What Is A Virtual Call Center? How Is It Different From Traditional Call Centers?

The term virtual call center has become so widespread but people are still not aware of it. The question is what is a traditional call center? The simplest meaning of this term is a group of people who make and receive calls. Now the purpose behind these calls can be or cannot be commercial.  The main reason why people use call centers are because they provide a number of services, such as, telemarketing , receiving inbound sales enquiry, conducting surveys, providing information to the existing customers about new products and services, etc.

Virtual call center

A virtual call center is different from a traditional call center and is quite flexible in their services. You can say that a virtual call center is a traditional call center just without the walls. According to Creaghan Harry, these call centers are not limited to a certain geographic location and are present in disparate locations.  Employees have the option to work from home or different places that is then connected via virtual call center software. They are a great option for businesses and companies that operate and provide support to customers in different locations and time zones. This helps them in reducing the overhead cost of a centralized office.

Work from anywhere

In a virtual call center, the staff can work from any physical location unlike the traditional call center where the employees have to work from a centralized office. This can be beneficial for the employees as it saves them the commuting cost and time, vehicle cost, etc. They can also save a lot on office costs, work on more flexible schedules and it can reduce other environmental wastes such as vehicle emissions, office waste, etc.

Helps in saving cost

In traditional call centers, the cost of capital and investment is a major factor for initial deployment. They have to invest a huge amount in purchasing an office premise and then paying for the office installations and hardware. Not only this, they also have to purchase software and integrate advance features to this software.  In a virtual call center you can eliminate all these costs as you can do all the work by using internet-based services. This can allow you to deliver the same features and functions that an on-premise call center would.

Measure agent performance

A good virtual call center is that which allows the managers to track and measure employee performance and then produce results on a number of metrics, such as the average hold time, the number of calls which were answered and abandoned, the time spent by employees on each call, etc.

The growth and expansion

A virtual call center according to Creaghan Harry uses software and techniques that can reduce the cost of configuration and scalability.

This can be done by allowing the managers to add staff easily and simply by using web interface. This approach will help them to save money by eliminating the need for calling other technicians.