A place where calls are answered and calls are made. A call center will typically have lots of people (also called agents), an automatic call distributor, a computer for order-entry and lookup on customers' orders. A Call Center could also have a predictive dialer for making lots of calls quickly. The term "call center" is broadening. It now includes help desks and service lines. Alcatel wrote a piece on them: "Call centers are the heart and soul of many businesses. They find new customers, create revenue, and help fix the problems of existing customers. Call centers are divided into two types, inbound and outbound. An inbound call center receives calls from current and potential customers for various reasons such as technical support, customer service, response to special offers, and order processing. Outbound call centers are generally geared to solicit new business (and/or collect outstanding bills). However, regardless of the function of the call center, they all have one thing in common, a centralized system to manage their internal workings. The centralized system to manage a call center will contain some or all of the following services to help customers reach agents and help agents manage their calls: + Specialized routing capability known as automatic call distribution (ACD), and (specialized commands for agents) including Log-on/log-off, Idle, In conversation, Wrap-up, Unavailable, Pause, Intrusion, Help and Silent monitoring.
      Some larger call centers use more advanced technology such as interactive voice response (IVR), and multimedia capabilities such as co-browsing with a customer service specialist or engaging in a chat session. Routing and presenting of customer information to an agent has also become more sophisticated because of advances in computer telephony integration (CTI). ACD technology routed and queued calls on a first in, first out (FIFO) basis. Advances in this technology now allow a call to be routed based on the caller's telephone number, account number or even the number of times the caller was put on hold.
      CTI advances now allow a full view of a customer's buying patterns, past encounters and opportunities to improve service. Customer relationship management (CRM) software is now tightly integrated in today's modern call center. Advances in IVR speech recognition enable customers to engage in some level of self-service, which adds up to happier customers and lower call volumes that must be handled by an agent. Finally, a well designed reporting and business intelligence system will provide agents, supervisors, and business managers with useful customer information to provide better customer services, to understand buying patterns, and to determine scheduling and service level goals. Better tools leads to more productive agents and ultimately happier customers."

      呼叫应答和发起的地方。呼叫中心通常有很多人（又称为坐席），还有一个自动呼叫分配器，一台电脑用来将客户按顺序排队进入并查找客户顺序。呼叫中心还可以 配备一个预言性拨号器，从而提高呼叫速度。术语“呼叫中心”的概念正在扩大。现在还包括帮助台和服务热线。Alcatel 有一段关于呼叫中心的话：“呼叫中心是许多业务的心脏和灵魂。他们发现新客户，创造税收并帮助解决现有客户的难题。呼叫中心分为两个部分，入站和出站。入 站呼叫中心接听来自当前的和潜在的客户电话，客户要求多种多样，有技术支持、客户服务，呼叫中心将应答特殊客户的特殊要求并预约处理事件。出站呼叫中心通 常是为了寻找新的业务（和/或收取没有收到的账单）。然而，无论呼叫中心具备什么样的功能，有一点是共有的，那就是作为一个集中化的系统来管理自身内部工 作。管理呼叫的集中化的系统将包含以下一些服务，从而帮助客户联系坐席并帮助作息管理他们的呼叫：被称为自动呼叫分配（ACD）的特殊的路由选择功能，包 括（坐席专用命令）自动登记/自动注销、空闲、正在通话、呼叫后处理、无效、暂停、侵入、帮助和随机监听。
      一些规模较大的呼叫中心使用更高级的技术如交互式语音响应（IVR）以及多媒体功能比如与客户服务专家同步浏览或者是对话。由于计算机电话集成技术 (CTI)的升级，将客户信息传输给坐席并进行显示的技术也越来越复杂。ACD 技术根据先入先出的原则传输电话呼叫并进行排队。现在这项技术的优点在于可以根据呼叫者的电话号码、帐号或者甚至是呼叫者等待的时间来发送电话呼叫。
      CTI 技术的优点还在于可以全面察看客户的购买模式、过去的遭遇以及提高服务的机会。客户关系管理（CRM）软件与今天的现代呼叫中心紧密结合在一起。IVR语 音识别的好处在于使得客户能够从事某种等级的自我服务，从而让客户满意，同时也能减少坐席必须处理的话务量。最后，一种设计精良的报告和业务智能系统将为 坐席、主管人员和企业经理提供有用的客户信息，从而可以为客户提供更好的服务，理解购买模式并决定调整和服务等级目标。好的工具将提高坐席的工作效率并最 终为客户提供满意的服务。”