Message Centre vs Inbound vs Outbound

Odds are you've heard terms like inbound, outbound and call centre. Intercon Messaging is a message center.

Inbound call centers do things like take orders.  An example of that may be calling a 1-800 number that you see for a product you would like to have advertised during a TV commercial.  The type of center who would receive and process that call would be called an inbound call center. 

Outbound call centers might have a campaign to do where they have to call 1000 people for a market research company where they are contracted to survey an exact number of people to obtain information for a particular client.  My father, a farmer participated in many of these surveys that were paid for by Agriculture Canada.  They might call him in the winter and ask what % of his crop he’d sold.  They might call him in the summer and ask what percentage of his land was seeded and what % of his total acres was seeded to wheat.  Or they might employ and be contracted to do outbound sales campaigns, more commonly called telemarketing campaigns.

By contrast a message center receives a message, makes a decision about how to handle the message and then handles the call according to a previously agreed upon procedure.  There are always calls that require making wise decisions based on experience, wisdom and intuition.  Intuition in this industry is having the strength and skill to ask yourself…what would I expect if I were the caller?  What would I expect if I were the client?