Differences between Contact Centers and Call Centers

Customer service undoubtedly has several benefits in attracting customers to your business and ensuring the best customer experience strategy. One of the most effective tools to use for this purpose is live chat. With the help of live chat, customers can immediately talk to a customer service agent and have their query resolved then and there, thereby enhancing customer-business relationships.

Truth is call centers are just a subset of the universe of communication methods employed by modern businesses. Both of them are equipped to handle incoming and outgoing communications, but there is a world of difference between call centers and contact centers, here are some of them:

1. Service Channels

2. Automation

3.Reactive vs. Proactive Services

4. Customer Preferences

1. Service Channels

Contact centers employ a host of applications to maintain communication with external parties while call centers are only focused on one - phones. Contact centers use chats, emails, bots, texts, and videos, in addition to phone calls.

2. Automation

Call center software to have a very limited scope for automation playing a role. Customers, in fact, expect to speak with a live person when they use the call center option, with automation limited to initial IVR option selections and distribution of calls to reps. Contact center software, on the other hand, allow for several processes to be automated. For example, a company's contact center may employ texts to ask customers if they are looking for a credit limit increase on their card. Depending on the response text from the customer, the system, in turn either asks an integrated system to process the limit increase of end the flow there.

3. Reactive vs. Proactive Services

It's no surprise that people these days are wary of answering calls from unknown numbers, so call centers to end up being more reactive in nature, put to use when a customer initiates the communication. Impersonal contact center solutions, on the other hand, can be both proactive as well as predictive in nature without being invasive.

4. Customer Preferences

Call center agents aren't blessed with friendly customers always. Contact center software are in-built with options that the customer can select to try and take care of their requirements themselves, reducing their frustration and avoiding unpleasant interaction with live agents. Some customers may genuinely not like personal interactions and prefer impersonal ones. By employing the contact center approach to customer service, you are respecting their preferences too.

Apart from these, a few other important differences are that call centers are mostly available during specific time periods while contact centers are mostly available 24/7. Contact center services are quicker but can never replace empathetic services only possible by a human agent who can go that extra mile to make efficient service outstanding.