From small-scale call handling setups to intricate, fully integrated customer service powerhouses, the scope and uses of Contact Centers vary significantly.

At the entry level, small businesses benefit from basic call handling Contact Centers. These centers efficiently manage incoming calls, ensuring prompt customer responses and providing essential information. Basic call routing systems ensure inquiries are directed to the right department, enhancing customer satisfaction.

As businesses grow, Contact Centers advance into more complex entities. A fully functional customer service Contact Center seamlessly integrates with various systems—CRM, ticketing, and e-commerce platforms. This enables agents to access comprehensive customer data, leading to personalized interactions. These centers can handle multi-channel communication, including emails, chats, and social media, ensuring a consistent customer experience across all touchpoints.

With so many ways to now communicate with a business, there is one channel that is the most valued, and that is voice. Although web chat and social media can be a good way to field enquiries, customers often prefer to pick up the phone and talk to a person to resolve more complex questions.

As businesses strive to optimize operations, integrating voice capabilities into Contact Centers has emerged as a pivotal strategy. This transformation doesn't just revamp customer engagement; it unlocks a multitude of benefits, ultimately elevating the entire organization's performance.

To bring voice into Contact Center, you’ll need to integrate your PBX, which is the phone system used to make calls to the outside world. PBX is primarily responsible for the phone element and doesn’t support other channels. Some PBXs are cloud-based and other are based on company premises.

To bring PBX and Contact Center together, you’ll need a middle-ground element for the connection, which is where SIP Trunking comes in. SIP stands for Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and works to facilitate voice calls by converting analog voice signals into digital data packets, which are then transmitted over the internet.

SIP trunking establishes a virtual connection between the Contact Center's Private Branch Exchange (PBX) system and the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). It replaces traditional phone lines with internet connectivity, eliminating the need for physical phone lines.

You can bring Contact Center to Microsoft Teams either with Microsoft’s own Digital Contact Center platform or integrate some of the market leading Contact Center solutions with Microsoft supports.