The proximity in meaning between call center and help desk may leave readers confounded at times; however, stop stressing as we have done the hard work by elaborating in simple terms. First of all, a call center might handle customer queries of an organization.

Meanwhile, a help desk is typically centered around IT and technical support rather than customer care.

Call centers and help desks have similarities, which is often the reason people think they are the same but they are not. They are very different from each other. Most businesses will need a help desk or a call center to provide support to their clients or customers.

This is the reason businesses need to understand the main differences between a help desk and a call center to know which one they require.

Explaining Call Centers

When the word ‘Call Center’ comes to mind we might conjure up visions of pesky telemarketers with headsets, flooding random customers with sales pitches about products they don’t necessarily need. But call centers are much more.

So what is a call center?

Call centers are groups of people who answer customer queries and provide customer service over the phone.

It’s a center where clients call to discuss their issues or trouble while using your product or service. The call center is usually staffed by employees who are well trained to execute any form of customer requests.

They provide the best possible solution to a customer’s problem, assist them with anything they need, and help them with any other questions they might have. They don’t make the customers feel like they are being sold to, or pressured into making any purchases.

A call center is a great option for businesses of all sizes that want to provide their customers with fast, reliable, and professional customer service.

But it’s a great way for companies to provide great service to their customers without having to hire as many employees or spend so much on salaries.

Differences Between Call Center & Help Desk

The distinction between a call center and a help desk isn’t as large as the contrast between east and west.

But, it is not minor enough to disregard as well. . The distinctions can be partitioned into many classifications, primarily –

• Sorts of issues or queries they handle
• The expertise of the employees
• The mediums they use

Call centers are a great way for small businesses to provide their customers with the best service while making sure their employees are happy and well-paid.

For example, you run an e-commerce based clothing store. Unlike a physical store, your customers can’t expect to reach out to you physically when they face a problem.

Hence, you need a department handling your service-related issues and providing customer care.

Since hiring a large number of employees can be expensive; therefore, hiring a call center reduces costs in this matter.

Here is a famous quote from Lauren Freedman saying,

“Customers remember the service a lot longer than they remember the price.”

So it’s very important for a business to create a good relationship with their customers through clear communication.

A business can hire a good call center for this job and grow its business.

Understanding Help Desks

A help desk is nothing similar to a call center when it comes to the nature of an issue.

So what is a help desk?

A help desk is also like a call center providing customer service, but they’re more focused on providing IT and technical support. It is the central point of contact for technical support and troubleshooting.

You can outsource it to a third-party service provider specializing in responding to customer queries more efficiently.

The primary function of a help desk is to provide technical support by solving issues that users frequently come across on the phone or email.

A help desk can also handle the initial query and then refer the client to the appropriate department for assistance.

For example, you run an online business where you provide premium tools to your consumers. But sometimes your consumers forget passwords and face other technical difficulties such as license renewal issues.

Outsourcing, on the other hand, can leave your customers happy and ensure that your business grows as non-core business processes are delegated to reliable third party customer support.

Once Donna Scott said,

Proactive methods, such as trend analysis, preventive actions, and major problem reviews are considered as an effective way to decrease the number of support requests

Unfortunately, IT service providers often focus most of their resources on reactive activities and ignore the proactive methods despite the benefits.”

So if you are running any IT related business then you could outsource technical support to a reliable help desk center.

1. Kind of Concerns:

A call center maintains everyday issues like delivery issues whereas help desks solve more difficult or technical support issues.

2. Abilities:

Call center agents usually follow scripts to solve basic customer problems and offer any requested information. Conversely, any IT help desk agent possesses the prerequisites along with expertise for sorting technical issues that users commonly experience.

3. Channels:

Call centers generally only make use of the telephone or online dialers. When it comes to helping desk work areas and issues, there are numerous channels, such as the telephone, email, live chat, web-based media, online assistance, and many more.

Now we know a call center is designed to handle customer concerns while the purpose of a help desk is to offer IT or technical support.

Conclusion –

In both cases, these call centers and help desk companies reduce the workload of all business verticals as they grow while playing major roles and eventually, becoming the voice of a company.