In a previous article, I asked if you think your Contact Center is progressive. I also
alluded to the point that when most Contact Center management brings improvements to the Executive level the process ends or shelved for the immediate future.
Ask yourself, how does the Executive and the organization view your Contact Center?
Do they view it as a cost center or a profit center?
If you are not sure, ask your Executive sponsor. When your organization looks at your Contact Center as a cost center vs a profit center, it now becomes a financial decision vs a CX decision.
This is often where the “best laid plans” go awry. The Contact Center group needs to build a business case and sell this to the executive so that they see the perceived value in the enhancements or the potential what they would miss if these enhancements were not in place.
Where to start?
The first place that you want to start is not with the technology but with the business. For you to help
transform your Contact Center into a progressive one, you and your team need to be the internal advocacy team driving that change.
To do so, you need to learn another language! That language is business financial speak.
You do not have to go do your MBA after hours to learn all the concepts and terms, but you do need to understand the costs and revenues that your Contact Center domain produces in relation to your company.
In a selfless plug, this is where a Customer Experience Solutions Provider like LANtelligence can come in and assist your team to help build the business case for your CX innovation and enhancements.
As the Contact Center management team, you should have an idea on what each agent costs to the
company as well as the amount of turnover in your organization. When we talk costs, this includes salary, benefits as well as training and all other employee related costs.
Starting with this information, you can get a high-level understanding of just the costs of the Contact Center staff within your company.
Start with tasking yourself:
1. Find the people that can provide this information.
2. Understanding and knowledge of this information
In the next post, we will look at other items to help build your evolution to a Progressive Contact Center.
