Call centers provide two types of services: inbound and outbound. The inbound call centers service the enquiries of customers who want to obtain information regarding their personal problems, or ask for a solution or any other help. Large, multinational organizations are constantly trying to expand their business locally as well as internationally. That means an increase in workload for customer support services. These large businesses require a large workforce to handle the customer support services, which are the backbone of the successful functioning of any business.

Handling the customer support department implies diversion of attention of the management from the more important and productive operations to just answering the enquiries of the customers. To avoid this, the management outsources the customer support services and engages other agencies that specialize in customer support operations. Sometimes the customer support services are double-outsourced to other underdeveloped or developing countries. This is because these services are available at cheaper exchange rates than in the sourcing country.

Economically developed countries like the U.S., Europe, Japan and Australia often outsource customer support services to developing countries like India, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, and Thailand. These countries boast a huge English-speaking workforce. While some companies have opened their own offices in developing countries to provide support to their customers, there are many other companies that just shift their responsibilities to certain local companies specializing in providing customer support operations.

These customer support service-providing companies usually work as inbound call centers for the outsourcing company. The customer support company is provided with all the customer support data by the outsourcing organization. When customers of the company make enquiries, call center representatives welcome them and answer their queries on behalf of the company.

The efficient call center is equipped with the necessary customer support infrastructure. This includes a network of computers, telephone systems and employees trained in customer support services.

The work force of the call center is layered according to its work abilities. While the lowest rankers handle the usually-expected preliminary enquiries, those at the upper level deal with detailed, customer-specific questions.