Call Center vs. Contact Center: What's The Difference?
Search Customer Experience, Thursday, June 20th, 2024
Call centers still live and die by the phone, while time and technologies have demanded more complex contact centers that service customers over multiple channels of communication.
Although the terms call center and contact center are sometimes used interchangeably, there are major differences, including technologies, channels of communication, types of customer data collected, self-service options, workflows and agent responsibilities.
Call centers were once the gold standard for customer service, but new technologies emerging over time, plus the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic, changed the way many businesses operated and interacted with customers. As analog and simple telephone communication gave way to multiple digital channels, many call centers by necessity morphed into more complex, multifunctional contact centers.