A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. Outgoing calls for telemarketing, clientele, product services, and debt collection are also made. In addition to a call centre, collective handling of letters, faxes, live chat, and e-mails at one location is known as a contact centre.

A call centre is often operated through an extensive open workspace for call centre agents, with work stations that include a computer for each agent, a telephone set/headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations. It can be independently operated or networked with additional centres, often linked to a corporate computer network, including mainframes, microcomputers and LANs. Increasingly, the voice and data pathways into the centre are linked through a set of new technologies called computer telephony integration (CTI).
Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue retailers, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks, retail financial support, and sales support.

Call centers are a type of BPO, i knew this already but what if the company that runs the call center is a subsidiary of the owner company but is a separate account department on its balance sheet i.e. this department has its own checks and balances and does not completely show up in the corporations final balance sheet. will it still be called a BPO?

There is this post by the admin that a call center is a type of BPO but it is a place where the youth is being spoiled. Okay the youth might be getting spoiled at some places but not all, and what are the other doubts you want to clear.

I think the doubts that the admin wants to clear out is that the youth is making the wrong use of the freedom given to them. usually in a bpo as in a call center, the managers are very relaxed or very "cool" with their employees and have not much restrictions on them. this usually produces an adverse effect on most of the workers and this takes away all the benefits of the ones who actually do work hard and deserve a lot more than required.

I just wanted to know how are these technical support centers different from a BPO, what makes them different when they also provide the same customer service as the normal call centers do ?

Hema, there are some technical support centers which are usually the same and provide only some technical details and forward on the detailed technical calls to the engineers or network support people who then carry it further onwards, and for the ones who actually have customers calling in and getting the complaints resolved on the phone itself are real technical support centers who have engineers on call and these are very different from normal call centers.

A centralized inquiries center that public phone for information relating to a dealing for services and products.

Call Center is a place which is used for receiving and transmitting request through telephone. A call center is often operated by a large open workspace, with work stations including a computer, the phone ,headset connected to a telecom switch, and one or more supervisor stations.

A call centre or call center is a centralised office used for the purpose of receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A call centre is operated by a company to administer incoming product support or information inquiries from consumers. ...