A contact center is a central point in a company from where all type of customer contacts are managed. In simple terms, a contact center is a technologically evolved call center that deals not only phone calls, but also e-mails, web inquiries, VoIP, faxes, web chats and even post letters. It is the front line of a business. One of the advantages of a contact center is the possibility it offers to its customers to decide on the medium they want to use to communicate with the company.

A contact center must be designed to maximize investments lower operating costs and grow with the business while ultimately achieving a competitive advantage. A good contact center is focused on three mutually dependent business objectives: revenue generation, efficiency and customer satisfaction. Improving service delivery and customer experience is the main objective of most contact centers.

An effective contact center 

• quickly answers customers contacts 
• has a high first contact resolution rate 
• is a significant source of revenue for the company 
• continually improves processes, strategies and technology to constantly gain in service, efficiency and revenue generation 
• has a positive thinking staff 
• performance data is collected and analyzed through a well established process.

The channels contact centers offer for communication are: telephone - agent assisted, e-mail, fax, telephone - IVR self-service, physical correspondence, online self-service, sms/text messaging, telephone - speech self-service, web chat, web call back and web co-browsing.