Four Signs You Could be Losing Your Contact Center Millions of Dollars a Year

12 Oct 2021

Forward-thinking contact center IT managers are adding millions to the bottom line – by rethinking their role and status as Cost-Cutter-in-Chief. Is it time you did the same?

A typical contact center handles tens of thousands of customer conversations a day – and every one of those interactions is an opportunity to sell or increase customer loyalty. But, all too often, contact center IT managers are forced to see a customer not as a business opportunity, but as a problem to be dealt with as quickly as possible.

Smarter organizations – and their IT managers – are starting to see contact center conversations as an opportunity to make money, not a costly hassle. With the right technology, a mid-sized business can typically bring in hundreds of millions in extra revenue every year by rethinking the role of the contact center.

As an IT manager, is it time you switched from a cost mindset to a profit mindset? Here are four signs you should be making the case for turning your contact center from a cost center into a profit center.

1. You’re seen as a cost-cutter, not a revenue-generator

Many businesses still see the contact center as a burden on the bottom line – with the IT manager cast in the unenviable role of Cost-Cutter-in-Chief.

But what if, instead of being pushed to cut costs by 10% year after year, your target was to bring in 10% in revenues – and to do that by delivering a better customer experience? How would that change your approach to your job? How would it change your status in the enterprise?

2. You’re incentivized by time, not value

If your organization is still rewarding you for how quickly you can get customers off the phone, chances are they’re leaving millions – or even billions – on the table.

Speed matters, obviously. But if an extra five minutes on the phone translates into keeping a customer subscribed for another 18 months, that’s time well spent. There are multiple surveys to show that that people prefer interacting with humans than with bots, while Salesforce research found that 92% of all customer interactions happen over the phone.

With the right AI, a contact center can now pair a customer with the agent they're most likely to click with – and the agent who’s best able to deliver a win-win outcome for both the customer and the business.

Such outcomes aren’t based on gut feeling, but hard data. For example, Afiniti – a firm that deploys such AI pairing technology into call centers – switches its technology on and off throughout the day, allowing the contact center to see the measurable difference its technology makes. For a mid-sized business, that difference can mean up to $100 million a year in extra revenue.

3. You’ve not factored in the price of agent churn

Traditional performance-based routing is known to burn out the top performers and demotivate the bottom ones. The result? Churn at both ends that dents the bottom line. It can cost thousands to recruit and onboard a new agent – and even then it will be weeks before they’re productive.

But pairing the right customer with the right agent, as Afiniti's AI does, gives every employee the chance to shine – by measurably adding value to the business. And happier agents means happier customers, which means a happier CEO.

4. You’re not pushing back to the business

Forward-thinking IT managers are already making the case for focusing on profits, not costs – and for deploying the technology that enables that. But as with any investment in technology, you need to be able to pitch the business case to your CEO in five minutes or less.

With Afiniti’s technology, that case is easy to make, because the initial deployment is free: Afiniti only charges based on the extra revenue its technology generates.

If rethinking the potential of your contact center is risk free, is it time you had a conversation about that with your CEO?

 

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