A call center is a place customers call to receive assistance with a product or service. Help typically is given in two ways:

• From a call center live agent: This person is trained to respond to customer inquiries in a compassionate and efficient manner.
• From a recording: An artificial intelligence (AI) can pick up keywords from the customer’s speech and respond with a relevant and helpful prerecorded message or will send the customer to a live call center agent.

Call centers are different from contact centers. Call centers provide customers with phone-based assistance. Contact centers offer multiple channels for connecting with a customer.

Traditionally, the call center experience was straightforward: the customer called in, waited for an available live agent, explained their problem, and hung up when their problem was resolved or when it became apparent the live agent could not help.

Communication technology has expanded to offer AIs to facilitate the customer experience with an experience that can flow in an easier, fast, satisfying, and more cost-effective way:

• The customer calls
• They are immediately greeted by an interactive voice response (IVR) system in a natural, conversational way
• The IVR system assists the customer when possible with a responsive recorded message or connects the customer via an automatic call distribution (ACD) system to the first available call center agent
• The call center agent has customer information on hand from an associate assist, an AI that explains why the customer has called and what has been done for them so far
• The call center agent uses that information to quickly resolve the customer’s problem

Call centers may be based at a physical location or employ work-from-home agents who operate at various locations around the country or even around the world. Some call centers, including those run by OutPLEX, offer both options.

For more information about our call center services, call OutPLEX today at 1.866.531.5773, or visit us online.