If you ask anyone what is the difference between a contact center and a call center, you won’t get anything apart from a confused expression. The point is that these two terms are so much utilized interchangeably that many people think them as one and the same thing. Both are models that empower business communication, but the two strategies differ from each other in many ways.

Due to the inclusion of high-end technology, numerous technologically-abled firms offering call center services have emerged in last decade. In the same time-period, even contact centers came into existence. The vital point of distinction between a call center and a contact center is the way the communication is done and the experience involved.

Through this blog, we are going to cover the main points that differentiate a call center from a contact center. Let’s start by first seeing what each of these business models actually are:

What is a call center?

A call center is a setup where professionals manage inbound, blended, and outbound phone calls. Conventionally speaking, a call center works basically on an internal hardware that is integrated with the telecom infrastructure in order to address and send a high volume of customer calls.

Call center services existed from the 1960s just after the first automatic call distribution system was invented. This system ensures to share inbound calls to multiple experts depending on the availability or prowess. So, from here on, call centers started dominating the business industry.

In the beginning, call center’s focus was totally converged on trimming the operational costs by curtailing the number of experts. The call center agents were pushed stressfully to offer solutions to the customers in the least possible time and address more & more queries each day. Few of the call centers tried installing IVR (interactive voice response), but the main function of an IVR is to keep the customers away from the live agents. This further leads to dissatisfaction among the customers.

What is a contact center?

Similar to call centers, a contact center is also known to manage inbound & outbound customer calls, but, the main point of distinction is its usage of digital service channels. The benefits offered by the contact centers are similar to the stable call center service providers, but, former are more likely to utilize cloud services and VOIP (voice over internet protocol) to enable users to communicate on the platform of their choice. Examples of other channels are text, web chat, email, and so on.

All the channels available for the users to choose are integrated into the same system. This makes life easy for the customers. Customers, on the one hand, have the liberty to engage as per their preference and on the other, they can also hop to other daises without creating any disruption in the service.

The bottom line of a contact center is to craft a strong brand image consistently despite knowing wherever the communication is taking place.

The transition from a call center industry to a contact center sector is not an overnight phenomenon. It is a slow process of evolution. With so many digital platforms now available, customers ask for assistance on these channels more than on telephone. This made call centers to change themselves into advanced contact centers. However, last decade has seen an unprecedented boost in the number of players in this industry.

Let’s take a glimpse of the differences that exist between a call center and a contact center:

Difference #1: Channels

As discussed, call centers utilize only voice channel to provide an unmatched customer experience, whereas, a contact center along with voice also use different digital platforms to engage patrons. A call center agent only uses the phone, while a professional working in a contact center might be using texts, chats, social media, video chat, email, and many such channels to engage customers.

Difference# 2: Predictive and pro-active customer support

Customer service has crossed its way beyond just addressing inbound requests. The call center service agents ensure to extend their reach to the customers using the analytics and advanced tools. But the issue is that not all the time customers are available and hence likeability of losing revenue increases.

The contact center, on the other hand, ensures to offer alternatives to the customers asking how they want to contact the business.

Difference #3: Self-service

IVR is utilized by the call centers to handle high call volume, but it does not solve the purpose. Now, contact centers ensure to design their IVR keeping their brand and customer service in consideration. This enables to solve customer’s issue without involving a human agent.

Difference #4: Hi-tech routing

Software in contact centers ensures to pull digital data of customers from numerous platforms empowering agents to predict what medium to choose and which customer to send the intended message (that is rather a solution). A call center also does this but the contact center software is more prompt and precise.