your database from loss threats thanks to our Cloud system as well.
M. Cereda
