Editing Call centre (section)

===Virtual call centre===
{{see also|Software as a service|Remote work}}
In a virtual call centre model, the call centre operator (business) pays a monthly or annual fee to a vendor that hosts the call centre telephony and data equipment in their own facility, cloud-based. In this model, the operator does not own, operate or host the equipment on which the call centre runs. Agents connect to the vendor's equipment through traditional [[Public switched telephone network|PSTN]] telephone lines, or over [[voice over IP]]. Calls to and from prospects or contacts originate from or terminate at the vendor's data centre, rather than at the call centre operator's premises. The vendor's telephony equipment (at times data servers) then connects the calls to the call centre operator's agents.<ref>{{cite book |author=M. Popovic and V. Kovacevic |url=https://archive.org/details/springer_10.1007-3-540-47728-4/mode/2up |title=Networking — ICN 2001 |publisher=University of Novi Sad, Yugoslavia |year=2001 |isbn=978-3-540-42302-7 |series=Lecture Notes in Computer Science |volume=2093 |pages=75–84 |chapter=An Approach to Internet-Based Virtual Call Center Implementation |doi=10.1007/3-540-47728-4_8}}</ref>

Virtual call centre technology allows people to work from home or any other location instead of in a traditional, centralised, call centre location, which increasingly allows people 'on the go' or with physical or other disabilities to work from desired locations – i.e. not leaving their house. The only required equipment is Internet access, a workstation, and a softphone.<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.nticentral.org/about/articles/nnyt03012006.shtm |author=David S. Joachim |title=Computer Technology Opens a World of Work to Disabled People |newspaper=New York Times |access-date=2010-03-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100323055604/http://www.nticentral.org/about/articles/nnyt03012006.shtm |archive-date=2010-03-23 |url-status=dead }}</ref> If the virtual call centre software utilizes [[webRTC]], a softphone is not required to dial. The companies are preferring Virtual Call Centre services due to cost advantage. Companies can start their call centre business immediately without installing the basic infrastructure like [[Dialer]], [[Automatic call distributor|ACD]] and [[Interactive voice response|IVRS]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1 = Kumar|first1 = Harish|title = Hosted Contact / Call Center Services in Indian Telecommunications Licensing and Regulation|url = https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294894811|website = Researchgate|page = 6|doi = 10.13140/RG.2.1.2931.9445|year = 2016}}</ref>

Virtual call centres became increasingly used after the [[COVID-19 pandemic]] restricted businesses from operating with large groups of people working in close proximity.