What is a contact center, what’s it for, and how does it differ from a call center?

What is a contact center?

A contact center is a team or software that manages a company’s customer communications. (Sometimes, it helps manage employee communications too, but for the most part, people are referring to customer communications when they talk about contact centers.)

As well as outbound and inbound calls, it also covers interactions via a range of other channels including chat, email, instant and SMS messaging, social media—and maybe even fax and snail mail.

Customers, as you might imagine, expect to communicate with your business on their preferred channel. They also expect swift responses and personalized interactions, which sounds intimidating, but luckily there are tools designed specifically to help contact centers do all this.