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Controlling Call
Center Costs
From Centerserve's leading
best practices research |
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Reduce time to handle contacts - 3 approaches to
using the first of three research based methods to
reducing costs of call center operations.
- Improve agent capability
- Improve system support
- Improve contact processes
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Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 18
initiatives regarding the three approaches
listed above to reduce time to handle contacts.
Three of those 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. |
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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 reduce handle time and increase
customer satisfaction at the same time. For more see the
Quality Monitoring
eToolkit and last week's
Hot Topic Checklist. |
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Reduce the cost of resources - 3 approaches to
using the second of three research based methods to
reducing costs of call center operations.
- Drive volume to lower cost channels
- Reduce agent payroll costs
- Reduce overhead costs
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Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 20
initiatives regarding the three approaches
listed above to reduce the costs of resources.
Three of those initiatives are: provide incentives to
use lower cost media, redesign facility usage or use
shared workspaces, increase agent utilization. |
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Agent utilization rates are directly related to
payroll costs. According to Centerserve's 2007
Benchmarking study, of the 13 industries in our survey,
not one industry is meeting their utilization goals and
objectives. To tackle the 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 share
with agents, address issues immediately. Be
consistent and constant in this regard.
- Communicate policies and performance clearly.
- Develop reward and consequence programs tied to
performance, attendance and 90-100% adherence to the
schedule.
- Implement a workforce management system.
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Reducing the volume of contacts - 3 approaches
using the last of three research based methods to
reducing costs of call center operations.
- Eliminate reason to contact
- Minimize misdirected calls
- Reduce repeat calls
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Centerserve's
Controlling Call Center Costs eToolkit offers 15
initiatives regarding the three approaches
listed above to reduce the volume of contacts.
Three of those initiatives are: make bills and
statements easier to read, improve contact closing and
validate next steps, reduce inter-company transfers. |
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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 would be less than
having specialist groups and agents would have more
satisfaction in their varied calls and tasks. |
