Call Center and Contact Center Two sides of the same coin
The word Contact Center is being interchangeably used for a Call Center lately. The recent emergence of the word Contact Center is considered as re-branding of our good old Call Centers . But not many realize that the two are not synonymous but distinct in their facilities and features. A Call Center, as per the conventional definition, is where the Customers’ calls are received by Agents (inbound) or the calls are made by the Agents to customers (outbound). Call Center is therefore confined to only the telephonic communication with customers. Often the telephonic conversations feed into software like CRM, ERP etc. A Contact Center on the other hand is where besides the telephone, you also have web enabled communication like E-mail Support, Chat Support etc. Here the telephone is supplemented with internet, to ensure gratifying communication with customers. So every Contact Center is a Call Center also, but every Call Center isn’t always a Contact Center.