What is a Call Center? And Other Related Terms

A call center is a business operation responsible for managing incoming and outgoing communications between a company and its customers or potential customers. While the term traditionally refers to voice calls, modern contact center operations may also support customers through email, live chat, SMS, social media, and other digital channels.

• What Is a Call Center?
• Call Center vs. Contact Center
• Customer Service vs. Customer Support
• Inbound vs. Outbound Call Centers
• What Is Call Center Outsourcing?
• Onshore, Nearshore, and Offshore
• About Call Center Services International

What Is a Call Center?

A call center is a business department or operation responsible for handling incoming and outgoing calls between an organization and its customers, prospects, or other contacts. The employees who manage these interactions are generally known as call center agents or representatives.

Not every company operates its own call center. Organizations typically establish a dedicated contact center operation when the volume or complexity of customer interactions requires specialized employees, technology, management, training, and processes.

A call center can be managed internally as part of the company or supported by an external service provider. In either case, these teams often represent one of the most direct connections between a company and its customers.

Call Center vs. Contact Center

The terms call center and contact center are often used interchangeably, but there is an important distinction between them.

Call Center

Traditionally, a call center focuses primarily on voice communications, including incoming and outgoing telephone calls.

Contact Center

A contact center can manage communications across multiple channels, such as:

• Voice calls
• Email
• Live chat
• SMS and messaging
• Social media
• Other digital communication channels

As customer communication has expanded beyond the telephone, many organizations now operate omnichannel contact centers. However, the term call center is still commonly used to describe these operations.

Are Call Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Support the Same Thing?

No. A call center or contact center describes an operating environment, while customer service and customer support describe types of work that may be performed within that environment.

The terms are often confused because customer service operations represent a significant portion of contact center activity.

Customer Service

Customer service generally refers to the assistance a company provides before, during, and after a customer purchases a product or service. This can include answering questions, helping with orders, providing information, receiving feedback, resolving basic issues, and improving the overall customer experience.

Customer Support

Customer support generally focuses more specifically on helping customers resolve problems or questions involving a product, service, account, or technical issue. Depending on the company and industry, customer service and customer support responsibilities may overlap.

Call centers are an important part of customer service and customer support, but they can perform many other business processes as well. Contact center teams may support sales, lead generation, surveys, debt collection, loan servicing, technical support, back-office processes, Quality Assurance, and other customer-facing or operational functions.

Inbound vs. Outbound Call Centers

Call center operations are also commonly classified as inbound or outbound depending on who initiates the interaction.

Inbound Call Centers

Inbound interactions are initiated by customers, prospects, or other external contacts. Common inbound processes include:

• Customer service
• Technical support
• Order processing
• Account inquiries
• Appointment scheduling
• Product or service information

In a modern contact center, inbound communication can also include live chat, email, messaging, and other digital channels.

Outbound Call Centers

Outbound interactions are initiated by the company or its representatives. Common outbound processes include:

• Sales
• Lead generation
• Customer follow-up
• Surveys
• Appointment reminders
• Debt collection

Smaller operations may have the same agents handling both inbound and outbound activities, while larger contact centers often organize specialized teams according to the type of interaction, required skills, technology, and performance objectives.

What Is Call Center Outsourcing?

Call center outsourcing occurs when a company uses a third-party provider to perform some or all of its contact center functions instead of managing the entire operation internally.

Companies may consider outsourcing for different reasons, including the need to increase workforce capacity, access specialized expertise, expand hours of operation, improve scalability, enter additional labor markets, or control operating costs.

In-House Contact Center

An in-house contact center is operated directly by the company using its own employees, management, infrastructure, systems, and processes.

Outsourced Contact Center

In an outsourced model, some or all of those functions are supported by an external provider. Different providers offer different levels of operational control, staffing, technology, facilities, management, and integration with the client's existing team.

Onshore, Nearshore, and Offshore Call Center Outsourcing

The geographic location of an outsourced operation is commonly described using three terms: Onshore, Nearshore, and Offshore.

Onshore Outsourcing

Onshore outsourcing means working with a service provider located within the same country as the company outsourcing the operation.

This model can simplify travel, management access, language alignment, and familiarity with the domestic business environment, although operating costs may be similar to maintaining an internal operation.

Offshore Outsourcing

Offshore outsourcing involves moving a business process to a provider located in a distant country or region.

Offshore destinations can provide access to large workforce markets and competitive operating costs. Organizations evaluating an offshore model should also consider language capabilities, cultural alignment, time zones, travel requirements, infrastructure, security, and management accessibility.

Nearshore Outsourcing

Nearshore outsourcing involves establishing or outsourcing an operation in a nearby country. For U.S. organizations, Nearshore Mexico can provide many of the workforce and cost advantages associated with international operations while maintaining geographic proximity, cultural alignment, and compatible time zones.

Mexico also provides access to a large bilingual and bicultural contact center workforce, making it an important nearshore option for organizations serving English- and Spanish-speaking customers in North America.

Choosing between an in-house, onshore, nearshore, or offshore contact center should depend on the specific needs of the operation. Organizations should consider workforce availability, language requirements, customer experience, security, compliance, infrastructure, management control, scalability, operating costs, and the type of customer interactions being handled.

Historical note: First published in 2021, this article has been reviewed and updated while preserving its original purpose as an introduction to common call center industry terminology. Definitions and examples have been expanded to reflect the evolution from traditional voice-based call centers toward modern omnichannel contact centers, while the original concepts of inbound, outbound, in-house, onshore, nearshore, and offshore operations remain central to the article.

Originally published: May 3, 2021
Last reviewed and updated: July 25, 2026