Call centre traditionally define as a physical place where calls are place and receive in high volume by using some telecom & computer equipments. But today dynamic market environment, a call centre require all the advantages of evolving technology of computer telephony, Customer Relationship

Management (CRM) software and Internet in order to provide excellent service to retain the customers.

Generally the call centre was used for the below activities:

„X Technical support or helpdesk for both internal and external

„X Booking / reservation centres for hotels, airlines and cinemas

„X Catalogue ordering companies

„X Telemarketing centre

„X Fundraising and collections organisations

„X And others business activities

Typically call centres are setup with workstation that include a telephone set and computer equipments that hooked into a large telecom switched and one or more supervisory stations. Figure 1.1 shows a simple call centre system. The circuit-switch ACD automatically distribute all the incoming calls to the customer service agents.

A modern call centres may include the following equipment like: Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), Computer Telephony Integration (CTI), Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Web Integration, Integration interfaces for other applications like CRM system and others front/back end data network. Figure 1.2 shows a modern web enable call centre system.

The function of an ACD is to distribute calls to agents as they are received. The call can be distribute in various way to optimise the usage of the call centre resources and allow the best possible agent to handle the call measure by the parameters set by the organisation.

The CTI can integrate the telephone and computer operation by linking database to telephone connection, a screen pop-up of customer¡¦s information on agent¡¦s computer screen as the call is received.

IVR can turn the keypad of a customer¡¦s telephone into a keyboard, as a result many standard queries can be handle by an IVR instead of a live agent. It also gives customers a self service option, for example account balance enquiry, product information and etc. It also can transfer the call to the agent as the customer requires further assistance.