The call centre market in Germany

A call center is an organization that uses a combination of human and technical resources to remotely manage the relationship between a company and its customers. The call flows managed are usually extensive and can be both inbound (e.g. customer service) and outbound (e.g. telephone canvassing). In reality, these call centers perform a variety of customer relations tasks ranging from technical support to complaint handling, not to mention telemarketing.

However, with digitalization and the rise of omnichannel customer relationship management (CRM), the term "call center" is no longer appropriate and the term "contact center" is used instead.

There are various call center models: either the company manages customer service itself or it outsources this part to an external service provider . In the latter case, an independent company takes care of the various customer service channels on behalf of major customers.

As an internal department of a company, the activities of internal contact centers are more difficult to analyze, which is why a large part of our study focuses on outsourced call centers, which, incidentally, have seen significant growth in recent years. The turnover of German call centers has developed very positively in recent years. Between 2002 and 2021, turnover grew by an average of 14.06% per year[Federal Statistical Office].

The most important call center companies operating in Germany include the market leaders Téléperformance, Concentrix, Conduent and Capita Europe. The global market is growing rapidly, with the development of offshore and nearshore production zones, which reduce costs, playing an important role.