Many contact centers are considered a cost center or even a “necessary evil.” Is it true? In many cases, the designation may be warranted. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
A new report from ICMI—sponsored by Zendesk—uncovered several opportunities for contact centers to provide more value to their organizations and even to generate revenue. That’s good news for the more than 62% of contact centers that are currently perceived as cost centers by their organizations (as revealed in the spring 2015 global survey that informed the report).
In the new report, “Collapse of the Cost Center: Driving Contact Center Profitability,” ICMI recommends that contact centers focus on missed opportunities in several areas, including:
Service level: Only 27% of contact centers are effectively measuring and reporting service level. The report explains how measuring service level on half-hour intervals provides the typical contact center with the most actionable data.
Agent schedule adherence: 62% of the contact centers surveyed measure their agents to ensure 90% of their time is fully utilized. While 90% adherence sounds good, the report cautions against issues such as agent burnout.
Forecast accuracy: Half of contact centers don’t measure how well their forecasts matched up with reality, perpetuating inaccurate forecasts and masking opportunities for improvement.
Revenue-generation: Only 25% of contact centers have ever considered cross-sell or up-sell programs, despite evidence that well-executed programs both increase revenue and improve the customer experience. The report makes several suggestions for creating effective cross- and up-sell programs.
The full report also covers findings and recommendations around surveys, measuring customer satisfaction, “voice of the customer” programs, and mining contact center data to identify areas for product improvement.
The report is available for purchase today from ICMI.
More of a visual person? Check out this infographic for a condensed version of some of the findings and recommendations from the report.