A department within a company or a third-party organization that handles telephone sales and/or service. Inbound call centers, which take calls from the outside, use automatic call distributors (ACDs) to route calls to the appropriate agent.

Outbound call centers use "predictive dialers," which make calls from a list, but ensure that a person has answered before switching the call to the next available agent (see predictive dialer). See ACD, cyberagent, CSR, zip tone, Web callback, cherrypicking, virtual call center, blended call center, Web-enabled call center, live contact overload, call center in a box, agent turnover and call center overflow.

Download Computer Desktop Encyclopedia to your PC, iPhone or Android.

THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY.
All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.
© 1981-2012 The Computer Language Company Inc.  All rights reserved.