What is a Contact Center? Types, Features, & Benefits

A contact center is a hub that manages customer interactions through multiple customer service channels, from live chat to voice. It relies on customer service software, AI, automation, and other tools to deliver exceptional customer experience and improve service rep productivity.

Our research finds that 88% of customers say good customer service makes them more likely to purchase again. And with customer expectations on the rise, contact center experience is more critical than ever.

Let’s dig into what a contact center is, why it’s important, and how contact center software can set your business up for success.

• What is a contact center?
• Contact centers vs. call centers: What's the difference?
• 8 types of contact centers and how they work
• Contact center features and benefits
• Contact center use cases
• 5 strategies for a successful contact center
• How to choose the best contact center software
• Contact center trends: AI & automation
• How Salesforce can help with your contact center
• Contact center FAQs

A contact center provides customer support across many customer service channels — chat, email, voice, web, WhatsApp, and more. Support teams use contact center software to engage customers and deliver consistent service, no matter how a customer reaches out. Unified customer data, omnichannel engagement, customer service AI, automation, and other tools enable contact center teams to provide efficient, personalized support for every customer interaction.

When it comes to customer service, the terms "call center" and "contact center" are frequently used interchangeably, but they have distinct differences. A call center primarily handles phone-based interactions, whereas a contact center offers a comprehensive range of communication channels. These channels include phone, AI agents, email, and self-service, ensuring customers can reach out in the way that best suits their needs — even at 3:00 a.m. on a major holiday.

Understanding the different types of contact centers and how they work can help you choose the right one for your business and customers. Let's look at how types of contact centers differ when it comes to customer engagement and technology.

• Omnichannel contact centers allow reps and AI agents like those built within Agentforce to engage with customers across multiple, integrated channels. Because reps and agents get a complete view of interactions across different customer service channels, they can provide a consistent and seamless customer experience.
• Multi-channel contact centers handle customer support through multiple channels. However, reps and agents only see conversations for a single channel when helping a customer — not a complete history across channels.
• Inbound contact centers only handle incoming customer interactions. This includes tasks such as a phone call about a missing delivery or a social media comment about a new product.
• Outbound contact centers initiate communication with customers for a variety of reasons. This includes things such as customer satisfaction surveys, service updates, and late payments.

• Cloud-based contact centers run on the web, eliminating the need for on-premise software and hardware. Adopting a customer service cloud solution like Salesforce Service Cloud can cut down on scaling, maintenance, and other costs.
• Hybrid contact centers use both on-premises and cloud-based technology. An organization may keep its existing voice technology on site, while adopting cloud technology for data storage and other digital channels.
• Outsourced contact centers rely on a third-party company to handle all customer support requirements. An organization doesn’t have to invest in infrastructure, software licenses, or training, All of these tasks are handled by the third-party.
• On-premises contact centers store all data on site. This requires ample server space and no-fail back-up and security plans.

Keeping today's customers happy and loyal means providing excellent, efficient, and consistent service. Yet 69% of service professionals say it's difficult for them to balance speed and quality, according to our research. Here are some of the top contact center features that can help meet customer expectations.

Real-time views and complete histories

Contact center CRM software provides a complete view of all customer data, including current and past interactions across all channels, previous purchases, account information, and more. This allows your contact center to handle a wide range of customer needs from a single platform.

Real-time views of customer interactions mean reps or AI agents can efficiently pick up where the conversation left off, so that customers don't need to repeat themselves. With access to complete customer histories, contact centers can also help to generate revenue by offering product suggestions based on past purchases.

Connected omnichannel engagement

An omnichannel contact center uses cloud-based software to manage customer interactions across multiple channels. It helps you deliver a connected experience across all channels — no matter how they contact you.

A customer may choose to use chat, voice, or SMS for the same issue on separate occasions. What matters most is that they have a consistent experience. This is key to keeping customers engaged and improving loyalty.

AI and automation

AI customer service software boosts rep productivity by automating routine processes and tasks. In fact, our research finds that of service organizations currently using automation, 54% reported time savings as a major benefit.

AI provides reps with contextual, relevant responses based on CRM data and customer history. All customer conversations can be automatically summarized, documented, and added to a knowledge base — creating a system that continuously helps improve customer experience.

Contact center automation also improves rep productivity by analyzing and summarizing past cases, automating data entry for new cases, and routing customers to the correct party.

Intelligent routing

If you've ever hit a dead end in customer service, whether on the phone or online, you know why customer satisfaction depends on intelligent routing. Customers expect to be connected to a person or AI agent, or given alternative ways to get the help they need.

Service Cloud enables routing by using sophisticated algorithms and criteria to automatically direct customer inquiries to the most appropriate rep or department. This ensures efficient and effective service, contributing to shorter resolution time and higher customer satisfaction (CSAT).

Customer self-service

Self-service options give customers a convenient way to get help any time, day or night. In fact, our research finds that 61% of customers report preferring to find their own answers to simple issues using self-service resources such as agents and searchable help centers.

Customer self-service software frees service reps up to focus on higher-value task such as revenue growth. Some examples of self-service options include:

• AI agents: AI agents built within Agentforce can handle common and complex issues within the guardrails your business has set, escalating to reps when needed.
• Help centers: Contact center AI allows teams to build a searchable knowledge base of articles and answers to frequently asked questions. Help centers keep improving as more articles and answers are added, and as existing content is updated based on new insights. Some businesses also create learning platforms for customers to continuously gain knowledge – Salesforce’s Trailhead is one such example.
• Customer communities: Customer communities like the Serviceblazer Community on Slack are an excellent form of self-service because they empower customers to find solutions and share insights with each other. These communities foster a sense of belonging and mutual support, where users can quickly get answers to common questions, share best practices, and provide peer-to-peer assistance.

Companies are using customer service strategies and tools to meet their customers' unique needs. Let's take a look at a few examples.

Healthcare: appointment management

Today, many health care organizations use customer service automation to streamline appointment scheduling and management.

For example, when it's time to visit the doctor:

1. A patient receives an automated text message with a convenient link for booking an appointment.
2. Once they've scheduled an appointment, they get an automatic confirmation message with links to change or cancel it. And the same information is available on the health care organization's web site.
3. The day before their appointment, the patient gets a reminder text.
4. And, a half-hour before the appointment, a text is sent with instructions for self-service check-in.

By providing a connected, automated customer experience across channels, health care organizations offload basic tasks from busy office receptionists and give their patients easy appointment management. Proactive appointment reminders and automated self-check-in also help keep health care organizations running smoothly.

Internet service provider: intelligent routing

Whether it's a business customer worried about losing online sales or a sports fan gearing up for a watch party, internet service providers (ISPs) need to fix connection issues fast.

For example, when a customer can't access the internet:

1. They can check for outages by logging into their account.
2. If an outage isn't the problem, an agent automatically tells the customer they're going to run a few tests that will take about 5 minutes.
3. The agent then tells the customer their modem might be defective and that a person will contact them by phone within an hour.

Customers are less frustrated when they get support right away and know what to expect; in this case, the agent provided a timeline for the phone call.

Ecommerce: handling public customer complaints

Many retailers now rely on social media to connect with customers. That also requires managing negative comments.

For example, when a customer posts a negative comment about a product on a company's social media:

1. AI automatically flags it as urgent and notifies a service rep.
2. The rep moves the conversation to the social media platform's private messaging channel.
3. The rep uses generative AI to quickly write an appropriate response based on similar customer complaints and how they were addressed successfully. (Be sure to review for accuracy). In this case, the customer is offered a replacement and full refund.

By engaging directly on a social media platform and being able to generate resolutions quickly, retailers can keep their customers happy and improve loyalty.

5 strategies for a successful contact center

To provide the best possible customer experience and give service reps time to focus on the most complex issues, contact center teams should consider these strategies:

• Give customers multiple support options: Customers like choices. Engage with customers wherever they are with an omnichannel contact center.
• Let customers help themselves: Convenient self-service options can increase customer satisfaction with faster resolutions and boost your team's productivity by taking FAQs off their plates.
• Give service reps a complete customer view: Integrating your CRM with your contact center allows your team to help customers faster and personalize their experience.
• Adopt automation and AI customer support: Give reps more time to focus on complex issues and new tasks with intelligent routing, agents, AI-generated responses for service reps, and other automation strategies.
• Collect actionable insights: Use analytics software to identify customer preferences, pain points, and other insights to continuously improve customer experience.

There’s a lot to think about when choosing the best contact center software for your organization — budget, business goals, vendor compatibility, integration with existing technology, and more.

Here are some of the most important things to keep in mind:

• Customer experience: Choose a solution that will always give your customers a seamless experience, no matter how they contact you. Omnichannel software can help you provide a consistent, efficient, and personalized journey.
• Scalability and cost: Prepare for the future with software that meets changing needs. Cloud solutions such as Service Cloud can be easily scaled as resource needs change and help to keep infrastructure costs down.
• CRM integration: A contact center with integrated CRM data gives your customer service team a unified view of all customer history and engagement. This improves the customer experience and boosts your support team's productivity.
• Analytics and reporting: Contact centers that use analytics and reporting software can improve efficiency and customer satisfaction with real-time data insights and customer service metrics your team can learn from.
• Data security: Keep customer data secure with software that stops cybersecurity attacks and complies with data privacy regulations. Look for features such as 256-bit data encryption, change tracking and audit logs, event monitoring, and threat detection.

One of the most significant contact center trends is the integration of AI agents built in Agentforce, which can handle a wide range of common and complex customer inquiries with speed and accuracy. Agents not only reduce wait times but also free up service reps to focus on more complex and high-value interactions like upselling and cross-selling.

Another key trend is the use of machine learning algorithms to analyze customer data and provide personalized recommendations. This not only enhances the customer experience but also helps in proactive issue resolution and upselling opportunities. Agentforce, for example, uses advanced analytics to offer insights that can be acted upon in real-time, ensuring a more tailored and responsive service.

Automation in workflow processes – such as ticket routing and escalation – ensures that customer issues are addressed more efficiently and effectively. Advanced analytics and sentiment analysis are also being used to gain deeper insights into customer behavior and preferences, enabling businesses to tailor their services and offerings more precisely. The combination of AI and human expertise, facilitated by platforms like Agentforce, is creating a more seamless and satisfying customer service experience, setting the stage for the future of contact centers.

Contact centers are a crucial part of service operations. Investing in the right tools and technology is more important than ever. With 85% of decision makers saying service is expected to contribute a larger share of revenue, an exceptional customer experience is a key part of making that happen.

Salesforce’s Service Cloud is a comprehensive customer service platform that centralizes customer data, interactions, and support processes. It provides service reps with a unified view of customer information, enabling them to quickly access relevant details and resolve issues more effectively. This centralized approach reduces the time reps spend searching for information, leading to faster and more accurate responses.

Salesforce also offers Agentforce, a proactive autonomous AI application. Agentforce can assist with tasks like answering questions using your knowledge base – and it can handle more complex issues by triaging requests, surfacing relevant information, or escalating to the right expert when needed. You can also customize its actions, like routing cases for approval. Agentforce uses advanced language models and the Einstein Trust Layer to provide accurate and understandable responses based on your CRM and external data.

Satisfied customers are more likely to make another purchase, upgrade their services, and remain loyal. With the right strategy and tools, contact centers can improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, gain new customers, drive revenue, and much more.