Cost reduction – it’s a common theme within the contact center. The concept is visited so often, management can easily become frustrated when attention is needed on something else. The money pit reputation easily follows the contact center to the point that company leaders can quickly forget the value the contact center delivers. A constant focus on the bottom line can cause the same leadership to overlook simple ways to reduce the cost burden.
A key advancement that can streamline contact center operations is the hosted phone system. By migrating the responsibility of communications to a third party, the contact center no longer bears the cost of the in-house PBX (News - Alert). Likewise, the infrastructure, maintenance and updates are provided by the same third party. By switching to all VoIP, the contact center can leverage the same functionality enjoyed by the largest competitor, at a fraction of the cost.
Aside from replacing the legacy PBX with the hosted phone system, the contact center can adjust a few things internally to reduce the cost of operation. For instance, a BroadConnect blog recently highlighted three things the contact center can do to reduce operating costs. The first – call center surveys.
Yes, conducting the survey itself can be a cost, but the insight gained from the process can greatly reduce the cost of operation. Surveys enable you to identify trends, problems with a script and even training issues. Fixing these problems now will save considerable time and money down the road when you don’t have to put out the flames caused by unhappy customers spreading bad will across social media and other channels.
Optimized workforce scheduling is another opportunity that shouldn’t be overlooked. Great agents are able to do more than just handle a call – they can multitask, pace calls and even upsell when the opportunity presents itself. They are also experts at handling high call volumes and you want them on hand for the peak times. With optimized workforce scheduling, you can do so with better accuracy and accountability, ensuring each call is handled quickly, efficiently and with resolution.
CRM integration is another opportunity to ensure the organization and automation of customer interactions to support technical support, marketing, sales and customer service. CRM solutions ensure you can aggregate customer data across multiple networks, keeping track of queries, customer preferences and demographic information. When this happens, agents spend a lot less time gathering information and instead focus on satisfying the customer’s needs.
At the end of the day, the contact center is focused on the optimization of the customer experience. By implementing the hosted phone system, conducting surveys, optimizing the scheduling of the workforce and integrating CRM, you’ll be better positioned to reduce your cost and staying on track with meeting customers’ needs.
Edited by Alisen Downey