4 Ways to Cut Contact Center Costs and Improve CX

All contact centers receive phone calls concerning issues that can be solved without human assistance. Having human agents answer these simple, repetitive enquiries increases the cost to serve, and also sets into motion a cost-heavy chain reaction. Firstly, contact center agents who focus frequently on these issues become fatigued by the repetition. This fatigue then leads to decreased agent motivation and increased average handling time. In the end, this will leave your organization with poor CX and a high attrition rate, which will seriously cut into your bottom line.

Intelligent automation kills two birds with one stone – it is the most effective way to cut costs and improve CX. Intelligent automation technologies, such as chatbots and machine agents, streamline the processes involved in servicing different types of customer interactions. Using these tools, queries across all channels can be answered 24/7, enabling agents to prioritize interactions that require the skill of a human advisor. This drives down the cost per transaction, and boosts agent and customer experiences at the same time.

For a more cost-effective operation, intelligent automation is the best place to start.

The ability to deliver exceptional CX will make or break your organization. As such, it is imperative to keep wait times short, resolve queries quickly, and provide the expertise customers need. Despite this, not all organizations have an adequate budget to cover the resources to fulfil these requirements.

In these situations, a BPO (Business Process Outsourcer) can lend a helping hand. As veterans in adapting to a business’s processes, BPOs can quickly get up to speed and start helping customers. There’s no need for you to divert resources, or for your agents to work overtime, since BPOs are able to provide support outside of working hours from different time zones. Outsourcing agents to handle communications allows you to reduce your total cost of ownership (TCO) and work with best of breed partners to service your clients.

No more squandering resources and budget. BPOs are a great way for you to cut your costs and keep your profit flowing, without sacrificing CX quality.

Your people are valuable, and therefore they come at a price. On average, labor accounts for 77% of operational contact center costs.[1] To get the best return on your investment, you need a productive workforce that delivers high quality customer experience – anything less is a drain on costs. So how can you provide the best environment for productivity?

This is where a workforce optimization (WFO) solution really makes a difference. WFO solutions are an assortment of integrated modules, designed to capture and analyze information, and form actionable insights to improve your staff’s experiences and performance. From routing calls based on agent skill quality and availability, to identifying areas for improvement, this tool provides the means for employees to excel, and deliver consistently high customer engagement that retains customers.

Implementing a comprehensive WFO solution, one that is focused on improving agent experiences, is key to both driving savings and delivering high-quality CX.

On top of the funds required to build an on-premise contact center, the maintenance and hardware costs make them no longer economically viable. Unpredictable budgeting and billing is just one of the signs it’s time to move to a cloud contact center.

A contact center’s goal is to deliver the best quality CX at the lowest possible cost, and a cloud contact center solution lets you do both. The cloud enables distributed working, an option that reduces real estate costs, and gives staff greater flexibility over their schedule. This in turn increases productivity, and reduces attrition.

While the trust in your workforce to work efficiently at home can be a barrier, a cloud solution that supports real-time reporting and monitoring allows you to oversee compliance and quality in confidence.