How a Call Center Works

How a Call Center Works

How a Call Center Works

A call center works as a vocal communication channel that customers use to report requests or complaints to a business. Customer support and service representatives who work in the call center field phone calls made from customers who need help addressing a specific issue. Reps will then work to solve the customer's problem either during the first interaction or in a follow-up email or call.

While call centers all differ in some way, most operate using a similar, responsive system. In short, customers will alert the customer service department about an issue, then the call center will respond to the report and resolve the problem.

While this is a simple explanation of how call centers work, if you're considering a career in customer service, you'll want a more detailed description of the calling process. To help, we broke down the anatomy of a support or service call into three steps.

1. Customer Makes Call

The calling process begins when a customer either calls or requests a call from a customer service team. Calls can either be made directly to the call center or through a connected product or app. Some call centers even offer outbound calls where the customer signals to the business that they need help, and the call center schedules a time for the agent to call the customer.

Once the call is connected to the phone line it may be filtered and transferred by a proactive support service. The filter can be a software or even a live rep that assesses the customer's problem then transfers the call to a designated rep. This comes in handy for call centers who use specialists to address complex or specific issues. Getting calls to the right agent is a great way for customer service teams to boost case resolution times and improve the customer experience.

2. Rep Works on Customer Issue

After the call is transferred to the appropriate representative, the customer service agent will work on resolving the customer's issue. Successful reps possess a blend of experience, product knowledge, and communication skills which helps them fulfill customer needs. Good agents not only know the right questions to ask but also when to ask them, and how to phrase them. Customer service isn't always as simple as just finding out the right answer — and sometimes you need to rephrase solutions a few times to make sure your customer understands or believes it.

The goal of the phone call is to resolve the issue during the first interaction. Studies show that 67% of customer churn is preventable if the issue is resolved during the first engagement. This is because first-call resolutions demonstrate that you can provide customers with timely solutions when they need it most.

3. Follow Up

While the agent aims to resolve the problem during the first call, that goal isn't always attainable. Sometimes customer service agents have no choice but to end the call and follow up once they have more information. You may think this risks the potential churn that we discussed earlier, but this step is done for the benefit of both the customer and the representative.

The customer is already sidetracked by an issue with your product or service and being on the phone with your team is just another disruption to their workflow. Getting them off the phone allows them to work on other things while the rep investigates the issue. It can also allow the customer to cool off if they're frustrated during the call.

On the opposite end, call centers benefit because it helps customer service reps meet their daily case metrics. Agents simply can't spend hours on end trying to solve one case, and being on the same phone call for too long can quickly lead to agent fatigue. By allowing reps to follow up, call center agents can pace their workflow to meet a daily quota while also enhancing the customer experience.

For some call center reps, this process can be repeated up to 50 times a day. That can be pretty daunting to those who tend to shy away from customer interactions. But, if you're still not sure if this workflow is right for you, it can help to understand the different call center skills needed to be successful as a customer service agent.

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