Every call center leader knows the particular metrics that translate into higher costs. The more calls you receive, the more agents you need. The longer those conversations typically last, the more it affects your bottom line.
Those basic two metrics–call volumes and average handle time–have been the core metrics contact centers have focused on for decades. When organizations want to reduce call center costs, they look there first.
But we know call center cost reduction can be a little more complicated than that.
Those basic metrics only consider the labor costs of having people to address customer calls. They don't reveal the hidden costs that can sometimes be difficult to measure in a contact center. You need to measure the root cause for long calls or high volumes in order to reduce them without worsening the customer experience. Understanding these underlying factors is crucial for implementing sustainable cost-reduction strategies that don't compromise service quality.
Focusing on just those two areas can cause you to neglect to monitor the other things that can drive costs as well: compliance problems, fraud, unnecessary business expenses or credits authorized, and inefficient agents who don't solve problems and result in repeated contacts. These hidden cost drivers can significantly impact your bottom line, often going unnoticed when organizations maintain a narrow focus on traditional metrics.
Accessing the right insights to reduce call center costs
At Creovai, we're introducing a more intuitive way to identify opportunities for call center cost reduction using the newest developments in artificial intelligence. Our conversation intelligence platform analyzes all of your customer conversations using advanced machine learning models and AI-powered predictive analytics. It uncovers factors that are driving up call length, reasons for repeat calls, compliance and fraud issues, and more—and delivers these root cause analyses in out-of-the-box dashboards that are easy for business users to understand.
We want our customers to clearly see and capture potential savings. So we've put everything related to reducing contact center costs in one set of dashboards, which include specific, detailed analytics.
Our cost-reduction dashboards offer pre-built reports to help you uncover call center cost-saving opportunities right away, and you can customize the dashboards with additional reports specific to your industry, business model, and needs.
Below, we’ll look at five ways our advanced analytics and cost-focused dashboards can help you reduce operational costs without compromising the quality of service.
5 ways conversation analytics help you reduce call center costs
Improve average handle time and first-call resolution
When Creovai analyzes your calls and chats, you’ll see more than just your basic average handle time and first-call resolution metrics. We automatically analyze your contact center conversations for real cost drivers that you can easily take action to prevent. This shows you the root cause of long calls or repeated contacts, so you know the source of your problems.
When you look at your cost-reduction dashboard, you’ll be able to instantly answer questions like:
- What issues drive customers to have to contact us repeatedly?
- What reasons do my agents give when they ask customers to call back?
- Are there any preventable, negative behaviors that extend my call times?
- What specific topics are extending call length, and are there things we can do to address these topics more efficiently?
Reduce unnecessary calls
With the average contact center call costing between $2.70 and $5.60, the price of unnecessary calls can quickly add up. Each superfluous call not only represents a direct operational expense but also contributes to increased agent workload and reduced overall efficiency. Creovai’s cost-reduction dashboards let you see the top drivers of unnecessary calls, including misdirected calls and channel switching, so you can uncover process improvements or agent coaching opportunities to reduce your overall call volume.
Creovai helps you answer critical process-related questions like:
- In what areas do my self-service channels fail?
- Which agents and issues spur the most transfers and misdirected calls?
- Is my automated attendant training/IVR working to prevent misdirected calls?
- Which causes of unnecessary calls can I prevent through agent education, process improvement, or better expectation setting with the customer?
Automate QA to optimize your labor
Companies spend millions trying to ensure contact center agents meet QA standards and compliance requirements. But there’s an easier, less expensive way. Our cost-reduction dashboards put that into focus.
When you use a conversation intelligence platform to monitor your conversations, you can conduct call monitoring for QA automatically, at scale. This automation enables 100% coverage of your call sample size, dramatically reducing the manual labor hours traditionally required for call auditing. As a result, your QA managers can redirect their expertise toward more strategic analysis and value-adding activities.
Proactively address fraud and compliance issues
Compliance issues and fraud are two areas that can drive up contact center costs if not addressed promptly. Compliance breaches, particularly in areas such as caller identity verification, can result in substantial fines and legal consequences. Additionally, fraudulent activities can impose costs far exceeding the initial charge, with research indicating approximately $4 in total costs for every $1 of fraud.
Creovai Conversation Intelligence allows your business to track compliance issues and reports of fraud as they occur. You can also set up automated notifications in Creovai or over email so that the appropriate teams are informed when they need to take action on a fraud report or compliance issue.
This can help your business resolve potential issues before they damage your brand reputation or become a legal liability. And by automatically reviewing all customer conversations for fraud reports, you may be able to identify trends that help you prevent bad actors from committing fraud in the future.
Reduce business costs
The financial impact of contact center agent behaviors and actions often extends beyond immediate operational costs. Sometimes, the introduction of a single procedural step can yield significant improvements in call outcomes and overall financial performance.
Our team can work closely with your organization to configure Creovai to measure business-specific cost drivers. This tailored approach ensures accurate detection and analysis of conversation patterns, helping optimize business outcomes through data-driven decision-making.
Here are some examples of the questions we help answer with our advanced analytics so our customers can drive down costs:
- Are agents consistently promoting paperless billing options during customer interactions? Is there a noticeable variation in paperless billing promotion rates among different agents or teams, potentially impacting call center cost reduction goals?
- Are agents following established troubleshooting protocols and exhausting all remote resolution options before dispatching technicians, thereby optimizing operational costs and improving first-call resolution rates?
- What patterns emerge in the distribution of discounts and account credits across teams and individual agents? Which specific customer scenarios or interaction types most frequently result in these financial concessions? Are there opportunities to standardize these practices for better cost control?
Interested in seeing Creovai in action? Schedule a call with our team of experts.
