In recent years, there’s been a movement away from thinking of the contact center as a cost center to operating it as a revenue generator. This repositioning of the contact center is welcome news for customer experience professionals who have long understood the amazing opportunities in the organizational arm that touches customer relationships most closely.  

Regardless of the potential revenue generation opportunities, the drive to do more with less is only increasing. This means more and more pressure on customer experience professionals to innovate ways to drive down cost to serve without compromising the quality of support – all while mining sales opportunities and generating top-line revenue. This blog post explores key strategies that contact centers can adopt to reduce expenses while maintaining a high standard of service. 

Improve First Contact Resolution (FCR)

Stellar FCR starts with comprehensive initial and ongoing training programs to ensure agents can solve most customer issues without the need for further escalation. But keep in mind that addressing training issues for better FCR may require a deeper rework of the entire contact center culture and force you to answer some tough questions such as, “How empowered are agents to make decisions?” and, “How closely are agents required to follow scripts?” Training agents in logical thinking versus close script alignment is a must in the era of artificial intelligence where purely transactional interactions can be easily automated. Encouraging agents to ask questions, challenge the status quo, and think critically is essential. This, combined with a well-maintained, centralized knowledge base to allow agents to quickly access relevant information, will go a long way toward improving FCR.  

Adjust Your Call Routing Strategy

An efficient call routing strategy is one of the best ways to reduce contact center operating costs. Skills-based routing or predictive behavioral routing use complex algorithms to route incoming calls based on a number of variables, including past behavior, geography, customer interaction history, and agent skills. This strategy automates the process of matching callers with the agent who can serve them best. Connecting incoming callers to the best fit agents right from the start reduces the need for call transfers and escalations that waste time and money while frustrating customers. However, in situations where customer escalations or transfers are unavoidable, ensure you have a unified customer relationship management (CRM) system to integrate data from multiple touchpoints, giving agents a 360-degree view of the customer. When customers aren’t forced to repeat information, agents can provide faster service which translates to saved time and money. 

Reduce Agent Attrition

Given the notoriously high attrition rates in most contact centers, CX leaders need to take this one seriously. Involving both direct and indirect costs, high attrition can negatively affect a contact center’s bottom line in many ways, namely in additional recruitment, onboarding, and training costs. A Deloitte survey found that it takes $12,000 to replace the average frontline employee. Harvard Business Review puts the cost between $10,000–$20,000 to replace a contact center agent. Additional indirect costs such as impact to morale and lost tribal knowledge are harder to estimate but can be just as impactful. Constantly seeing co-workers leave creates a negative work environment and decreases engagement levels and productivity. To stem the tide of high attrition, be sure to analyze the root causes through comprehensive exit interviews and regular employee surveys. This insight combined with remedial action will ensure you retain your best employees and ultimately lower cost to serve. 

Use Contact Deflection Strategies

Providing customers with well-organized FAQs, tutorial videos, and troubleshooting guides empowers them to resolve issues without contacting support. And offering self-service options for basic inquiries through mobile apps, social media or chat channels, for example, can help customers more conveniently resolve issues on their own. Beyond company-managed content, facilitating user-generated content, such as forums and community support pages is another way to deflect contacts by allowing customers to help each other. This not only reduces dependency on agents but also fosters brand loyalty. As well, features such as order tracking, billing inquiries, and AI-driven chat support can significantly cut service costs. 

Use Data and Analytics for Cost Reduction

Analyzing customer interactions can help identify common issues that lead to high call volumes. And addressing these pain points through process improvements or product enhancements can reduce the need for support. Predictive analytics is one option to help anticipate customer needs and prevent issues before they arise. For example, a company can notify customers about potential service disruptions and offer solutions in advance, reducing inbound contacts. As well, segmenting customers based on their needs and behaviors allows businesses to tailor support strategies. For example, high-value customers might receive premium support, while others could be directed to lower-cost self-service solutions.

Reduce Average Handle Time (AHT)

Eliminating redundant steps in customer interactions, simplifying authentication procedures, and minimizing transfers between departments can dramatically reduce average handle time and lead to cost savings in the contact center. Providing agents with AI-driven assistance tools, such as real-time suggestions and automated workflows, enables them to resolve inquiries faster, saving time and money. For example, if your business has 200 agents and the current AHT is 10 minutes, reducing that time to 7 minutes, would result in a potential headcount reduction of 60 agents. If you’re paying each agent $30,000 per year, that would result in savings of $1.8 million per year! 

Outsource Strategically

Outsourcing customer service to cost-effective regions such as the Caribbean helps reduce expenses while maintaining service quality. However, businesses should ensure that outsourced teams align with their brand values and customer expectations. Contact centers could be fully outsourced or use a blended model that combines in-house teams with outsourced or automated solutions. 

Reducing customer service costs while maintaining quality is a challenging but achievable goal. By embracing automation, optimizing workforce management, enhancing first contact resolution, and using data analytics, contact centers can drive significant cost savings. Additionally, promoting self-service options, reducing average handle time, and improving employee retention strategies contribute to a more efficient and cost-effective support operation. Implementing these strategies ensures that businesses can provide exceptional customer service while keeping operational expenses under control. For even more cost saving strategies, including nearshore contact center solutions, contact Advensus.