Operations

The administrative system within a contact center is similar to the make-up of a call center, with variations in the kind of departments needed for operations. Some contact centers actually originated from call centers and expanded to include online services.

The contact center employees who handle the actual e-mails, phone calls and other sources of client information are called contact center agents. There are contact centers who prefer dividing the agents up into specific fields of the business, like a group for handling e-mails only or a department for website management. Other contact centers go for “universal” contact center agents, or agents who can deal with all kinds of contacts.

Contact centers can be classified as inbound or outbound. Inbound centers are those wherein the customer is the first to interact, like calling regarding a product complaint. Outbound accounts are those wherein the contact center agents initiate a relationship, such as sending mass e-mails about merchandise. Contact centers are usually of the inbound kind, as agents do more receiving and answering of queries and comments than they do actually calling up their clients.

Contact center personnel include the agents, their direct supervisors, trainers and quality control monitors, aside from the main administrative system. Contact centers may operate at one location only or choose to maintain several sites in a country or state.