A Call Center is a centralized office that handles requests made by customers of a specific company or organization. Nowadays, most Call Centers offer their services through landline and online communication (the most famous ones are outbound and inbound services), while also offering secondary ways of communicating such as mobile SMS, IVR, call routing, email, fax, and many others.

Let’s have a look at what the differences are between Inbound, Outbound and Online Call Centers:

Inbound Call Center Services

A customer makes a phone call to the Call Center Service to get their queries resolved. This type of Call Center works best when it allows customers to reach a single point of contact for all the queries they may present.

In other words, customers call a single number to either buy some products or services, make payments, obtain information about the products, or any other relevant action pertinent to the services provided.

There are several types of Inbound Call Center Services:

Inbound Sales

When the client calls the Call Center, they will be derived to the Inbound Sales team where their staff is able to either sell the product or add the client to the database of the Call Center for future possible sales.

Customer Support

The Call Center staff will be there for the customer before, during, and after the purchase of the product or service, in order to maintain and satisfy the clients’ needs. When working as part of the Customer Supports’ team, it is expected to take action to resolve whatever issue the customer may have in regard to the product or service.

Help Desk

Refers to the staff who evaluates technical problems that customers may face.

Outbound Call Center Services

Outbound Call Center Services work differently. The staff is usually in charge of reaching out to possible clients, or to existent clients. This type of service works well because it provides managers of the Call Center the opportunity to control the staff during quiet hours, while improving productivity even further.

There are also several types of Outbound Call Center Services:

Customer Surveys

The Call Center usually makes outbound calls to their customers in order to perform a small research where they want to find out what the views or issues are in regard to the product or services that the company offers.

Lead Generation

This is a Top Trend for 2018, as it attracts interest to the company’s product or services by attracting customers through online lead generation, telemarketing, or reaching directly to the customers via email.

Telemarketing Services

Telemarketing Services are used to promote products and services to potential customers through the outbound calls of the agents.

Online Call Center Services

Customers are encouraged to access the company’s website and online services in order to carry the necessary tasks. For example, making payments, ordering products, filling out web forms, browsing the company’s online knowledgebase, or sometimes even interacting with artificial intelligence (A.I.) such as in the case of chatbots. This is a great way to reduce call volumes in the Call Center.