|
|
Controlling Call
Center Costs in Today's Economy
From Centerserve's leading
best practices research |
|
 |
Reduce time to handle contacts - 3 approaches to
reducing costs of call center operations by reducing
time to handle contacts:
- Improve agent capability
- Improve system support
- Improve contact processes
|
|
 |
Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 18
initiatives to reduce time to handle contacts.
Three of the 18 initiatives are: reduce the number of
activities required for each call, use
skills-based routing to ensure the best agent handles
particular calls, and improve your quality monitoring
program. |
|
 |
Quality monitoring saves your call center money. Quality
monitoring is more than ensuring that agents provide
"good" customer service. Effective quality
monitoring is on-going coaching in call handling
techniques that can simultaneously reduce handle time and increase
customer satisfaction. For more see the
Quality Monitoring
eToolkit and next week's
Hot Topic Checklist: Quality Monitoring. |
|
 |
Reduce the cost of resources - 3 approaches to
lowering costs of call center operations by reducing the
cost of resources:
- Drive volume to lower cost channels
- Reduce agent payroll costs
- Reduce overhead costs
|
|
 |
Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 20
initiatives to reduce the costs of resources.
Three of the 20 initiatives are: provide incentives to
use lower cost media, redesign facility usage or use
shared workspaces, and increase agent utilization. |
|
 |
Agent utilization rates are directly related to
payroll costs. According to Centerserve's
2010
Benchmarks in Call Center Operations, of the 14 industries in our survey,
7 industries met and exceeded their utilization goals and
objectives.
To tackle an agent utilization
problem, start with schedule adherence. Centerserve's
report, "How to be a Great Call Center Manager" offers 4
tactics to improve schedule adherence:
- Monitor agents, including breaks and lunch,
generate real-time monitoring reports that are shared
with agents, address issues immediately. Be
consistent and constant in this regard.
- Communicate policies and performance
expectations clearly.
- Develop reward and consequence programs tied to
performance, attendance and 90-100% adherence to the
schedule.
- Implement a workforce management system.
|
|
 |
Reducing the volume of contacts - 3 approaches
to lowering costs of call center operations by reducing
the volume of contacts:
- Eliminate reason to contact
- Minimize misdirected calls
- Reduce repeat calls
|
|
 |
Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 15
initiatives regarding the three approaches
listed above to reduce the volume of contacts.
Three of the 15 initiatives are: make bills and
statements easier to read, improve contact closing and
validate next steps, reduce inter-company transfers. |
|
 |
Don't transfer it! Handle it! More and more
businesses are employing universal agents that have the
skills, knowledge, and system access to handle multiple
types of contacts, eliminating the need to transfer a
call. "One stop" calling promotes customer
satisfaction, as inter-company transfers is a primary
complaint area. Total costs are less than
having specialist groups and agents typically have more
satisfaction in their varied calls and tasks. |
