call center (CC)
Call centers (CC) are service facilities for telecommunications tasks, specifically for telephone support of customer issues. Call centers are used in companies, in the banking and insurance sectors, in mail order companies, in direct banking, in support and in many other areas where telephone support, advice or sales are possible.
The advantage of call centers is the direct contact of the customer with the company. There is no need for time-consuming connecting by phone, or for asking for the right contact person or for a callback. Call centers can significantly increase the productivity of their call agents with various dialing modes such as Predictive Dialing, Progressive Dialing and Preview Dialing. Equipped with Automatic Call Distribution( ACD), Expert Agent Selection( EAS) and Interactive Voice Response( IVR), they can automatically forward calls, analyze callers' phone numbers or use conversational speech systems to relieve their agents of routine work.
Call centers take advantage of the fact that the majority of company contacts are handled via the switchboard, that in retail companies most orders are placed by telephone, that as a rule only a small proportion of callers reach the desired interlocutor, and that callers hang up after a certain waiting time. Call centers remedy these disadvantages because they can immediately fulfill as many customer requests as possible and thus increase customer satisfaction. These goals are achieved through efficiently deployed techniques that integrate private branch exchanges, personalcomputers(PCs) and database systems to ensure rapid access to all relevant data, whether customer information or technical data. These systems with an interactive communications platform represent the further development of the classic call center and are called Customer Interaction Centers( CIC).
In terms of their tasks, a distinction is made between call centers that handle only incoming telephone calls, i.e. inbound call centers, and those that handle only outgoing telephone calls, e.g. for direct marketing or to acquire new customers. Such call centers are called outbound call centers.