How Contact Center Automation Reduces Costs

By Replicant
June 15, 2022

Reducing Costs With Contact Center Automation

Cost reduction is the overall goal of every organization as inflation increases the price of many basic products and services. Contact center management teams face the same challenge, especially in light of rising wages, labor retention, and attrition difficulties. Contact center automation is a great way for businesses to effectively reduce those costs.

Calculating the true cost of an in-house call center system isn’t easy. According to a November 2020 article on Business.com, capital expenses, self-managed costs, cloud hosting costs, subscription fees, inbound and outbound calling fees, labor wages, and location fees can add up to a hefty amount just to keep customers satisfied.

Contact center automation uses artificial-intelligence-powered technology to answer routine customer questions and inquiries with zero wait times for customers or no human interaction for the business. This reduces the amount of boring and mundane work for live agents, freeing them to handle more challenging and complex calls that require a human touch.

In addition, automation solutions can “learn” from each call, expanding its scripts and responses over time. This means that the automated system can handle more and more inquiries the longer it’s part of a call center. Regular reports allow management to pinpoint areas needed for improvement, which means long-term growth in efficiency and effectiveness for the call center as a whole.

How are call center costs calculated?

Call center costs are generally calculated by combining the cost of agents, outsourced staff, and supporting infrastructure and then dividing that by the average number of calls to determine cost per call. A business may also look at average handle times to add to the cost analysis.

What role does technology play in reducing customer service costs?

One way technology can reduce costs is by lowering handle times by providing all needed information and data at the fingertips of agents. Advanced solutions like contact center automation can replace limited temporary and offshore staff. Instead, an unlimited number of Tier One calls can be automated.

How does automation reduce costs?

Contact center automation can reduce costs by allowing a company to pay for only what it needs to use. In a traditional call center, a business may hire agents or use offshore staff in anticipation of increased volumes. Training costs can be high, especially with increased customer service representative labor market attrition. However, if those volumes don’t materialize, the organization is paying for unneeded resources.

Automation technology allows a business to pay only when calls are answered, allowing it to infinitely scale up or down as call volume changes.

For example, Replicant’s Thinking Machine helped a financial services company “take the seasonality out of the equation.” In this case, whether the business received one call or 10,000 calls, the Thinking Machine was able to handle all of them at the same time. For more complex and nuanced calls, Replicant forwarded complete notes to experienced agents.

This solution not only eliminated the costs that had been incurred to hire and train temporary employees but eliminated costly hold times leading to a better customer experience as well.

How difficult is contact center automation implementation?

A powerful, secure, easily integrated contact center solution can deploy in a matter of weeks. Since contact center automation uses a single AI engine, it can power both voice and messaging channels with a central conversation engine. This engine leverages a shared intent library to deploy and scale conversational AI use cases faster across both languages and channels.

As you are researching contact center automation, calculate your ROI (return on investment). Once you see the benefits of this technology, request a demo. Allow us to learn more about your business and share how we can help you reduce costs.