Four Ways to Cut Costs in the Contact Center

As we enter 2022 the business environment for the most part is very positive. Wages are up, unemployment is down, and consumers are waking up from their COVID-induced slumber and out spending money again.

But not everything is rosy.

Inflation is taking a big bite out of wage gains, and it seems we are running out of just about everything. Then try to hire a new employee. Don’t people need an income anymore? So, like every prior year you can remember, management is again asking how to cut call center operating costs. We have four ideas to share.

Deflect more calls to self-service - A common estimate is that it costs about $8.00 for each live interaction and as little as a dime for an automated answer. However, for self-service to really pay off you must contain the conversation in the self-service mode. According to a consumer survey sponsored by Vonage in 2019, “On average consumers say they have abandoned 27% of calls they make to a business because they reached a poorly designed IVR.“ This is where speech analytics can be extremely valuable by identifying the primary reasons people call and enable teams to prepare answers that are clear, brief, and complete. Research sponsored by Verint showed that contact centers can reduce their cost by 45% by analyzing call and conversational intent and utilizing this data to inform call-deflection strategies.
Adopt a 360° view of customer care - From your customer’s perspective, a great customer experience occurs when promises made are actually fulfilled. This can happen when the back office and customer-facing operations are all on the same team—if not structurally, then at least in terms of shared commitment to customer satisfaction and shared technology. Verint is the only vendor that has a full suite of both contact center and back-office solutions. Their experts can help companies create a 360° view of their customers that is shared among all customer-facing and supporting functions. The Verint Engagement Data Management hub can normalize, organize, and manage interaction data seamlessly to provide a single view of interactions across the contact center, back office and branch locations.
Automate the interviewing process - Contact centers are feeling the brunt when it comes to finding qualified people in an era of plentiful good paying jobs. A major chokepoint is interviewing. Too often we hire the wrong people and, as a consequence, 60% of new hires quit their contact center job in the first 90 days of employment. With its June 2021 acquisition of HireIQ, Verint Systems has now extended automation to the interviewing process. Verint Intelligent Interviewing uses automated and predictive candidate screening to analyze answers to interview questions and quickly sift through the recorded voice and video interactions to funnel down to a small manageable number of highly qualified and highly motivated candidates. User experience with this solution has shown very favorable results.
Improve first call resolution rate - The need for one or more follow-up calls is a major driver of excess labor costs. The First Call Resolution (FCR) rate varies greatly by type of business and particularly the purpose of the contact center. Based on our prior publications and a review of available research studies, an average of 72% of inquiries are resolved in that initial contact. This means that 28% of calls require one or more follow-ups. By making a few reasonable assumptions we can calculate the cost of repeat calls and the estimated savings by making even modest improvements. Our model assumes agents process 1,000 calls per month, the average cost per call is $8.00, and our contact center has 200 agents. If the rate of repeat calls is 28%, then the contact center is spending $5,376,000 per year handling repeat calls. Now let’s assume that we reduce the rate of follow-up calls to 23%. Then our annual cost of repeat calls is $4,416,000, for savings of $960,000 or 22%. Investing in a knowledge management system is an ideal way to provide agents with the information they need when they need it. It also helps to provide agents with the authority to make circumscribed decisions on the spot without the need to consult with the supervisor.

Make it a great year in 2022!

Dick Bucci

Founder and Chief Analyst

Pelorus Associates