Getting the Most from Your Call Center Investment

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TMVendor Guru
Getting the Most from Your
Call Center Investment
By Gabby Hyman
© 2006 VendorGuru.com. All rights reserved. www.VendorGuru.comTable of Contents
Executive Summary.......................................................................................................... 2
Introduction.................................................................................................................... 3
Costs Add Up Without the Right Phone System..................................................................... 4
Scalability Failure............................................................................................................. 4 Customer Dissatisfaction and Abandonment........................................................................ 4
Mounting Staffing Costs.................................................................................................... 4
Unchecked Calling Costs................................................................................................... 4
Cost Savings and the Right Solution................................................................................... 5
Enhancing Customer Service for Client Retention and Up-Selling............................................ 5
Measuring ROI and TCO.................................................................................................... 6
How Buying Choices Affect TCO......................................................................................... 7
Sampling the Returns....................................................................................................... 8
Case Study: JCI Hits a Home Run...................................................................................... 9
Conclusion...................................................................................................................... 10

© 2006 VendorGuru.com. All rights reserved. www.VendorGuru.com Page: 1Executive Summary
Success often brings unanticipated growing pains to businesses precisely at the moment they're experiencing initial triumph in the marketplace. When businesses add phones and operators to existing call centers to cope with growth, they run some predictable risks:
.Scalability Failure: A cheap initial call center investment in a system that can't handle growth eventually results in increased business costs for both hardware and staff. A telephony solution that can't respond to corporate growth leads to caller abandonment and loss of sales, especially during spike service periods during holidays or successful advertising campaigns.
.Customer Dissatisfaction and Abandonment: Customers whose calls are repeatedly transferred or whose files are neither current nor readily accessible report that they are dissatisfied with call center personnel. A customer on hold is a customer who will gladly do business elsewhere.
.Mounting Staffing Costs: New employee training and lost employee experience and efficiency are the obvious costs of call center staffing growth. However, pouring money into an obsolete, non-integrated system means foregoing the host of cost-lowering features the latest systems provide.
.Unchecked Calling Costs: Compared to today's efficient telephony solutions, old systems waste significant amounts of money on incoming and outgoing calls.
Today, companies can prosper from a wide range of computer telephony integration (CTI) solutions. CTI is the full integration of voice and data systems. The convergence of computer systems with call center operations adds increased scalability and muscle to existing business operations. Whether companies replace call center operations from the ground up or add computer integration to existing telephony, the business advantages of implementing the latest CTI systems include:
.Enhancing customer service for client retention and up-selling .Increasing staff effectiveness and accountability .Devoting management time and energy to running the business rather than compensating for an outdated communications network .Controlling call center costs
Estimating the return on investment in new telephony can be tricky, since so much depends upon organiz... [download for more]