Italy's official occupation classification draws a clear line between people who inform and assist customers and people who sell by phone. In real teams the two can mix within the same call. This guide brings together Eurostat data, the Istat classification, a regional training profile and the EU classification ESCO, and shows what is worth practising.
How the sector is structured
As in the rest of the EU, Italy has two kinds of contact centre, and the statistics count them differently.
- In-house teams. A bank, telecom operator, utility or insurer runs its own customer service. Its staff are counted in the parent company's industry.
- Outsourced providers. A specialist company handles calls on behalf of other firms. In the ATECO classification this is code 82.20, call centre activities.
Eurostat's structural business statistics show 1,224 enterprises in class 82.2 in Italy in 2024, with 54,162 persons employed. In 2021 there were 1,403 enterprises. The number of firms is falling while employment is stable; the average firm has about 44 people. By employment in this class, Italy ranks third in the EU after Spain and Germany.
Many more people work in in-house teams. The EU Labour Force Survey counts 508,300 people employed in Italy in 2024 in ISCO sub-major group 42, customer services clerks. The group includes contact centre clerks as well as receptionists, enquiry clerks and travel consultants, so it is not an exact operator headcount. Telephone sales belong to a separate group (ISCO 5244).
Outsourcing companies have a national association, Assocontact, within the Confcommercio system.
Languages served
Italian is the base. In Eurostat's Adult Education Survey (2022), 25.0% of Italian clerical, service and sales workers aged 25 to 64 knew no foreign language (EU average: 23.5%) and 9.3% knew three or more (EU: 11.3%). The Italian 2022 figures carry a break in series, but the picture is clear: one foreign language is common, three are less common than average.
For a service in English or German, the pool of available operators is therefore small. Whoever covers it needs to handle the difficult call in that language too.
Roles and career paths
Istat's classification of occupations (CP2011) has a dedicated entry, 4.2.2.4.0 Addetti all'informazione nei Call Center (senza funzioni di vendita), call centre information staff without sales duties. People who sell by phone fall under a different category.
Italy's regions define training profiles. The Lazio region, for example, has the profile Operatore assistenza clienti (customer assistance operator), EQF level 3, linked to that Istat entry and to ATECO code 82.20.00. Its four competence units are: managing customer relationships by adapting the communication style; using the workstation and CRM; help desk assistance, including complaint handling; and managing and documenting the information collected.
ESCO shows the next steps:
| Step | Role (ESCO) | ISCO-08 group |
|---|---|---|
| Entry | Call centre agent (sales) | 5244 |
| Entry | Customer contact centre information clerk | 4222 |
| Specialist | Call centre quality auditor, call centre analyst | 3341 |
| Team lead | Call centre supervisor, contact centre supervisor | 3341 |
| Management | Call centre manager, contact centre manager | 3341, 1439 |
Training challenges
Inform or sell. The classification separates the two functions; the customer does not. Someone trained only to assist finds it hard to make an offer at the end of a call without sounding pushy.
Each region its own profile. Vocational training is a regional responsibility and profiles differ from region to region. A company with sites in several regions has to align what is actually practised.
Complaints. The Lazio profile places complaint handling inside everyday assistance, not among the exceptions. It is the part people practise least, because colleagues cannot recreate the tension.
Classroom hours, little spoken practice. In the 2020 Continuing Vocational Training Survey, 68.9% of Italian enterprises provided training, and participants spent 27.0 hours in courses on average (EU: 22.5; 2020 was a pandemic year). The hours exist; the question is how many become conversations rehearsed out loud.
One line to practise
To move from service to an offer:
"Your request is sorted. Before we say goodbye, may I ask you one quick question about your current contract?"
Say it out loud five times until it sounds like you.
Practising these calls with DIRI AI
With DIRI AI an operator practises a call by voice with an AI customer that is clearly labelled as AI and fictional, then reads a report on what to say better. In Italian, practice uses prepared scenarios, including service and complaint calls. There is a Free plan; see the pricing page.
Related pages: sales call centre team training, complaint handling call training and foreign-language sales call practice.
Sources
All sources were read on 9 November 2026.
- Eurostat, Enterprises by detailed NACE Rev. 2 activity (sbs_ovw_act), class N82.2, 2021 and 2024. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/sbs_ovw_act/default/table
- Eurostat, Employed persons by detailed occupation, ISCO-08 two digit (lfsa_egai2d), OC42, 2024. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/lfsa_egai2d/default/table
- Eurostat, Persons knowing foreign languages by occupation (edat_aes_l25), 2022. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/edat_aes_l25/default/table
- Eurostat, CVTS 2020 (trng_cvt_01s, trng_cvt_25s). https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/databrowser/view/trng_cvt_25s/default/table
- Regione Lazio, training profile Operatore assistenza clienti (CP2011 4.2.2.4.0, ATECO 82.20.00). https://www.regione.lazio.it/enti/formazione/profili-professionali/dettaglio/346
- European Commission, ESCO, call centre occupations. https://esco.ec.europa.eu/en/classification/occupation?uri=http://data.europa.eu/esco/occupation/0ededdc2-050a-4ec3-8e70-6295105fcd19
- Assocontact. https://www.assocontact.it