11 Ways to Reduce Operating Cost of Call Center

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Top 11 Tips To Reduce Operating Cost of Call
Center
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Introduction

• In todays world, competition is an inseparable
  part of our life. Every contact center is trying
  to look for different ways to increase the
  productivity and efficiency of their call center
  and at the same time deliver a great service
  experience to their customers.
• But, the problem is that most of these techniques
  require the use of latest tools and a lot of time
  and investment. Due to these constraints, it is
  not possible for every contact center to follow
  those approaches for providing exceptional
  service experience.
• So, does that mean that great customer-service
  comes at the cost of huge investment in various
  tools and technologies such as best call center
  software?
• If you think thats true then you are wrong.
  There are certain ways that can help the contact
  center in reducing the overall operating cost
  which will be discussing same in this article.

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Analyze expenses

• This is the first step to take when looking for
  ways to reduce the operating cost of a call
  center.
• By thorough and detailed analysis the call center
  management can finalize on essential and not so
  important expenses and can act accordingly.
• Some of the essential expenses includes training
  of agents and giving them competitive salaries to
  have employee engagement and satisfaction whereas
  the number of agents required, additional
  services like investing in secondary tools for
  task management can be reduced to cut on the
  operating cost.

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Introduce remote access support

• Providing customer with an option to allow agents
  to gain remote access to their system or product
  for resolving their query and also to get a
  better understanding of the problem will help the
  agents in fixing customers issues in a much
  faster and better manner.
• This will increase the count of total campaigns
  closed and that too in a short duration of time
  which in turn improves the SLA score.
• Along with that adding remote access support
  option gives an opportunity to the contact center
  to have agents that can do work from home which
  increases the queue availability and reduces the
  resource and infrastructure cost of a contact
  center.

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Detailed FAQs

• This is probably one of the most successful and
  effective ways in which a contact center can not
  only reduce their cost but also reduce their call
  volume and gain productivity.
• By analyzing and publishing a list of most
  frequently asked questions along with the correct
  process of resolving those issues helps a contact
  center in reducing the operating cost to a great
  extent.
• This also ensures increased availability in
  queues which in turn reduces the call wait time
  which is a critical performance indicator for any
  call center.

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Reduced turnover rate

• Most of us will agree that majority of the call
  center operating cost is applied to training and
  hiring of agents and then on infrastructure of
  the contact center including software and systems
  like the call center software solutions.
• Thus, reducing the attrition rate of employees is
  a big factor that can affect the operating cost
  to a great extent.
• Not only does it enable the call center
  management to save on hiring and training of new
  agents, it also gives an advantage to the call
  center when compared to their competitors as your
  contact center can have experienced agents and
  they are already aware of the techniques for
  delivering extraordinary service experience.

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Proper Hiring

• A lot of people do not consider this as a method
  of reducing the operating cost of a contact
  center.
• But if thought properly the skills and experience
  of an agent in the field of customer service also
  play an important role in lowering the cost.
• As an agent with superior customer handling
  skills will require less training and will give
  better results in a short period of time when
  compared to a less competent agent.

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Increased FCR

• FCR stands for First Call Resolution.  It
  indicates the number of issues resolved in the
  first call. When talking in terms of call centers
  it is one of the main metrics that affects all
  the other major metrics.
• Also, it directly related to the running cost of
  the call center as it reduces the demand for the
  service and builds a good reputation for your
  contact center.
• Since the customer had a good service experience
  there are high chances that they will hear the
  agent through the up sell or cross sell
  activities which open the door for new business
  opportunities.

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Schedule adherence

• Improved schedule adherence enhances the floor
  coverage and call management at the same time
  reduces staffing cost.
• Some basic points that should be considered to
  increase schedule adherence are proper usage of
  workforce management software to keep a track of
  every agents login, logout and break schedule.
• Also rewarding agents with maximum attendance and
  most punctual will motivate other agents to
  adhere to the  schedule.

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Effective training

• One of the best ways of decreasing the cost of
  contact center costs is by providing agents with
  various marketing strategies and giving detailed
  product knowledge.
• Agent training plays an important role in
  increasing the productivity as multiple call
  center KPIs (Key Performance Indicator) depend on
  agents knowledge and the strategies they adopt
  for providing customers with an excellent service
  experience.
• Giving agents constant feedback and training to
  improve their performance will not only help the
  contact centers in reducing their operating cost
  but will also help agents in their personal
  growth which will indirectly allow the company to
  gain better results.

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Elimination of problems

• Call center managers understand that customers
  call on their support number for numerous reasons
  which includes everything like maintenance
  request or solving an actual technical problem.
• However, with the help of call center management
  software, tracking of similar issues from several
  campaigns and customer feedback it is possible to
  find out the cause of these common problems.
• Once the management has identified the area which
  needs improvement they can publish KB (Knowledge
  Base) articles on their website that contains fix
  to those issues. This will reduce the incoming
  call volume and reduce the cost on calling
  services.

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Call monitoring

• Building and maintaining an excellent team
  requires them to deliver consistent performance.
• With the help of call monitoring feature of
  their call center software, the management can
  keep track of every agents performance while
  interacting with a customer.
• This will ensure enhanced customer satisfaction
  level and thus increase chances of recommendation
  from their existing customer so they can gain new
  business.

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Promote self-service

• We all know that many customers do not like
  calling support lines and interacting with agents
  they look for ways to fix their problems on their
  own.
• For such customers, it is essential that call
  centers invest in tools and technologies that
  promote self-service like chatbots, SMS or text
  support.
• Investing in such technologies not only helps the
  contact center in increasing their customer base
  but also cut on the cost of staff hiring.

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