Looking for the best call center services?
Whether it’s for customer support, product promotion, or conducting surveys – call center services can help you manage your business’ phone calls.
They’re a cost-effective way to increase customer satisfaction. And they usually provide a 24×7 call center service, allowing you to focus on your core operations.
But with several services available in the market, which one should you choose?
In this article, we’ll cover what call center services are, their types, and the benefits they provide. We’ll also highlight the ten best call center services along with their key features.
This article contains:
(click on the links to jump to a specific section)
- What are Call Center Services?
- What are the Types of Call Center Services?
- Top 10 Call Center Services
- 4 Key Benefits of Call Center Services
Let’s get started.
What are call center services?
Call center services are solutions provided by businesses in an actual or virtual call center environment.
These services cover everything from answering phone calls to order processing management.
A few examples of tasks managed by call centers include:
- Resolving customer issues.
- Screening calls and directing them to the intended person or department.
- Managing emails, pages, voicemails, and more.
- Calling or emailing potential leads.
Call center services also help you extend your reach into new markets, provide stronger customer support, or even retain your existing customers.
For example, a call center could provide 24-hour support for customers that are in different time zones. Additionally, they can help you manage customer satisfaction surveys or collect feedback from them about your services and products.
What are the types of call center services?
Here’s a quick look at the different types of call center services:
1. Inbound
An inbound call center service focuses on receiving incoming calls from customers for your business. The main objective is to assist customers and solve their problems related to any product or service.
For example, a customer service representative from an internet service provider takes inbound calls about internet connection issues.
Some of the common inbound call center services include:
- Chat support.
- Answering service.
- 24/7 hotlines.
- Emergency services dispatch.
2. Outbound
In outbound call centers, dedicated agents make outgoing phone calls to potential or existing customers.
Usually, outbound services are used for telesales, customer surveys, etc.
You can also hire outbound call centers for services, such as:
- Market research.
- Telemarketing.
- Event registration.
- Promotions.
3. Automated (electronic)
Automated or electronic call services are used for automating processes for an organization.
Some of the automated call centers services include:
- Online scheduling.
- Sending Holiday greetings.
- Creating or redirecting voicemail, etc.
Top 10 call center services
To make things easier, we’ve narrowed it down to a list of ten services.
Here’s our comprehensive take on each call center service:
1. Go Answer
Go Answer is an inbound call center suitable for small businesses. They provide call answering, legal intake services and handle all email, web chat, and SMS communications.
They also provide contact center service for medium to large businesses that have a high call volume.
Key features
- 24/7 live agent support.
- Over-the-phone order entries for securing sales.
- Appointment setting for managing meetings and consultations.
- Offers iPhone and Android app AlwaysOn to access inbound calls or lead information from anywhere.
- HIPAA trained agents for handling sensitive medical information.
- Dedicated legal experts to handle all aspects of the legal intake process.
2. TeleDirect
TeleDirect offers both inbound and outbound call center services across industries like retail, financial services, healthcare, insurance, etc.
It also offers after-hours support and call overflow management for order processing, lead management, and other help desk services.
Key features
- Lead qualification to determine the quality of a lead.
- Offers trained specialists that can provide technical support.
- Uses a proven model that specializes in reservation services for important events like seminars and workshops.
- Efficient order processing with PCI-compliant (Payment Card Industry) information security and protocols.
- Offers a dedicated communication channel for direct response and media support.
- Help desk services to supplement your current team for quick customer query resolution.
3. Five Star Call Centers
Five Star Call Centers provides call center outsourcing, inbound and outbound voice, contact center solution, and call center consulting services.
This call center service specializes in retail, hospitality, product support, finance, healthcare, and professional services.
Key features
- Inbound voice call center outsourcing for managing orders, reservations, cross-selling, and more.
- Email and chat services to help with query response, order fulfillment, pre-sale, and post-sale customer service.
- Interactive voice response (IVR) for routing calls to the most relevant agents.
- Offers both dedicated and shared inbound customer service.
- Contact center software for accessing data from anywhere and improving team communication.
- Call center consulting to help develop the best strategies, processes, technology for your organization.
- Business contingency plans to deal with natural disasters, pandemics, and other emergencies.
4. Signius Communications
Signius Communications is a call center as well as answering service suitable for businesses of all sizes.
Some of their popular call center services include customer care, direct response, order taking, and disaster backup.
Key features
- Offers 24×7 bilingual answering service — English and Spanish.
- Live virtual receptionist for providing quick support.
- Easily manage your account and gain valuable insights through the client portal.
- HIPAA-compliant messaging to exchange sensitive medical information with your colleagues.
- Customizable auto-attendant and voicemail solutions for effective office phone system management.
- Dispatch and paging services to help businesses connect their technicians, doctors, and on-call staff to customers anytime.
- Integrates with appointment scheduling platforms like Google Calendar, Calendly, and Setmore.
5. Specialty Answering Service (SAS)
Specialty Answering Service (SAS) is primarily an answering service solution –i.e., they answer customer calls for your business.
They also provide call center outsourcing, dedicated call centers, lead generation services, and virtual receptionists.
Additionally, they offer premium services like toll-free numbers, emergency answering services, and international call support.
Key features
- Live business call screening for answering important customer calls.
- Email monitoring and response service to automatically check emails at predefined intervals and act accordingly.
- Event registration services for handling small-scale events, multi-day conferences, corporate seminars, and more.
- Order processing services for running e-commerce businesses, catalog companies, and other retail stores.
- Outbound calling agents help provide qualified prospects and new business opportunities.
- Market research services and surveys to understand consumers and deliver better customer service.
6. XACT
XACT is an answering service and call center that offers several plans and services suitable for businesses of all sizes.
It operates across twenty-two locations in the U.S. and provides both dedicated agents and a shared call center model for managing high call volume.
Key features
- Multi-channel help desk solution to assist callers with common and uncommon customer questions.
- Chat and web support for easy and quick solutions.
- Call routing and transferring to direct inbound calls, emails, and chats to the right contact center agent.
- Outbound surveys to collect feedback from customers.
- Service and support dispatch solutions to send time-sensitive or critical information out to your teams.
7. OnBrand24
OnBrand24 is a call center outsourcing provider that offers vendor-based agent support.
With proven workflows and contingency plans, its teams offer call center support for inbound, outbound calls.
Key features
- Live chat support for immediate interaction.
- Advanced agent model to resolve issues efficiently and enhance customer satisfaction.
- Inbound services and help desk solutions for basic troubleshooting and password management.
- PCI-DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) Level 1 certification for enhanced security.
- Social media monitoring support to interact with customers and follow up on concerns.
- Offers dedicated, semi-dedicated, as well as shared call center agent solutions.
- Contact tracing to keep the spread of the Coronavirus in check.
8. Contact One
Contact One is a 24/7, U.S.-based answering service suitable for businesses of all sizes across the United States and Canada.
It provides services for industries like chiropractors, property management, therapists, law offices, and attorneys.
Key features
- Provides trained agents capable of answering basic customer inquiries.
- Offers both English and Spanish language support.
- Can screen customer calls, take messages, or forward them as per instructions.
- Integrates with calendars for easy appointment management.
- Live chat support for quick resolution of issues.
- HIPAA-compliant medical answering services.
9. Contact Communications
Contact Communications is a U.S.-based inbound call center solution for personalized messaging and answering — helping businesses and professionals stay connected around the clock.
It offers messaging, call center, and virtual office services allowing you to save time and ensuring that your customers are only a call away.
Key features
- Screen calls and alert when important ones pop up.
- Quick message forwarding to email, fax, phone, or via text message.
- HIPAA compliant secure message delivery to smartphones.
- Offers encrypted email services for medical accounts.
- Voicemail service for your own direct dial number.
- Voicemail forwarding to email or phone for easy message retrieval.
- Supports both alphanumeric and numeric paging.
10. AnswerNet
AnswerNet is an answering and call center service provider of inbound, outbound, automated, and business process outsourcing (BPO).
It helps businesses with customer support, appointment setting, and various other contact management tasks.
This call center solution provides services for industries like medical, real estate and operates across 25+ contact centers in the United States and Canada.
Key features
- Offers 24/7 telephone answering service.
- Appointment scheduling for managing and reminding clients of their appointments.
- Hotline service to escalate calls to the right people in an organization.
- Provides after-hours answering service to handle calls after your business hours.
- Virtual receptionist for handling in-office communication.
- Chat support for taking orders or answering sales-related questions in real-time.
- Order processing to accept orders and enter them into your database.
4 key benefits of call center services
Let’s take a look at the benefits offered by call center services:
1. Increased customer satisfaction
Are you trying to expand your business or want to operate more efficiently?
Whether you’re a small business owner, freelancer, or running short on the workforce — call center services help you handle calls, emails, and other points of contact with your clients, customers, and leads.
This will help improve your response times and decrease customer service call abandonment.
As you’ll be able to effectively handle peak call volume, and don’t leave calls unanswered, your customer satisfaction levels will improve.
2. 24/7 customer support
Another benefit of hiring a call center service is that you can extend your business hours to provide 24/7 customer support.
They provide professionally trained agents to contact or answer your business calls any time of the day, including holidays.
The benefit?
Around-the-clock availability helps enhance customer experience, and it also portrays a higher level of reliability for your services.
But most importantly, running a business round the clock opens up opportunities to target the global market and expand your demographic – as your business can adapt to any time zone.
3. Cost-effective
Hiring employees specifically for answering calls is not only time-consuming but expensive.
You’ll have to go through the whole process of hiring and then train new employees according to your protocol.
On the other hand, with call center services, you can avoid all of these issues and save money.
Here’s how:
- No overheads: Call centers operate from their own office, which means you’re not responsible for their office space, internet connection, devices, etc.
- Low service pricing: As call center services usually work for multiple clients at a time or offer plans based on the number of calls, you’ll only have to pay a fraction of the cost you’d pay a full-time salaried employee.
- No agent training costs: Outsourced call centers provide high-quality, skilled, and experienced agents. They already know how to handle tasks and just have to get familiar with your business and processes.
4. Focus on core responsibilities
Answering every phone call and email, solving customer problems, and ensuring all your business processes are running smoothly can be tiresome.
You also lose focus on the core functions of your company.
However, with call center services, you can concentrate on your key responsibilities while they can direct calls, resolve customer issues, book appointments, and more. This way, you don’t have to overwork yourself and maintain a healthy work-life balance.
Wrapping up
Regardless of the industry they serve, each call center provider provides its own set of useful services.
Usually, they help with answering support calls, making telemarketing calls, while others assist in handling sales, lead generation, and more. The bottom line is they provide call center solutions to help you optimize various business processes.
Once you go through the services we mentioned here, you’ll be able to pick the call center company that suits you best.
Hire a call center service today and boost your customer experience in no time!
Liam Martin is a co-founder of Time Doctor which is software to improve productivity and help keep track and know what your team is working on, even when working from home.