Contact Center vs. Call Center Comparison

Call Centers
Contact Center vs. Call Center Comparison
Last Updated: December 12, 2024

Choosing the right solution for customer service — a call center or a contact center — can significantly impact your business’s ability to meet customer needs effectively. Call centers focus on phone-based communication, while contact centers provide support across multiple channels like live chat, email, and social media.

Many businesses, however, confuse the two, overlook key differences, or rush the decision without evaluating their customer preferences or operational goals — often leading to poor performance.

Let’s break down how these two solutions differ in terms of usage, workforce management, queue handling, costs, and more to ensure you’re equipped to make the best choice.

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What Is a Call Center?

A call center is a service provider that manages communications between businesses and their customers via phone calls. These centers are widely used for tasks such as customer support, telemarketing, and market research.

Call centers come in various types and forms, including:

  • Inbound call centers that handle incoming customer support queries
  • Outbound call centers that focus on making sales calls or conducting surveys
  • Blended call centers that manage both inbound and outbound calls

To reduce the workload on agents, many call centers use automated systems like interactive voice response (IVR) to handle routine queries or route calls efficiently.

Businesses can manage call centers in-house or outsource them to third-party providers, depending on your company's needs, resources, and scale of operations.

What Is a Contact Center?

A contact center is a multichannel communication service that handles phone calls emails, live chats, SMS, video calls, and social media interactions. This flexibility makes it an ideal choice for businesses seeking to engage with customers across diverse platforms and multiple touchpoints.

Like call centers, contact centers can specialize in inbound-only, outbound-only, or blended communication. However, they also provide advanced workforce management tools, enabling real-time monitoring, automation, and adjustments to agent activities. Modern contact centers also integrate chatbot technology to streamline interactions and enhance efficiency.

Industries like healthcare, financial services, eCommerce, and insurance often rely on contact centers to offer seamless customer experiences across multiple touchpoints.

Contact Center vs. Call Center Compared

Below is a comparison table highlighting key features, helping you quickly evaluate which option suits your requirements.

Feature Call Center Contact Center
Communication ChannelsPhone, SMSMultichannel
UsageTelemarketing, customer support, market researchCustomer support and customer relationship management
Workforce ManagementHighly dependent on agents; requires more manpower to scaleLess dependent on agents; agents can handle multiple chats or emails simultaneously, reducing the need for larger teams.
Queue ManagementCall distribution systems that route incoming calls to the right agentsOmnichannel queue management tools that route inquiries across multiple platforms based on keywords, customer history, etc.
Proactive vs. Reactive SupportReactive support only; focuses on responding to customer callsProactive and reactive support; uses data for proactive alerts and notifications
Self-Service OptionsVoice bots, IVR systemsChatbots, self-service portals, and community forums
CostCheaper option: $50–$100 per agent per monthMore expensive: $60–$100 per agent per month with higher training costs for agents

7 Key Differences Between a Contact Center and a Call Center

GetVoIP
[Source: GetVoIP]

We already know the basic difference between a call center and a contact center. But what other differences are worth noting in our contact center versus call center comparison?

  1. Communication channels
  2. Usage
  3. Workforce management
  4. Queue management
  5. Proactive vs. reactive support
  6. Self-service options
  7. Cost

1. Communication Channels

Call centers focus exclusively on phone-based communication, making them ideal for businesses that need to handle a high volume of calls daily. This straightforward approach is well-suited for organizations prioritizing quick, efficient voice-based support.

Contact centers, in contrast, support multiple communication channels. This multichannel, or omnichannel, capability allows businesses to engage customers on their preferred platforms, offering faster and more personalized solutions thus improving customer service experience.

For businesses aiming to deliver a modern, customer-centric experience, a contact center’s multichannel or omnichannel capabilities offer significant advantage over the single-channel approach of a call center.

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2. Usage

Since call centers are usually used for making inbound or outbound calls. This includes telemarketing and sales, technical support, customer support, and market research. Call centers are perfect for companies that rely on phone communication or need help managing a high volume of calls efficiently.

Contact centers, on the other hand, can offer multichannel customer service, making them great for maintaining complex customer relationships. That’s why contact centers are a popular solution among companies in the healthcare, travel, education, insurance, eCommerce, and financial services industries.

3. Workforce Management

CXToday
[Source: CXToday]

Call centers depend largely on manpower. When an agent answers or makes a phone call, they can no longer make another one, so their time is consumed entirely by that one phone call. As a result, you’ll need to hire more people if you receive a larger number of phone calls, such as during peak hours and certain seasons.

Compared to call centers, contact centers provide businesses the option to scale their customer service without having to expand their teams. Contact center agents can handle multiple chats or email conversations, allowing them to provide faster resolutions in larger volumes without compromising the customer experience and thereby reducing the need to hire more people.

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4. Queue Management

Call center software features automatic call distribution systems that route incoming calls to appropriate agents and departments. This helps improve efficiency and productivity.

Meanwhile, contact centers use advanced queue management tools, such as Zendesk, to effectively route customer inquiries and concerns coming in through multiple channels. For example, this prevents emails from being routed to agents who are on a call.

Like the call distribution system in call centers, this helps improve support efficiency and save time. Such systems distribute support tickets to the appropriate department based on the communication channel, keywords, and customer history.

5. Proactive vs. Reactive Support

Girnar Care
[Source: Girnar Care]

Another category in the contact center versus call center comparison is the proactiveness of the support provided. For example, businesses proactively send alerts and notifications to customers in case of a shipping delay of products.

Proactive support stems from analyzing customer feedback and identifying pain points or potential issues before they escalate. Customers appreciate this approach; in fact, 83% view a company positively after experiencing this type of support.

In this regard, call centers fail to hit the mark. Since they mainly offer phone support, they can’t predict issues that customers are facing. The data their software captures is often lacking, so it doesn’t provide valuable insight for a proactive support approach.

Contact centers function in the digital space, so they have the upper hand. Data is available and abundant in cloud-based solutions, so you get a complete view of a customer’s history and can offer assistance proactively. Companies that have adopted this type of support include Slack, Netflix, and Amazon.

6. Self-Service Options

With the vast number of resources available today, consumers prefer to find out the answers to their questions without relying on a company’s support team. Self-service options empower consumers to resolve simple issues or route calls while reducing agent workload.

Call centers provide self-service options via an IVR system. However, according to a survey of 1,500 consumers released by Verint, more than two-thirds have had a bad experience with an IVR system. The primary complaints were that IVR systems were too time-consuming and frustrating, with many customers finding it irritating to have to repeat themselves over and over again.

To address these issues, some modern call center software now provides voice bots. These bots can immediately provide answers to simple queries, thereby improving customer satisfaction.

Contact centers have a more sophisticated self-service approach. You can access a company’s self-service portal to find solutions to common issues. If you still can’t find an answer, you can get immediate assistance from a chatbot. If your problem still isn’t resolved after all that, an agent can step in and help.

7. Cost

Call centers typically cost less than contact centers. The former typically charges $50 to $100 per agent per month, while the latter charges an average of $60 to $100 per agent per month. Contact centers offer a more comprehensive solution to your business needs, so it’s only understandable that it would cost more.

Additionally, hiring people in contact centers can be costly because they need to undergo a longer training period to be well-versed in handling various forms of communication.

Call Center vs. Contact Center: Which One Does Your Business Need?

By now, you should already have a pretty clear picture of which of the two solutions will be most beneficial for your business. However, we’d like to summarize it for you.

When To Use a Call Center

  • Your company’s main communication channel is VoIP audio calling.
  • Your business has scaled to a point where you need to manage calls more efficiently without overwhelming employees with numerous communication channels.
  • You need call center reporting to gain insight into how to drive up customer engagement.
  • You want an affordable customer communication solution that still offers flexibility for employees.

When To Use a Contact Center

  • You want to increase customer engagement levels by adopting a multichannel or omnichannel communication system.
  • You find out through market research that your customer base prefers to reach you via other communication channels other than voice calls.
  • You want to lessen agent workload by using comprehensive self-service options.

Contact Center vs. Call Center Takeaways

Both call centers and contact centers offer advantages and disadvantages; it all depends on the gaps you need to fill in your business. What’s important is that you now have a better understanding of the differences and benefits of each, helping you make an informed decision on whether your business needs a single-channel or multichannel approach to customer communication.

Contact Center vs. Call Center FAQs

1. Which option is better for customer support?

The best option for customer support depends on your business’s needs. If you rely heavily on phone-based interactions, a call center is sufficient. If you need to manage interactions across various channels, a contact center is the better choice.

2. What is omnichannel communication and why is it important?

Omnichannel communication integrates various customer touchpoints into a single interface, allowing agents to view a customer’s interaction history and provide personalized, seamless support.

3. Can a business switch from a call center to a contact center?

Yes, many businesses upgrade from call centers to contact centers as they grow and require multichannel support to meet customer expectations.

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