Inbound and Outbound Call Centres

Telemarketing and Support Roles

Call Centres can be described as Inbound or Outbound dependant on whether their primary function is to make calls, such as in Telemarketing, or to receive calls, such as with a Support Centre. Inbound call centres are commonly used for purchases or for customer service and technical assistance.

Department stores, banks and utilities will use a call or contact centre to deal with customer support issues or to directly handle phone orders.

Where an enterprise wishes to poll the opinions of it's customers such as in the case of new car manufacturers, or when a charity wishes to solicit donations, or a business acquire new customers, an outbound call or contact centre is the solution. These calls may be handled locally or recently there has been a trend toward outsourcing the activities of the call centre.

Up-Selling and Cross-Selling

Companies are also using inbound call centres for pro-active customer service incorporating up-selling and cross-selling. For example if a customer calls seeking advice on an aspect of business accounting software the support agent can not only provide advice, but also suggest an upgrade to the software which might better suit the caller's needs.

Order Fulfilment

Where a company seeks to advise customers that a product on order is now available for dispatch, or to follow up on unpaid accounts, an outbound call centre can be employed. The phone tends to remain the choice of medium for delivering this kind of information as public perception of emailing has been dimmed by the excesses of spammers and a phone call is still seen as being more personal.