# A contact center is not a phone system · Learn it in 5 minutes

- A PBX connects extensions. A contact center adds queues, skills, lists, dispositions, and reports around those calls. Five9 Virtual Contact Center is that layer, hosted as a domain rather than as servers you rack.
- The planning topic does not start with a trunk. An outbound build starts with skill groups, user profiles, users, contact fields, lists, dispositions, and campaign profiles, and only then the campaign. Inbound and autodial add prompts and IVR scripts on that path.

## Sources and go deeper

- [Planning your implementation](https://documentation.five9.com/bundle/basic-admin/page/basic-admin/intro/planning-your-implementation.htm). vendor. last checked 2026-10.
- [Skill groups](https://documentation.five9.com/bundle/basic-admin/page/basic-admin/skill-groups/_ch-skill-groups.htm). vendor. last checked 2026-10.
- [RFC 3261, SIP: Session Initiation Protocol](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc3261). rfc. last checked 2026-10.
- [Interactive voice response](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_voice_response). wikipedia. last checked 2026-10.