Call centre work is more varied than most people think. You aren’t just badgering people on the phone to get them top buy your product. Call centres deal with incoming product support, information inquiries from customers. They also deal with outgoing calls to which can be telemarketing, clientele, product services, and debt collection. Most call centres are located in a centralised office and are dedicated to receiving and transmitting a large volume of requests by telephone. A large proportion of call centres are actually located within a broader contact centre. Contact centres tend to deal with the collective handling of letters, faxes, live chat, and e-mails. Call centres do tend to be operated within a large open plan workspace where work stations will include a computer, a telephone and a head set, for each agent. Most major businesses are using call centres to interact with their customers these days, so there are an abundance of jobs out there. Just a few examples of companies that use call centres include, utility companies, charities, customer support and software companies. In fact, some companies even use call centres strictly for internal functions. Businesses will have help desks, retail financial support and sales support in internal call centres. If you are working in a call centre you may have to deal with inbound and outbound calls. Inbound calls are made by consumers, for example to obtain information from the company, to report a malfunction or simply to ask for help. If you are dealing with outbound calls then you will be required to call consumers and these calls are usually for sales purposes.Most call centres are organised into multi-tier support systems which help them run more efficiently. More often than not the first tier is made up of operators, who answer calls and provide consumers with the relevant information. If the initial call requires further assistance then they are usually forwarded on to the second tier, which can vary depending on the nature of the call. There can be a number of different tiers depending on the company you are working for. You need to have good people skills to work in a call centre, and have to be good at dealing with customer complaints. You should also be prepared to work a variety of hours, as most call centres will operate into the evening and some may even run through the night.