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Contact centre costs 'can be cut'
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There are a number of ways to improve contact centre costs while improving the service they offer, experts have claimed. According to CIO Today, contact centres tend to carefully monitor their costs, with the need to reduce them particularly profound in times of economic difficulty. Speaking to the news provider, Serge Hyppolite, director of interaction management at Aspect, said technologies such as unified communications can be useful in these situations. He explained: "A unified communications strategy can take the guesswork out of operations by creating and implementing clear, streamlined processes that have a direct impact on the bottom line." In addition, because of this the customer may receive increased service levels as they can be easily directed to the appropriate employee, no matter what their location, he added. Christine Holley, director of market communications at Interactive Intelligence, also told the news provider that the uptake of business communications tools such as VoIP can be of benefit. She claimed that use of these solutions could see firms take advantage of soft return on investments such as increased productivity. Additionally, Ms Holley pointed to remote workers as a way contact centres can lower their costs, due to factors such as lower overheads and turnover rates, while the solution also increases the customer experience by enabling more extended service hours. The expert adds: "Remote agents also provide business continuity should the contact centre go offline, thereby minimising service interruptions." Bruce Pollock, vice president of products and services at West Interactive, also highlighted the benefits hosted services can offer to contact centres. Mr Pollock pointed out this solution gives firms access to best-of-breed technology, coupled with reduced upfront and ongoing infrastructure costs, the news provider reveals. Furthermore, he also backed up the calls for contact centres to deploy unified communications, agreeing that it results in increased productivity while cutting operating costs. Last week, analyst IDC claimed the Middle East, and African IT markets' growth will slow in 2009, but predicted areas such as IP telephony, outsourcing, green IT and virtualisation could still be popular with business users. Azzurri is helping organisations make their contact centres work better with a focus on multimedia blended contact centres.  |
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