The global call centre market is large and expanding fast. In recent years, it has been valued at $33 billion. By 2030 and beyond, the market is expected to cross $100 billion, driven by automation, cloud technology, and AI.

Businesses worldwide rely on call centres for cost efficiency and better customer experience. India, North America, and APAC lead market growth. Industries such as BFSI, healthcare, IT, and retail depend heavily on call centre operations.

As demand grows, choosing the right call centre architecture is critical for scalability, performance, and customer satisfaction.

Key Takeaways

  1. Inbound, outbound, blended, virtual, and omnichannel call centres serve different business goals and customer interaction needs.
  2. AI, cloud telephony, automation, and analytics are transforming how call centres operate and scale.
  3. Startups, mid-sized companies, and enterprises benefit from different call centre setups based on cost, control, and growth plans.
  4. Visibility into calls, agent activity, and quality directly impacts customer experience, compliance, and team productivity.
  5. Runo provides real-time call monitoring, helping businesses improve call quality, coach agents faster, and scale operations with confidence.
Types of Call Centers

Inbound Call Centre

An inbound call centre handles calls from customers seeking support, information, or assistance. These calls usually come from existing customers with questions, issues, or service-related requests. Inbound centres focus on customer experience, retention, and post-sales support.

Key Functions

  • Customer support and issue resolution
    Handling product queries, technical problems, account updates, password resets, and customer complaints.
  • Product and technical support
    Troubleshooting issues and routing complex cases to specialised teams using help desk tools.
  • Order and payment processing
    Assisting customers with placing orders over the phone, billing inquiries, and payment-related issues.

Businesses It Serves 

  • E-commerce and retail companies for order support and refunds
  • SaaS and subscription businesses for renewals, upgrades, and technical help
  • Banking and financial services for account and payment queries
  • Healthcare and insurance companies for customer assistance and policy support

Major Service Providers

  • Teleperformance
  • Concentrix
  • Genpact
  • Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) BPO
  • Infosys BPM
  • WNS Global Services

Outbound Call Centre

An outbound call centre focuses on placing outbound calls to prospective or existing customers. These centres are primarily sales-driven and also support lead generation, appointment booking, and market research.

Key Functions

  • Lead generation and qualification
    Reaching out to prospects, collecting information, and identifying sales-ready leads.
  • Appointment setting
    Booking meetings or demos for sales teams, similar to the role of sales development representatives.
  • Market research
    Conducting phone surveys to understand customer needs, preferences, and competitor offerings.

Businesses It Serves 

  • B2B and B2C sales-driven companies
  • Insurance and financial service providers
  • Real estate and education businesses
  • Market research and consulting firms

Major Service Providers

  • Teleperformance
  • Concentrix
  • Alorica
  • Wipro BPO
  • Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS)
  • Sutherland Global Services

Blended Call Centre

A blended call centre is a unified customer service setup in which agents handle both inbound and outbound calls from a single platform. It combines the capabilities of inbound and outbound call centres, enabling agents to seamlessly switch between customer support, follow-ups, sales calls, and surveys based on business needs.

Key Features of a Blended Call Centre

  • Automatic Call Distribution (ACD)
    Routes incoming calls to the right agent based on skills, availability, or caller intent.
  • Interactive Voice Response (IVR)
    Guides callers through self-service options and directs them to appropriate departments, reducing wait times.
  • Predictive Dialing
    Automates outbound calling by dialling numbers based on agent availability, improving talk time efficiency.
  • Real-Time Analytics and Reporting
    Tracks performance metrics such as call volume, handling time, and customer satisfaction to improve operations.

Businesses It Serves

  • SaaS and subscription-based companies for support, renewals, and upgrades
  • E-commerce businesses for order support and post-purchase follow-ups
  • Financial services and insurance firms for customer service and policy outreach
  • Telecom and utilities for issue resolution and retention campaigns

Major Service Providers

  • Teleperformance
  • Concentrix
  • Alorica
  • WNS Global Services
  • Sutherland Global Services
  • Infosys BPM

Virtual Call Centre

A virtual call centre operates without a physical office setup. Agents work remotely from their homes or preferred locations while delivering customer support using cloud-based systems. Functionally, it works like a traditional call centre, but with greater flexibility, scalability, and lower infrastructure dependency.

Key Functions

  • Customer support and issue resolution
    Handling inbound customer queries, complaints, and service requests remotely.
  • Outbound engagement
    Conducting follow-ups, sales calls, feedback collection, and support outreach.
  • Multichannel communication management
    Supporting voice calls, live chat, emails, and social media from a single platform.

Businesses It Serves

  • Startups and growing businesses that want to avoid office infrastructure costs
  • SaaS and tech companies offering remote-first customer support
  • E-commerce and D2C brands managing order-related queries and post-purchase support
  • Global businesses with distributed teams across regions
  • Seasonal businesses that need to scale agent strength quickly

Major Service Providers

  • TTEC
  • Sutherland Global Services
  • TaskUs

In-house Call Centre

An in-house call centre is operated and managed entirely by a company using its own internal team. The business is responsible for hiring, training, supervising agents, and maintaining the required infrastructure, software, and processes.

Key Functions

  • Customer support
    Handling inbound queries, complaints, and service requests while providing product or account information.
  • Lead management
    Identifying call sources, qualifying leads, and scheduling follow-ups or sales meetings.
  • Customer feedback collection
    Conducting surveys, tracking Net Promoter Score (NPS), and gathering insights to improve service delivery.

Businesses It Serves and Use Cases

  • Large enterprises that require full control over customer data and processes
  • Banks and financial institutions with strict compliance requirements
  • Healthcare and insurance companies handling sensitive customer information
  • Telecom and utility providers managing high-volume support operations
  • Product-led companies where deep product knowledge is critical

Major Service Providers

  • Genesys
  • Five9
  • Avaya
  • NICE CXone
  • Cisco

Outsourced Call Centre

An outsourced call centre is a customer support model where a business partners with a third-party service provider to manage its call centre operations. The external provider provides the infrastructure, technology, and trained agents to handle customer interactions on the company’s behalf.

Key Functions

  • Inbound customer service
    Handling general queries, order support, returns, billing issues, and account management across voice, chat, and email.
  • Back-office operations
    Performing non-voice tasks such as data entry, billing support, accounts receivable, procurement, and HR processes.
  • Dispatch and logistics support
    Receiving service requests like taxi bookings or delivery queries and routing them to the appropriate teams.

Businesses It Serves 

  • Startups and growing businesses looking to scale quickly without high capital investment.
  • E-commerce and D2C brands are managing seasonal spikes in customer support volume.
  • Telecom and utilities companies handling high call volumes cost-effectively.
  • Logistics and mobility platforms that require dispatch and service coordination.
  • Enterprises seeking to optimise operational costs.

Major Service Providers

  • Teleperformance
  • Concentrix
  • Genpact
  • Wipro BPO
  • Infosys BPM
  • Hinduja Global Solutions (HGS)

Offshore Call Centre

An offshore call centre is an outsourced call centre operated in a country other than the one where the business is located. These centres provide inbound and outbound customer support, sales, and technical services to global companies, often at lower operational costs. Offshore call centres are known for round-the-clock availability and multilingual support.

Key Functions

  • Inbound customer support
    Handling customer inquiries, complaints, order tracking, and account-related issues.
  • Multichannel communication
    Supporting voice calls, chat, email, and messaging platforms.
  • Back-office and data management
    Managing claims processing, data entry, documentation, and administrative tasks.

Businesses It Serves and Use Cases

  • Global enterprises requiring 24/7 customer support
  • SaaS and technology companies serving international users
  • E-commerce businesses handling high-volume customer interactions
  • Telecom and financial services firms managing large-scale operations
  • Companies expanding into new markets need multilingual customer engagement

Major Service Providers

  • Infosys BPM
  • WNS Global Services
  • Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) BPO

Multichannel Call Centre

A multichannel call centre enables businesses to communicate with customers across multiple channels, including phone, email, live chat, SMS, video calls, and social media. These channels operate in parallel, but customer interactions across them may not always be fully integrated into a single timeline.

Key Functions

  • Handling customer queries across multiple communication channels
  • Routing calls and messages based on agent skills and availability
  • Providing agents access to past customer interactions for context

Businesses It Serves and Use Cases

Multichannel call centres serve ecommerce, SaaS, retail, BFSI, and service-based businesses that want to offer flexible customer communication options and improve accessibility across platforms.

Major Service Providers

  • Genesys
  • Five9
  • NICE CXone
  • Zendesk
  • Freshdesk Contact Centre

Omnichannel Call Centre

An omnichannel call centre integrates all customer communication channels into a single, unified system, enabling agents to view the complete interaction history and continue conversations seamlessly across platforms.

Key Functions

  • Unified customer interaction history
  • Seamless switching between channels
  • Centralised agent workspace
  • Personalised and faster issue resolution

Businesses It Serves and Use Cases

Used by retail, ecommerce, travel, healthcare, and financial services to deliver consistent support across customer touchpoints.

Major Service Providers

Zendesk, Genesys, NICE CXone, Five9, Freshdesk Contact Centre

Challenges Faced by Different Types of Call Centres

Types of Call Centers

Across inbound, outbound, blended, virtual, and outsourced call centres, managers face similar challenges. 

  • These include limited real-time visibility into agent activity, inconsistent call quality, delayed coaching due to manual QA, compliance risks, and difficulty monitoring remote or field agents.
  • As teams scale, tracking every interaction, ensuring follow-ups, and maintaining a consistent customer experience become harder.
  • Without the right tools, call centres risk high agent turnover, missed opportunities, poor customer satisfaction, and a lack of actionable insights from daily conversations.

How Runo Helps Call Centres Monitor, Improve, and Scale Every Conversation

Runo

Runo is a real-time call centre monitoring software designed to give managers complete visibility and control across all types of call centres. 

Real-Time Agent Tracking and Visibility

  • Runo allows supervisors to see live call activity across agents and teams.
  • You can instantly view who is on a call, call duration, agent availability, and overall performance through real-time dashboards.
  • This eliminates blind spots, especially when managing remote, virtual, or field-based agents.

Automatic Call Recording for Quality and Compliance

  • Every inbound and outbound call is automatically recorded without manual effort.
  • This helps call centres maintain quality standards, resolve disputes, and meet compliance requirements.
  • Secure, encrypted recordings ensure sensitive customer data stays protected.

AI-Powered Call Analysis and Smart QA 

  • Runo uses AI to analyse calls and generate summaries, sentiment insights, and quality metrics.
  • Instead of spending hours manually reviewing calls, supervisors receive instant insights, QA scores, and actionable feedback.
  • This significantly reduces review time and improves consistency across evaluations.

Faster Coaching and Agent Improvement

  • With call playbacks, AI summaries, and sentiment indicators, managers can quickly identify skill gaps.
  • Supervisors can tag calls, leave comments, and assign coaching tasks directly.
  • This accelerates onboarding, improves agent performance, and helps reduce attrition.

Complete Customer Interaction Timeline

  • Runo creates a unified interaction timeline that shows calls, notes, follow-ups, and CRM data in one place.
  • This helps agents understand context instantly and maintain continuity across conversations, especially in blended or omnichannel environments.

Efficient Follow-Ups and SLA Management

  • Built-in follow-up reminders ensure agents never miss callbacks or commitments.
  • This is critical for outbound sales, renewals, and service-level agreements, helping call centres improve reliability and closure rates.

Works for SIM-Based and Cloud Telephony

  • Runo supports both SIM-based calling and cloud telephony in a single platform.
  • Sales teams, customer support teams, and remote agents can all be monitored seamlessly, regardless of how calls are made.

Easy Setup and Scalability

  • Runo can be set up within hours without complex hardware or IT dependencies.
  • As call volumes increase, the platform scales effortlessly, making it suitable for startups, growing teams, and large enterprises alike.

FAQs

What are the main types of call centres?

Common types include inbound, outbound, blended, virtual, in-house, outsourced, offshore, multichannel, and omnichannel call centres.

Which call centre type is best for small businesses?

Virtual or outsourced call centres are often ideal due to lower setup costs and scalability.

What is the difference between multichannel and omnichannel call centres?

Multichannel offers multiple contact channels, while omnichannel connects them into one continuous customer experience.

Can call centre monitoring software work for remote agents?

Yes. Tools like Runo allow real-time monitoring, call recording, and performance tracking for both remote and field agents.