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What are Inbound and Outbound Calls

Are you finding it difficult to differentiate between the most commonly confused terms, inbound and outbound calls? Here’s your chance to get at peace with both. Simply put, when a customer reaches out to a company’s customer service or support team, it is known as an inbound call. On the other hand, when a company’s representative contacts a prospective customer over the phone for sales, fundraising, or more, such is termed an outbound call.

Digging Deep to Understand the Inbound Calls

Still, many customers use phones to contact a business to resolve an issue or ask a query. Which makes the presence of a robust inbound calls department very crucial. Mainly because if these customers are not timely entertained, they may lose trust in the company’s product or service. Ultimately switching to a better alternative. 

Hence companies need people to hear out their customers timely. That’s why they either hire people to do so on their premises or outsource this function altogether to outbound and inbound call center solutions

Now that we have learned about the importance of having an inbound calls department, it’s about time we move to discuss its types.

Different Types of Inbound Calls

Inbound call center services are more than just dealing with a customer’s queries. That’s why we felt the need of discussing the various types of inbound calls a business has to deal with. Speaking of which, we have divided each of these services into four different categories, namely: 

– Customer Support 

– Technical Support 

– Inbound Sales 

– Renewal Inquiry and Upgrade Calls 

How are inbound calls related to customer support?

Existing customers may contact a business over the phone to discuss an issue or inquire about the product’s use. All of which fall into customer support. Besides that, a customer may also reach out for the following:

– Calls initiated for sales return

– Giving feedback about the product or service on a phone call

– Making payments over the phone

– Customers’ inquiries about the policies and practices of a business

Technical support Inbound calls

These types of inbound calls are prevalent in an organization selling products. Mainly because the item customers bought is either not functioning correctly or they are not sure about the proper usage of the same. Hence, they make calls to request technical support from the company.

What are inbound sales?

Sometimes an existing customer calls to obtain more details about the product or service. Based on this information acquired, if that customer decides to make a purchase, it is considered inbound sales. The best inbound call center services providers take this opportunity with both hands and make the best use of their salesmanship tactics to make sales.

Inquiry calls for update and renewal

Businesses receive these types of calls from satisfied customers. They are often contacting for renewal of their subscription or upgrading their plans, and so on. Hence, they must be timely answered to keep this relationship strong.

Expanding our understanding of outbound calls

Outbound calls are the opposite of inbound calls. We call it outbound calls when a customer support representative or sales agent of a company reaches out to third parties to make sales or to impart knowledge about a new product or service.

Outbound calls mainly result in finding new customers for the business. Hence, it is also an essential function of the business.

Just like the inbound contact center, there are dedicated call centers to take responsibility for your business’s outbound calls. 

The main objective of outbound calls is to make sales by persuading prospective customers. Still, there are various types of outbound calls that you should know.

Cold calling

It is reaching out to customers who were not expecting you in the first place. The goal here is to engage the person and eventually make him buy your product or service.

Setting an appointment over the phone

Outbound calls are also made to schedule a meeting between the lead and sales agent of the company. This way, a sales agent gets a fair chance to explain the benefits of a product or service he has intended to sell.

Lead Generation

Some outbounds calls are also initiated to ascertain the likelihood of a prospect. That information will eventually help in converting him/her into a customer.

Conclusion

Inbound calls and outbound calls are two very different concepts. Inbound calls are related to the existing customer reaching out to a business representative over the phone to acquire some information. Outbound calls are focused on generating new leads and making new customers. You’ll see that the internet has a lot of inbound vs outbound articles for you to read since most people are still confused about these terms. This blog post was all about differentiating between the two very important concepts. The goal was to better understand the differences between an inbound and an outbound call center.

In a nutshell, a company can either choose to maintain fully functional inbound or outbound departments or may outsource them to an inbound call center and outbound call center services providers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which of the inbound and outbound calls are effective? Do call centers provide both outbound and inbound services? How do I know that my business needs outbound or inbound call center services? Is there a difference between call centers and contact centers? Is Inbound only a long-term strategy?

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