Make a Business Case for Increased Customer Satisfaction

Moving Beyond Cost Containment

The cost benefits of IP Telephony are common knowledge, but the true value of the IP contact center goes beyond toll charges and reduced “cost per call.”  The increased functionality raises the level of customer service, increasing loyalty and offering new avenues for revenue and growth. A strong business case for the IP contact center can be built around three areas:

 

Effective Management

• IP simplifies administration by substituting an extensive infrastructure that required placement and management of hardware in multiple locations with a software that can be centrally deployed, managed, and scaled across numerous sites. Staff can be added to easily accommodate call fluctuations. Remote branch sites can be brought online much faster. Real-time changes to single agent or agent group allocation can be adjusted with drag-and-drop remote management, without reprogramming the switch. IP drives both customer satisfaction and agent efficiency while optimizing all contact center resources.

Business Agility

• Standards-based, IP provides visibility and flexibility previously unattainable. With IP, contact centers enjoy a deeper integration between the front and back office, providing a more personal and rewarding customer experience. This integration with ERP and CRM increases an agent's knowledge and provides them with the ability to connect customers to experts outside the contact center. This type of integration dramatically increases first call resolution. The ability to use new interaction methods like video, IM, chat, co-browsing and push-page technologies lets customers communicate in the mode they prefer, and allows agents to quickly resolve common questions. Service quality during peaks, call spikes and disasters is also enhanced with the ability to extend the call center to remote agents and branch offices.

Cost Reduction

• An IP contact center saves salary, real estate and communications overhead — all without compromising customer satisfaction. Agents can be added online only when necessary, reducing salary overhead. Adding home workers and branch offices to the contact center helps manage real estate expenses. And by using IP trunking (transporting calls over a WAN) multi-site contact center environments, especially global service organizations, can reap significant savings in call charges.

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