Call Center Marketing and Support Based Operations. A Call Centre or Call Center is an important element of operation for large organisations, or those which provide 24 hour or tele-based marketing campaigns. Call Centers are implemented as a centralised officed which is responsible for the receiving and the transmission or large amounts of processed or unprocessed data by telephone. Call Centres may be used to administer information queries from consumers or are responsible for providing product support. Call Centres may also be known as Contact Centre's and are able to handle faxes, letters and emails all in a single location. Alternatively, they may be used as a base of operation for outgoing calls, such as telesales, telemarketing, clientele and debt collection.

Call Centres are operated more commonly in an open plan office environment where operators, sales and other agents may be located in close proximity. Each call centre work station may include a computer, a telephone set/ headset which is connected to telcom switch boards, and may also include one or more supervisor stations. Most major businesses use call centres to interact with their customers. Examples include utility companies, mail order catalogue firms, and customer support for computer hardware and software. Some businesses even service internal functions through call centres. Examples of this include help desks and sales support.

Call Centres use a wide variety of different technologies to allow them to manage the large volumes of work that need to be managed by the call centre. These technologies ensure that agents are kept as productive as possible, and that calls are queued and processed as quickly as possible, resulting in good levels of service.

Types of calls are often divided into outbound and inbound. Inbound calls are calls that are made by the consumer to obtain information, report a malfunction, or ask for help. These calls are substantially different from outbound calls, where agents place calls to potential customers mostly with intentions of selling or service to the individual.

Call centre staff are often organized into a multi-tier support system for a more efficient handling of calls. The first tier in such a model consists of operators, who direct inquiries to the appropriate department and provide general directory information. If a caller requires more assistance, the call is forwarded to the second tier, where most issues can be resolved. In some cases, there may be three or more tiers of support staff. If a caller requires more assistance, the caller is forwarded to the third tier of support; typically the third tier of support is formed by product engineers/developers or highly-skilled technical support staff of the product.

Call centres have their critics. Some critics argue that the work atmosphere in such an environment is de-humanising. Others point to the low rates of pay and restrictive working practices of some employers. There has been much controversy over such things as restricting the amount of time that an employee can spend in the toilet. Furthermore, call centres have been the subject of complaints by callers who find the staff often do not have enough skill or authority to resolve problems, while the dehumanized workers very often exhibit an attitude of apathy to even the most abusive customer.

Owing to the highly technological nature of the operations in such offices, the close monitoring of staff activities is easy and widespread. This can be argued to be beneficial, to enable the company to better plan the workload and time of its employees. Some people have argued that such close monitoring breaches human rights to privacy. Yet another argument is that close monitoring and measurement by quantitative metrics can be counterproductive in that it can lead to poor customer service and a poor image of the company, and an ability to keep within the "stats" while still doing horrible things.