Contact Center vs. Call Center: What’s the Difference?

In the last few years, conversations around customer service and customer experience (CX) have steadily moved away from voice-only call centers. Instead, there has been a steady rise in multichannel and omnichannel service delivery. ResearchOpens a new window suggests that companies with a strong omnichannel presence report an average 9.5% year-over-year growth in annual revenues, compared to 3.4% among those with weak omnichannel capabilities. The business case for investing in “contact” as a whole is clear, but this doesn’t mean that the traditional call center is dead. 

Call centers and live voice-based customer support continues to be a staple for customer service and CX, co-existing with emerging digital channels. Given this reality, it is time to re-evaluate the debate around contact centers vs. call centers from a more holistic perspective, understanding key differences and why both play a crucial role in the modern CX. 

A New Definition of Contact Center vs. Call Center 

Typically, you would define call centers as a physical office space meant for receiving (inbound) or initiating (outbound) a large number of customer calls for query resolution, grievance redressal, sales, cross-selling/upselling, debt collection, and follow ups. Call centers don’t always serve a single brand. A BPO call center can be leveraged to outsource call handling, where brands make use of shared resources. 

In contrast, you can define contact centers as an organizational vertical that supports inbound and outbound customer interactions across multiple channels, either with dedicated agents for each channel or agents skilled in channel blending. 

However, the proliferation of digital channels has made 100% telephony-only call centers less profitable than it was before. For outsourced service providers, brands will frequently look for multichannel and omnichannel capabilities alongside telephony. If you are a brand with an in-house support function, 100% telephony-only will lead to massive call volumes, overburdened agents, and an inefficient service experience. 

That’s why the modern call center can be defined as: 

A subsidiary function of the customer service/support department, looking after telephony interactions with inbound and outbound customers with help from automated technologies like interactive voice response (IVR), automatic call distribution, automated outbound diallers, and intelligent voice assistants. 

Meanwhile, contact centers can be defined as: 

A customer engagement function leveraged by sales, marketing, support, and other teams to reach out to and engage with, customers across multiple channels including phone, email, automated web chat, live chat, social media, and instant messaging, either with a universal queue that lines up customers for the appropriate channel or separate systems for each channel. 

A contact center with the universal queue functionality will rely on artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive technologies to route customers to the right channel, predictively match with the right agent, create a universal data source, and deliver a connected experience — enabling a truly omnichannel CX. In such an environment, there is no call center function as such, only telephony agents who are assigned to serve customer interactions routed to the phone. 

In the latter category (i.e., where there are separate systems for each channel), the pureplay call center comes into action. There can be a designated team and office for attending to phone calls with its own processes, performance KPIs, siloed software, etc., performing independently of the remaining channels. The company can choose to outsource the function to a BPO call center, as mentioned earlier. 

Learn More: Contact Center Priorities for 2021: Customer-Centricity Will Rule in Digital-Only World 

Key Differences Between a Call Center vs. Contact Center 

The biggest difference between a call center vs. a contact center is channels. But in 2021, no company operates on a telephony-only basis, yet live voice remains a popular service channel. As call centers and contact centers start to coexist (and even coalesce), you can observe the following points of difference: 

• Technology use – The call center part of customer contact uses auto-diallers for outbound and automatic call distribution systems (ACD) for inbound. This is integrated with the overarching contact center software through computer-telephony integration (CTI). Contact centers use these technologies in addition to omnichannel routing (also called universal queuing), omnichannel data analysis, and specific channel-based software/integrations.
• Agent skills – Call centers require agents to be equipped in voice communication skills, inflection/accent training, CTI technology use, and call script adherence. Contact center agents need a more complex set of skills, like being able to switch between channels, written and voice communication capabilities, and exceptional analytical capabilities to provide a cohesive CX across channels by understanding omnichannel data.
•  Costs and ROI – Fixed costs like rent, utilities, and hardware equipment are the same for both call centers and contact centers. But the latter employs more skilled (and therefore costlier) workers and requires more advanced software technologies. However, contact centers also bring in a greater return on investment (ROI) than regular call centers as there are lower FTE requirements, a more widespread brand presence, and better response times.
• Type of interaction – Telephony continues to be a staple for outbound, while a majority of inbound requests are now handled by digital contact channels like chat, email, or even self-service. This will also determine the difference in technology and agent skills in call centers vs. contact centers. 

Learn More: Dialpad Raises the Bar in Cloud Communications With 100% Uptime Guarantee 

Why You Need Both in a Digital World 

When digital technologies started to gain popularity, there was a decline in customer service call share. Between 2013 and 2016, for instance, dead for call-based customer service declined by seven percentage points.

Source: ZendeskOpens a new window

Fast-forward to 2020, and calls continue to be popular, along with other digital channels like chat, social media, instant messaging, etc. 87% of service professionals saw an uptick in digital channel usage during the pandemic, but this hasn’t reduced the importance of live telephony. 

Source: SalesforceOpens a new window

The writing is on the wall. Customers aren’t switching from call to digital, thereby giving contact centers an edge over call centers. Instead, they are expanding their channel presence, assigning each its particular role and position on the customer journey. A top-of-the-funnel query at the awareness stage, for example, might be best served through self-service conversational AI. Mid-funnel pre-purchase queries, on the other hand, can be better addressed through instant messaging. Email is useful for common but important transactional queries. App-based chat helps answer real-time issues on live orders. 

Finally, telephony continues to be a preferred medium for complex grievances and problem resolution where you need to “hash out” the issue in person and give customers the space to vent.

This means that call centers are firmly entrenched in the larger customer service paradigm, enveloped by but distinct from other engagement capabilities. Going forwards, call center agents will become highly specialized and in higher demand among sectors such as B2B, financial services, real estate, healthcare, etc., where customers expect handholding and deep product knowledge. 

On the other hand, contact centers are poised to evolve into full-fledged customer experience hubs that foster engagement and loyalty across the customer journey, blending inbound, outbound, multiple channels, and omnichannel data in perfect proportions. 

Do you think that call centers are here to stay, or is digital the only way forward? Let us know if you liked this article on LinkedInOpens a new window , TwitterOpens a new window , or FacebookOpens a new window . We would love to hear from you!