What is a contact center?
Contact center vs. call center: What’s the difference?
Secure and compliant
Advanced features
Seamless and flexible
Unmatched reliability
How does a contact center work?
Types of contact centers
Inbound vs. outbound contact centers
Multichannel vs. omnichannel contact centers
On-premises vs. cloud-based contact centers
What are the benefits of contact center software?
Improves CX
Contact centers enable agents to interact with customers on all channels, not just via the phone system. This means customers can choose their preferred communication method, and they don’t have to wait in a lengthy call queue or repeat information to multiple agents.
Plus, agents can switch between channels and access relevant customer data to personalize the interaction and deliver a consistent experience.
Boosts efficiency
The right software offers automation and smart features to increase operational efficiency and make agents more productive.
Because calls and messages are routed to the most suitable agent, metrics like first-call resolution and average handle time improve—and agents can quickly move on to the next query. Efficient processes enable your center to handle spikes in call volume without unnecessary stress for agents or customers.
Saves money
When you streamline your operations, you can reduce your center’s overheads. For example, automation helps you handle more interactions without extra staffing.
Contact center software also makes it easy for agents to operate remotely, so you can either use smaller premises or even have no physical premises at all. An increase in customer loyalty reduces the cost of acquisition.
Increases revenue
Aside from the uptick in customer loyalty and retention, the right software boosts revenue by enabling more effective outreach for sales and lead generation.
Reps can use personalization to find opportunities for upselling and cross-selling, and you can automatically send out promotional messages to encourage sales.
Provides deeper insights
With contact center software, you can gather valuable information from every stage of the customer journey and use it to improve CX.
You’ll gain a better understanding of customer behaviors and preferences, especially with AI-powered sentiment analysis. This data is invaluable for everything from staff scheduling to training agents.
Innovative contact center solutions for business
Smart business decisions with consolidated contact center reporting and analytics
- Use pre-built reports to understand your contact center performance based on metrics.
- Track and create strategic goals to improve core workflows.
- Gather hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual statistics to perform a more detailed analysis of team productivity.
Positive customer interactions through real-time call monitoring
- Listen in on active customer calls made by support agents in inbound call centers or sales teams in outbound call centers.
- Whisper instructions to your staff, join the conversation, or completely take over the call.
- Utilize automatic call recording and revisit past calls when necessary.
Boost ROI, productivity, and employee satisfaction with workforce management
- Allow teams to view schedules, request changes, manage absences, run training, and control other crucial HR-related tasks.
- Optimize schedules and avoid coverage gaps with automatic scheduling and historical forecasting.
- Set agents up for success by establishing a concrete quality assurance step that can find areas of improvement and offer strategies to address concerns.
Shorten wait times and boost FCR rates with intelligent call routing
- Use IVR systems to determine the caller’s purpose through a series of automated questions and answers.
- Forward responses via automatic call distribution (ACD) for proper queuing and assignment to agents.
- Determine the type of call routing method that best fits your business (skills-based, fixed order, percentage, etc.).
Establishing a true omnichannel presence
- Choose from 30+ digital channels, including all major mobile and social media messaging apps, to connect with your customers.
- Provide your contact center support team with a single, integrated platform for all channels, making customer engagement simpler.
- Give customers the option to resolve issues through phone calls with live agents and through self-service and AI chatbots.
Use cases for contact center solutions
Customer support
AI-powered self-service
Technical support
Proactive customer service
Outbound sales and lead generation
Industry-specific functions
Contact center technology and features
Auto-attendant
Auto-attendants (or virtual receptionists) greet customers who contact you by phone, welcoming them to your business and providing essential information with a recorded message.
Callers can choose from listed menu options using the keypad on their phone. Auto-attendants work around the clock and offer a consistent start to the customer’s journey.
Interactive voice response (IVR)
Offering a similar service, IVR also enables customers to select options from a menu. The difference is that the system recognizes spoken input, not just tones from the keypad.
Plus, IVRs allow you to set up more extensive submenus that connect callers with extensions, voicemail boxes, or external numbers.
Intelligent routing
Auto-attendants and IVRs both direct inbound calls to the correct destination, but intelligent routing works for messaging as well as phone calls.
Good contact center software lets you configure rules for directing customers, based on things like agent skills as well as availability. This means faster response times and higher likelihood of first-contact resolution.
Chatbots
Chatbots are ideal for handling simple queries, freeing your agents up to discuss more complex issues with customers.
Rule-based chatbots generate pre-set responses to keywords, but AI-powered versions are capable of understanding context and sentiment—these can take care of higher-level interactions and become smarter the more data they receive.
Agent assistance
Sometimes agents need a little extra help, and good contact center software includes features to assist them during interactions.
For example, AI tools that suggest real-time recommendations using your existing knowledge base content, and dashboards where supervisors can view live calls, watch for negative sentiment, and step in to help if needed.
Post-call tools
Contact center technology is all about efficiency, and that includes streamlining post-call activities.
The best solutions automatically generate transcripts of each interaction, plus summaries with highlights and action items—so no more note-taking. Call recording is also essential, for potential disputes and training purposes.
CRM integration
Contact center solutions that integrate with your CRM system also save time post-call, as customer data is automatically transferred into the CRM for future reference.
And it works both ways; during customer interactions, agents can easily access the information they need to personalize the conversation and prevent the customer repeating themselves.
Advanced analytics
Another contact center essential. As well as using sentiment analysis to find out what customers really think, you can track and analyze key metrics relating to call volume, queues, and staffing levels.
Ideally, you’ll be able to view these in real time, and look back on historic performance to measure progress.
RingCentral RingCX contact center features
Developing a contact center strategy
To ensure that your contact center runs smoothly and takes full advantage of the available software, you’ll need to develop a clear strategy.
Here’s what to consider:
- Business objectives: What exactly are you aiming to achieve with your contact center, and how does this align with wider business goals? Make sure the objectives are clearly-defined and measurable.
- Metrics: How will you track and evaluate success? What defines “success” for your business? How will you record the metrics and communicate them to your team?
- Budget and resources: What can you afford in terms of software and features? Do you have enough staff to handle an increase in customer interactions? Will they work remotely or do you need a larger premises?
- Technology: There are plenty of contact center solutions to choose from, so do the research to find the one that best suits your needs. Look at pricing and features but also check out scalability, security, and support for critical integrations.
- Implementation: Put a plan in place for switching to the new solution—keeping your data safe as you migrate, avoiding downtime, and training agents. You can work with your vendor on this.
- Hiring/training: If you need to take on new agents, ensure they have the right skills and experience. Train them and your existing teams on the new software and on data security. How will you reward top-performing agents and support those who are struggling?
- Continuous improvement: Include a plan for monitoring performance and progress, and for tracking changes in customer behaviors and preferences. Put contingencies in place for any problems that might occur.
Future proofing your contact center
You need a contact center that works for you right now, but it’s also important to think about the future. This involves following continuing trends, such as the increase in AI technology, and emerging ones such as the use of AR (augmented reality), which would enable agents to help with technical issues in an immersive way.
Customers will continue to demand a true omnichannel experience, with ever-faster response times—especially when interacting via social media. Keep an eye on their preferences so that you can decide which channels to prioritize.
What about your own growth? The best way to account for this is to choose a contact center solution with full scalability and flexibility. You can then start with a budget-friendly plan and upgrade it when you need to. The beauty of cloud-based software is that it’s easy to add more seats and features.
Contact center FAQs
- Auto dialer - An auto dialer or power dialer is an outbound call center solution that automatically dials customer phone numbers. Once answered, the dialer software plays a recorded message or transfers the call to a live person. There are different kinds of auto dialers, such as preview dialers, progressive dialers, and predictive dialers.
- Caller ID - The caller ID display allows agents to see customer information before getting on the call. This is integral in keeping all calls routed to the appropriate agent—crucial when agents have specific accounts assigned to them. Ultimately, it identifies the caller, retrieves extra information about the call from a CRM or back office system, and routes the call to the appropriate agent.
- Call queuing - When customers reach out to your contact center and all your agents are busy, they are placed in a call queue. In case the wait time is too long, a queue call back (also known as virtual hold) can be offered to the caller. Customers can also stay on the line, listen to the hold music, and wait for the agent.
- Agent scripting - An agent scripting tool provides support teams with prompts to help move interactions along. Armed with a quality script, contact center agents never have to worry about not knowing what to say next—they can shape and guide conversations toward the necessary direction.
The best customer experiences start here
What is a contact center?

What is a contact center?
Contact center vs. call center
Secure and compliant
Advanced features
Seamless and flexible
Unmatched reliability
How does a contact center work?
Types of contact centers
Inbound vs. outbound contact centers
Multichannel vs. omnichannel contact centers
On-premises vs. cloud-based contact centers
What are the benefits of contact center software?
Improves CX
Boosts efficiency
Saves money
Increases revenue
Provides deeper insights
Innovative contact center solutions for business

Smart business decisions with consolidated contact center reporting and analytics
- Use pre-built reports to understand your contact center performance based on metrics.
- Track and create strategic goals to improve core workflows.
- Gather hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, and annual statistics to perform a more detailed analysis of team productivity.
Positive customer interactions through real-time call monitoring
- Listen in on active customer calls made by support agents in inbound call centers or sales teams in outbound call centers.
- Whisper instructions to your staff, join the conversation, or completely take over the call.
- Utilize automatic call recording and revisit past calls when necessary.


Boost ROI, productivity, and employee satisfaction with workforce management
- Allow teams to view schedules, request changes, manage absences, run training, and control other crucial HR-related tasks.
- Optimize schedules and avoid coverage gaps with automatic scheduling and historical forecasting.
- Set agents up for success by establishing a concrete quality assurance step that can find areas of improvement and offer strategies to address concerns.
Shorten wait times and boost FCR rates with intelligent call routing
- Use IVR systems to determine the caller’s purpose through a series of automated questions and answers.
- Forward responses via automatic call distribution (ACD) for proper queuing and assignment to agents.
- Determine the type of call routing method that best fits your business (skills-based, fixed order, percentage, etc.).


Establishing a true omnichannel presence
- Choose from 30+ digital channels, including all major mobile and social media messaging apps, to connect with your customers.
- Provide your contact center support team with a single, integrated platform for all channels, making customer engagement simpler.
- Give customers the option to resolve issues through phone calls with live agents and through self-service and AI chatbots.
Use cases for contact center solutions
Customer support
AI-powered self-service
Technical support
Proactive customer service
Outbound sales and lead generation
Industry-specific functions
Integrations that make work easier

Contact center technology and features
Auto-attendant
Interactive voice response (IVR)
Intelligent routing
Chatbots
Agent assistance
Post-call tools
CRM integration
Advanced analytics
RingCentral RingCX contact center features
Solutions that drive better customer experiences
Developing a contact center strategy
- Business objectives: What exactly are you aiming to achieve with your contact center, and how does this align with wider business goals? Make sure the objectives are clearly-defined and measurable.
- Metrics: How will you track and evaluate success? What defines “success” for your business? How will you record the metrics and communicate them to your team?
- Budget and resources: What can you afford in terms of software and features? Do you have enough staff to handle an increase in customer interactions? Will they work remotely or do you need a larger premises?
- Technology: There are plenty of contact center solutions to choose from, so do the research to find the one that best suits your needs. Look at pricing and features but also check out scalability, security, and support for critical integrations.
- Implementation: Put a plan in place for switching to the new solution—keeping your data safe as you migrate, avoiding downtime, and training agents. You can work with your vendor on this.
- Hiring/training: If you need to take on new agents, ensure they have the right skills and experience. Train them and your existing teams on the new software and on data security. How will you reward top-performing agents and support those who are struggling?
- Continuous improvement: Include a plan for monitoring performance and progress, and for tracking changes in customer behaviors and preferences. Put contingencies in place for any problems that might occur.
Future proofing your contact center
Contact center FAQs
- Auto dialer - An auto dialer or power dialer is an outbound call center solution that automatically dials customer phone numbers. Once answered, the dialer software plays a recorded message or transfers the call to a live person. There are different kinds of auto dialers, such as preview dialers, progressive dialers, and predictive dialers.
- Caller ID - The caller ID display allows agents to see customer information before getting on the call. This is integral in keeping all calls routed to the appropriate agent—crucial when agents have specific accounts assigned to them. Ultimately, it identifies the caller, retrieves extra information about the call from a CRM or back office system, and routes the call to the appropriate agent.
- Call queuing - When customers reach out to your contact center and all your agents are busy, they are placed in a call queue. In case the wait time is too long, a queue call back (also known as virtual hold) can be offered to the caller. Customers can also stay on the line, listen to the hold music, and wait for the agent.
- Agent scripting - An agent scripting tool provides support teams with prompts to help move interactions along. Armed with a quality script, contact center agents never have to worry about not knowing what to say next—they can shape and guide conversations toward the necessary direction.
More contact center resources

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