Inbound & Outbound Call Centers: Core of your Business
“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Denis Waitley, Author, and Motivational Speaker
Call centers are the heart of all businesses, ensuring seamless flow and customer experience (CX). Despite the expansion of chatbots, email, and social media, call centers are vital in managing customer problems, which is also closest to face-to-face engagement. Call centers are designed to handle large volumes of calls, both inbound and outbound, and if you are wandering customers’ rarely call businesses today – the opposite is true.
As per the trend report 2021, customer service and support leaders continued to impart their time in digital channels and capabilities. Service leaders spend a disproportionate amount of time in adding and integrating channels, which has turned out to be costlier and more complex. Driving more value, giving importance to VOCs, are some rooted priorities of call centers for exceptional customer service. So, how exactly do call centers work, what are their types, let’s explore it.
Inbound and Outbound Calls
What comes to mind when you hear the inbound and outbound calls? It’s a support center where agents give solutions to customer problems. Businesses use it for sales, broadcast, or surveys. Following the report of Strategy, cloud call centers are expected to touch USD424.11 billion at 25% CAGR by 2033.
Inbound Calls
The calls that are made by businesses to prospects, leads, and customers are based on available lists. The mentioned prospects either are interested in your products, services or just want a solution for queries. Sometimes it is difficult to solve all queries of customers as the caller can either be a marketer, programmer, or commoner. Dial down the support as per the query.
Outbound Calls
On the other hand, outbound calls are calls that customer agents make either for sales or to resolve complaints. In this scenario, calls are based on the target for example – a sales representative holds the data on a particular prospect profile before contacting. Sales representatives have a better understanding of who they are calling and what they have to say.
Inbound & Outbound Call Centers
Just like the name implies, inbound call centers take care of phone calls from existing and potential customers. This type of call center is more service-based, focusing on clarifying questions and resolving customers’ concerns.
However, outbound call centers are expected to make more calls as they focus on reaching out to potential customers for sales and company promotion. The representatives work and call based on the list provided after researching.
Types of Inbound Services
Inbound services are further categorized into four parts. From customer updating email id to rebooting the application, all come under the services of an inbound call center.
Customer Service
The support answers the customers’ concerns or questions regarding services like –
- Accounts Updates,
- Phone Payments,
- Returns,
- Customer Feedbacks,
- Learn about policies, practices, etc.
Technical Support
Technical support comes in when a customers’ product is either not functioning properly, broken, or giving errors. Here customers are less than happy with the current services or products they are using.
Inbound Sales
In inbound sales, prospective customers make calls to the centers to learn more about the service or product. Talented staff can capitalize on the opportunity and convert the lead.
Upgrade & Renewal Inquiry Calls
This support comes in when existing customers have any upgrades in their subscription plans. The satisfied customers plan to continue the relationship with the business.
Types of Outbound Services
Outbound call centers’ focus points are sales, surveys, polls, market research, and more. The services or support included in outbound call centers are mentioned below:
Cold Calls/ Auto Dialer
The automatic calls are made to customers who can become potential customers in the future or weren’t expecting the call. The first interaction is made through phone calls, and with the presence of IVR, interested customers can move ahead to learn about the service or product. Customers can move ahead by pressing the key in the keypad as instructed. Earlier, one person was only able to contact one person at a time, but now, calls can be made to a large volume at a time. These are some kinds of cold calls types set by the businesses.
- Setting up Appointment,
- Generating Leads,
- Telemarketing,
- Telesales,
- Market Research.
Warm Calls
In this type of outbound call center service, agents contact the lead, which is received through referral, interactions at events, meetups, or previous calls. A call is called a warm call when the caller is expecting the call.
That’s a Wrap
There’s no question of which is better? We hope that we’ve provided an insightful comparison of both types of contact centers. The cloud contact center is the new technological support for better customer and agent service. The comfort of working with ease can be enhanced with the Sarv – cloud contact center as per your business needs.
“To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” – Denis Waitley, Author, and Motivational Speaker
Call centers are the heart of all businesses, ensuring seamless flow and customer experience (CX). Despite the expansion of chatbots, email, and social media, call centers are vital in managing customer problems, which is also closest to face-to-face engagement. Call centers are designed to handle large volumes of calls, both inbound and outbound, and if you are wandering customers’ rarely call businesses today – the opposite is true.
As per the trend report 2021, customer service and support leaders continued to impart their time in digital channels and capabilities. Service leaders spend a disproportionate amount of time in adding and integrating channels, which has turned out to be costlier and more complex. Driving more value, giving importance to VOCs, are some rooted priorities of call centers for exceptional customer service. So, how exactly do call centers work, what are their types, let’s explore it.
Inbound and Outbound Calls
What comes to mind when you hear the inbound and outbound calls? It’s a support center where agents give solutions to customer problems. Businesses use it for sales, broadcast, or surveys. Following the report of Strategy, cloud call centers are expected to touch USD424.11 billion at 25% CAGR by 2033.
Inbound Calls
The calls that are made by businesses to prospects, leads, and customers are based on available lists. The mentioned prospects either are interested in your products, services or just want a solution for queries. Sometimes it is difficult to solve all queries of customers as the caller can either be a marketer, programmer, or commoner. Dial down the support as per the query.
Outbound Calls
On the other hand, outbound calls are calls that customer agents make either for sales or to resolve complaints. In this scenario, calls are based on the target for example – a sales representative holds the data on a particular prospect profile before contacting. Sales representatives have a better understanding of who they are calling and what they have to say.
Inbound & Outbound Call Centers
Just like the name implies, inbound call centers take care of phone calls from existing and potential customers. This type of call center is more service-based, focusing on clarifying questions and resolving customers’ concerns.
However, outbound call centers are expected to make more calls as they focus on reaching out to potential customers for sales and company promotion. The representatives work and call based on the list provided after researching.
Types of Inbound Services
Inbound services are further categorized into four parts. From customer updating email id to rebooting the application, all come under the services of an inbound call center.
Customer Service
The support answers the customers’ concerns or questions regarding services like –
- Accounts Updates,
- Phone Payments,
- Returns,
- Customer Feedbacks,
- Learn about policies, practices, etc.
Technical Support
Technical support comes in when a customers’ product is either not functioning properly, broken, or giving errors. Here customers are less than happy with the current services or products they are using.
Inbound Sales
In inbound sales, prospective customers make calls to the centers to learn more about the service or product. Talented staff can capitalize on the opportunity and convert the lead.
Upgrade & Renewal Inquiry Calls
This support comes in when existing customers have any upgrades in their subscription plans. The satisfied customers plan to continue the relationship with the business.
Types of Outbound Services
Outbound call centers’ focus points are sales, surveys, polls, market research, and more. The services or support included in outbound call centers are mentioned below:
Cold Calls/ Auto Dialer
The automatic calls are made to customers who can become potential customers in the future or weren’t expecting the call. The first interaction is made through phone calls, and with the presence of IVR, interested customers can move ahead to learn about the service or product. Customers can move ahead by pressing the key in the keypad as instructed. Earlier, one person was only able to contact one person at a time, but now, calls can be made to a large volume at a time. These are some kinds of cold calls types set by the businesses.
- Setting up Appointment,
- Generating Leads,
- Telemarketing,
- Telesales,
- Market Research.
Warm Calls
In this type of outbound call center service, agents contact the lead, which is received through referral, interactions at events, meetups, or previous calls. A call is called a warm call when the caller is expecting the call.
That’s a Wrap
There’s no question of which is better? We hope that we’ve provided an insightful comparison of both types of contact centers. The cloud contact center is the new technological support for better customer and agent service. The comfort of working with ease can be enhanced with the Sarv – cloud contact center as per your business needs.
