Many people avoid contacting a business call center or customer support line because of poor service or previous bad experiences. That’s why investing in a contact center solution is one of the smartest ways to use an efficient communications platform to create a better customer and employee experiences.

It can minimize telephony costs for your business and provide additional benefits plus the technical support you’ve been missing with your current call center or phone system. It can also improve operational efficiency and allow agents to avoid repetitive tasks with smart automation.

To help you understand what a contact center is, the difference between a call center vs contact center, and which solution can suit your needs best, we’re exploring the following topics:

What is a contact center?

A contact center is an organization or department that allows a business to manage customer interactions via different channels. It can be an internal (in-house) or an external (outsourced) resource. The term is also used to describe systems that agents use to handle inbound and outbound omnichannel communications.

With more complex customer expectations and increasingly advanced technologies, companies are expected to be available through multiple communication channels instead of the just the traditional call center approach. Providing more ways to reach a business by means of modern contact centers and their progressively intelligent features enable companies to offer better customer experiences.

Businesses can integrate their multichannel contact center solution with CRM (customer relationship management) systems which offer tracking, coordination, and oversight of all interactions between customers and the organization. This way, agents can interact with customers through a wide range of methods, such as:

• In-app or video support
• SMS updates regarding an order
• Push notifications for new offers and events
• Surveys after every phone interaction or deployed or messaging apps
• Email sales inquiries directed to agents for getting in touch with the customer via call

The right omnichannel contact center can keep a record of the entire customer journey within and across all channels, ensuring it remains visible for any agent interacting with the customer. This improves agent efficiency and customer experience, and helps the organization achieve operational KPIs as well.

_{Quick note: While some may use the terms “omnichannel contact center” and “multi-channel contact center”, there are subtle differences between them. It’s true that both allow companies to connect with consumers through different avenues. But the former represents a seamless experience while the latter is more siloed.}

What does a contact center do?

In a nutshell, a contact center takes all the separate pieces of customer interaction within your business (phone calls, texts, emails, chats) from multiple channels and brings them together in one place.

It employs classic call center features like IVR, automatic call distributor (ACD), speech analysis software, and workforce management systems—more on these later. Additionally, you can benefit from functionalities like email response management, omnichannel routing, and channel reports.

A contact center platform helps agents see all customer behavior, interactions, and information (including previous touchpoints) in real-time so they can provide the best support possible. It also ensures the consumer is connected to the person who’s best equipped to handle the conversation.

It allows businesses to provide efficient service that ensures a positive customer experience.

For example: when a customer calls to discuss a product with a sales agent, the call will be recorded in their customer profile. If the same customer sends an email message to customer service three weeks later, the contact center agent can quickly read any notes about the previous call and respond accordingly.

What is a call center?

A call center is a centralized space where representatives or agents provide customer service to clients over the phone.

Inbound call centers receive customer calls for technical support, billing questions, order queries, and more. Agents working at these types of call centers must focus on quick resolution times and greater agent productivity.

At an outbound call center, representatives call customers to engage in telemarketing, increase sales, conduct surveys, request money for fundraising, etc.

Similar to contact center solutions, call center software can be used internally by the company or externally by the outsource partner organization.

Key differences between contact centers & call centers

While traditional call centers can meet the needs of some organizations, contact centers have become increasingly popular among companies that want advanced features and support for multiple communication channels.

Here are some of the key differences between contact centers and call centers to help you decide which option is the best for your company:

Why should you choose a contact center?

While a call center may meet the current needs of your business you should invest in a contact center setup to satisfy modern customers’ needs and optimize their experience. Still need convincing? Here are a few specific reasons why the upgrade is worth it:

1. Save time with self-service

Contact centers empower your customers to use self-service options that help them make their own decisions for getting their inbound communications handled.

• IVR: An IVR (interactive voice response) system is a programmable tool that can assist callers before redirecting them to live agents.

For example—if a customer calls to find out how to activate their accounts, an IVR system can be programmed to provide them with the necessary information, removing the need for a live agent altogether. This is a win-win for you. Customers can get the information they need, and agents are free to focus on more complex issues.

• Chatbots: Chatbots also offer customers another avenue for self-service. They use machine learning to collect information from a customer and determine the best course of action for their query. Although they are somewhat limited in what they can help customers with, chatbots are the best solution for a customer’s most basic requests.
• SMS: SMS is an excellent way for customers to interact directly with a business for promotional information and customer service. These messages allow customers to connect with the brand using one of the most prolific communications channels, thus ensuring convenience in their customer experience.

2. Save money with efficiency

Customer issues can run the gamut of “pretty easy to solve” to “this might take three days to figure out.” Fortunately, contact centers can increase efficiency and digital engagement through multi-faceted approaches. Agents can handle all the queries they can and, with self-service options for consumers, they can focus on cases that need extra attention.

Contact centers also allow you to scale your needs to demand.

Imagine this: you have a product launch coming up, which means your customer inquiries are likely to increase. You can quickly boost staffing to the appropriate levels by using workforce management and predictive tools. In the long run your contact center solutions will save you money by preventing your from overstaffing..

3. Improve the customer experience with omnichannel communication

No one likes to be on the phone endlessly, waiting for a call center agent to pick up and help them solve their problem. Contact centers go a long way towards improving customer experience in a number of ways. Some features like self-service functions have already been discussed, but here are a few more you can employ to improve the customer journey:

• Some contact center software extract customer data from multiple channels and collate it into a single customer communication profile. This profile can be used to offer better customer service through enhanced call routing and the ability to get to the heart of customer queries quicker.
• Customers appreciate the opportunity to choose their communications channel when reaching out to a company. A customer who can get their issues resolved by sending a message via Messenger instead of an email will be a satisfied customer.
• A number of cloud contact center systems can directly integrate with apps you already use (including setting up your own APIs), further improving customer experience. For example—if you use a customer relationship management (CRM) system, you can integrate it with your cloud communication channels to see all of your customer information exactly where and when you need to.

Types of contact centers to choose from

There are a handful of types of contact center, and finding the right one for your business will depend on different factors, like your operational setup, your budget, and how much space you have.

The following are the main types of contact centers:

1. On-premises contact center

An on-premise contact center setup is installed and hosted by the business itself. The company handles everything internally, including hardware maintenance, upgrades, and software updates for the contact center.

Before any company commits to an on-premise contact center, it’s important to remember the following:

• You will need space in your building to store and maintain servers. This option may be feasible for a larger enterprises, but small businesses could struggle with the space requirements.
• You would be responsible for maintaining, fixing, and installing updates on the contact center hardware. If you don’t have a dedicated IT team or knowledgeable professionals, this could pose problems. Calling in a professional IT provider or hiring someone can increase costs.
• You will need to prepare detailed disaster recovery and business continuity plans for your site that take into account how operations will recover if the servers or data warehouses are brought down or destroyed.

2. Cloud contact center

A cloud contact center (also known as a hosted contact center) has the contact center infrastructure hosted off-site by a third-party provider. The provider is responsible for handling the servers, hardware, maintenance, updates, and various other costs associated with setting up a contact center.

Cloud contact centers can be an excellent choice for any medium to large enterprises looking to save money and time by having a third party do all the heavy lifting. These solutions offer a lot over other types of contact centers. Here are five advantages you can expect:

1. You can quickly deploy a new office anywhere in the world.
2. You can easily scale your workforce depending on your business needs.
3. You don’t need to worry about getting started with, updating, and maintaining the system because the cloud-based contact center will push those through automatically when they’re ready.
4. You only need to pay what you need, usually a flat monthly or annual rate.
5. Contact center managers and agents can connect from anywhere in the world—from Los Angeles to Japan to the United Kingdom—as long as they have internet access. This opens you up to new local talent and the ability to connect with customers from their locales.

Let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of cloud contact centers:

Various ways contact centers support businesses

You may not be totally convinced that a contact center is right for your business, but there are many situations where it would prove invaluable to any company.

1. Sales and marketing

Probably one of the first solutions that popped into your head—a contact center is a great way to overhaul your sales and marketing strategy. Agents can make outbound calls to new customers or existing prospects with special promotions or for an upcoming webinar they might be interested in attending.

People aren’t always receptive to out-of-the-blue cold calls with salespeople from call centers, but the right personalized post on social media or a friendly email could get them interested in your business.

For this use case, remember to look for a contact center provider that offers features like predictive dialing. This can help agents increase and optimize their outbound call volumes, thus increasing overall revenue and minimizing downtime.

2. Customer support

Being able to offer better customer support is why a majority of businesses switch to a contact center solution, since it provides so many options for handling issues. Automatic call distribution (ACD) can ensure customers are routed to the agents who are most qualified to answer their questions and solve their problems.

Digital channels allow you to see all voice and digital channels in one workflow, so your representatives can assist consumers on their channel of choice. Staff can even employ video conferencing to assist clients.

A cloud-based contact center can help you boost your performance. Agents will have higher job satisfaction, and callers will be satisfied with the reduced wait times, shorter queues, and higher quality of interactions.

3. Supply chain

A contact center, particularly a cloud-based one with several extra features, can help you stay on top of your supply chain and logistics operations. Use text messaging and email to quickly update customers on the status of their orders or inform them about delays. This way, you avoid angry customers who complain about lack of communication.

You can connect your warehouse management software to your contact center and embrace automation by deploying any shipping updates instantaneously.

4. Customer surveys

While first contact with a customer is always highlighted as the most important, following up with customers to gauge their interactions with your company can be just as important. A contact center solution can make this process so much easier.

You can easily automate sending out customer surveys after an interaction or have agents text a follow-up survey in real-time. With so many different channels to choose from, gathering metrics on customer expectations and experience is easier than ever.

How 8x8 Contact Center solutions empower businesses

Your employees and your systems may rely on your current telecommunications set up or call center solution; however, there's a whole other world of options out there to take your business to the next level. Choose a cloud-based contact center that can help customer and staff stay connected in the best way possible.

8x8 is one of the most highly-recommended contact center solutions for companies of all sizes. Whether you are looking for advanced analytics features or call handling functionalities you can keep people throughout their customer journey.