Inbound vs outbound call centres: What's the difference?

In a world of chatbots and email, you might guess that shoppers today rarely call businesses. The opposite is true; according to The Zendesk Customer Experience Trends Report 2020, the phone is still the most common tool customers use to resolve issues with a company.

That's true even for millennials and Gen Z. An analysis of 45,000 companies shows that more than 50% of their millennial and Gen Z customers call businesses. It makes sense for companies to increase their capacity for handling incoming and outgoing calls. In other words, they should consider investing in inbound and outbound call centres.

Not sure how inbound and outbound call centres differ? We're here to help. In this post, we’ll cover the key differences between each type of call centre, along with the different types of inbound and outbound calls your team can make to reach customers.

Inbound vs. outbound call centres

An inbound call centre receives incoming calls from customers. Support teams typically monitor inbound centres since the calls tend to come from existing customers with issues or questions.

An outbound call centre, on the other hand, makes outgoing calls to shoppers. Sales teams typically run outbound centres to cold call potential customers about their products. Companies also might make outbound calls to survey shoppers and collect market research.

Where do these centres exist? Companies either run them internally at their offices or they outsource inbound and outbound calling to external centres. To learn more about the trade-offs of insourcing or outsourcing these calls, check out this resource.

Inbound call centre services

Customer service is probably the most well-known function of an inbound call centre. That said, inbound call centres can do more than that, including generating revenue with cross-sells and upsells. Here's a look at some common inbound call centre services:

• • Product and/or tech support

    Password changes, updating account information, responding to complaints—inbound call centre agents help customers solve a broad range of issues. For problems like advanced technical support, agents may use a help desk tool—like Zendesk—to route customers to IT specialists.

    Payment and order processing

    Though online ordering is incredibly popular, many shoppers still place orders over the phone. Inbound call agents can help customers complete their purchases over calls. Likewise, shoppers may contact a company to ask questions about their billing or resolve online payment issues.

  • Upgrade and renewal enquiries

    Subscription-based businesses such as subscription boxes or SaaS companies may receive calls from customers who want to expand their current plan. In this case, inbound call agents should be trained to either upgrade shoppers' plans themselves or redirect the call to a sales agent who can process the plan expansion.

  • Outbound call centre services

    At outbound call centrws, sales reps primarily make calls to reach and attract prospective customers. Companies also use outbound call centres to conduct market research. Agents can call shoppers who match their target customer to learn more about their needs and interests.

  • Appointment setting

    Just like a sales development rep (SDR) would book meetings for an account executive (AE), outbound agents do the same for your salespeople.

  • Lead generation

    Outbound call centre agents can help salespeople generate and qualify leads. Cold outreach is used to identify opportunities, and collecting information over the phone can help identify if those leads are qualified to purchase (i.e. is it the right timing, and does the lead have the budget?).

  • Telemarketing

    Despite its reputation, telemarketing has shown solid growth over the last five years. When you think about it, telemarketers are like door-to-door salespeople. But instead of going house-to-house, telemarketers pitch their products phone-number-by-phone-number. They’re a valuable resource in that they help spread awareness of and pitch products to potential customers in a wider pool of locations and demographics.

  • Telesales

    While telemarketers are tasked with engaging with potential customers in any way possible (generating brand awareness, leads or scheduling appointments), telesales is focused solely on closing deals over the phone. Sometimes referred to as inside sales, telesales agents pursue promising leads in the hopes of improving conversions and increasing revenue.

  • Market research

    Market research is conducted by outbound call center agents to develop a better understanding of their customers and their competition. For example, market researchers might conduct phone surveys to determine their target audience's top pain points, what products they're currently using as a solution and what they wish those solutions did better. With the results of market research, engineers can improve their product design, marketers can improve their messaging and reps can develop more effective sales pitches.

  Both inbound and outbound call centres create opportunities for your company to offer a wide range of customer services and benefits. What type of call centre software or services you decide to implement will depend on your overall goals, employee bandwidth and budget.

  A hybrid calling center for your inbound and outbound needs

  After reading this guide, you may wonder, “What if my company could use both inbound and outbound call centres?” Luckily, you don’t have to choose one or the other. Instead, you can create a hybrid call centre.

  In a hybrid centre, agents are responsible for both receiving calls and reaching out to shoppers. This centralisation of communication creates a seamless, consistent customer experience. Your organisation can easily change and improve call guidelines because all the communication is coming from one channel.

  To run a call centre—hybrid or not—you need the right software. Zendesk can help support you at every stage of your call centre development.