Contact Center or Call Center, which suits you best?

What’s the difference between a contact center and a call center?

This is a question many businesses grapple with when considering the type of customer support that best aligns with their operations.

In this blog post, we’ll check into the distinctions between these two types of software and (hopefully) help you determinate which one is the perfect fit for your business.

What is a Call Center?

A Call Center is an organization or a department within a business responsible for handling incoming and/or outgoing calls to and from customers. Call Centers are often used for customer support, sales, and technical support.

Typically, agents staff Call Centers and are trained to address customer inquiries, issues, or sales depending on the business.

The primary medium for a Call Center is telephony to manage daily operations. Other supportive services such as email & chat are also used, but in a Call Center, they’re usually separate.

A Call Center is designed to manage high volumes of calls, reduce wait times, and becomes a critical department for those aiming to foster robust customer relationships and boost sales by ensuring customers have a positive experience when interacting with the company.

What is a Contact Center?

In recent times, a Contact Center has also been referred to as a department, although it’s primarily a service (or platform).

In a Contact Center, users handles multiple channels within a single interface with high security. Commonly integrated channels include:

• Telephony
• Email
• Chat
• AI-driven chatbots
• Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, & X
• Video

It’s common for sectors like healthcare, customer service, and banking and finance to use a Contact Center to manage their communication across different channels.

The purpose of a Contact Center is to offer customers a seamless and positive experience regardless of their preferred channel. By leveraging multiple channels and technologies, Contact Centers help businesses foster strong customer relationships and often boost sales.

Why Opt for a Call Center?

Three reasons why a call center might be more suitable than a contact center in specific scenarios:

1. Efficiency: A Call Center primarily focuses on receiving and swiftly managing calls. With a more concentrated strategy, Call Centers can often answer queries and resolve issues quicker than a Contact Center juggling multiple communication channels.
2. Cost: As Call Centers are focus towards phone calls and have simpler technical requirements, they’re generally more cost-effective than Contact Centers. This could be particularly significant for smaller companies with a tighter budget.
3. Quick Setup: Initiating a Call Center software usually only requires answer groups and IVR systems to manage incoming traffic, making your job simpler.

Why Opt for a Contact Center?

Here are three reasons why a contact center might be more suitable than a call center in certain situations:

1. Customer Experience: With Contact Centers integrating multiple communication channels like email, chat, and social media, you offer customers more options to interact with your business in the manner they prefer, enhancing their overall experience.
2. Flexibility: Contact Centers offer more versatility in addressing various customer inquiries and issues. Leveraging multiple channels allows the business to provide comprehensive support tailored to the customers’ needs and preferences.
3. Enhanced Customer Loyalty: By fostering relationships and offering personalized services, Contact Centers can play a pivotal role in amplifying customer loyalty. When customers feel valued and find it easy to connect with the company for help or information, they’re likely to return and recommend your business to others.

Which is better? Contact Center or Call Center?

Which one should you choose? A Call Center or a Contact Center?

A Contact Center might have a longer setup time and higher costs but provides multiple ways to engage with the business, simplifying tasks for agents managing different communication channels from a unified interface.

Choosing a Call Center often means quicker setup and lower costs, but it might lead to agents having to switch between systems and apps depending on the type of communication and the information they’re handling.

So, which one is better?

In Summary

If you’re aiming for swift and efficient service, a Call Center is the way to go. However, if building long-term customer relationships and offering a broader range of communication channels is your objective, then maybe a Contact Center is the better choice.

Contact us for more information

Want to learn more or see how we can assist you? Reach out to us, and we’ll guide you further.