We all seem to understand the general idea of a call centre; a large room, often filled with tens if not hundreds of people, usually sporting headsets with bendy little microphones. The phones ring and on the other end of the line are customers seeking assistance and the topic of which they want help could be pretty much anything.

Known as customer service representatives, advisors, agents and a range of other job titles, many companies use a call centre to provide customers with support, whilst others conduct market research and even telesales.

Not to be confused with a contact centre, where employees handle queries from a range of other platforms, such as social media and emails in addition to phone calls, typically a call centre only answers phone calls. However, both terms are used interchangeably these days.

Whilst the typical image of a call centre might conjure up the visual of the aforementioned rows of desks, the 21st century has given way to a new, virtual type of call centre, thanks to the evolution of cloud technology. Here, advisors often work from a remote location or, depending on the team size and workload, can function out of much smaller offices in varied locations across the world.

As labour costs can vary from city to city and between countries, many organisations move their call centres overseas. Moving call centre services to the Philippines is a popular choice for many, as is transferring operations to India as businesses are then able to save money, yet still reap the benefits of having a call centre facility.

Call and contact centres alike are great ways to measure business performance too and track any issues that might be ongoing within the company. For example, if a company website crashes, it will be possible to track and log the issues each customer raises as they make contact with the call centre. Then later, when it comes to ways the business can improve, relevant departments can reflect on the data collected and use it to see where improvements need to be made.

Whilst typical phone calls might seem a little old fashioned now, companies all over the world continue to invest in call centres. This is often because they are a great platform for businesses to enhance their image in how well they are able to resolve customer queries.