Background
This tutorial series
is comprised of excerpts from Centerserve's toolkit,
Controlling the Cost of Call Center Operations. Visit
Centerserve's website
for more information on this toolkit and related support products.
The goal of this tutorial series is to provide a comprehensive framework for reducing
the cost of your call center operation over time. The outcome of your cost reduction
planning will be a set of identified and prioritized cost saving initiatives that are most
suited for your situation. Your cost reduction initiatives can be placed in three
categories: short-term (less than 3 months), mid-term (3-6 months), and long-term (greater
than 6 months).
This series includes 5 tutorials and concludes with guidelines for creating a cost
reduction roadmap for your call center. The purpose of this first tutorial is to set the
groundwork and foundation for the overall series.
Controlling costs
Controlling or reducing the cost of call center operations requires addressing three
cost components of handling contacts:
- handle time (e.g., talk time plus after call work time for a phone call)
- resource costs for handling contacts (fully loaded cost per unit time – e.g. cost
per minute)
- total volume of contacts (volume of contacts for all media)
Reducing any one of these three variables will reduce the cost of operating a contact
center. This framework is critical to a systematic analysis of your contact center costs.
In the following summary, we will build on this framework to begin the process of
analyzing the potential areas for cost reduction.
Reducing the handle time
Reducing the contact handle time can be accomplished by improving one of the following
three areas:
- Improve agent capability
- Improve systems support
- Improve or redesign contact processes
Reducing the cost of resources
Reducing the cost of resources (including the cost of people, equipment or facilities
necessary to handle customer contacts) can be achieved by one of the following methods:
- Drive volume to lower cost channels
- Reduce agent payroll costs
- Reduce overhead costs
Reducing the volume of contacts
Reducing the volume of contacts can be achieved by one of the following methods.
- Eliminate reason to contact
- Minimize misdirected calls
- Reduce repeat calls
Note that redistributing volume to alternate media (i.e., moving phone calls to IVR or
web self-service) does not appear on this diagram. That type of cost reduction initiative
is addressed in the category of “Reducing the Cost of Resources” under the area
"Drive volume to lower cost channel."
Putting the framework together
By taking each component and putting them together, you can create a master framework
for identifying cost reduction initiatives for your call center as shown in the cost
reduction diagram below.
