Posted by Kerry Engle on Mon, Jul 27, 2009 @ 05:34 PM
Do more with Less...this has been the mantra for most of my clients this year. They say they are being asked to continue to cut costs while maintaining the same "metrics" they have always had - Customer Satisfaction, First Call Resolution, AHT, etc.
Five of the most common cost reduction methods that have surfaced again and again in the call center press, the blogoshere, newsletters, vendor solicitations, etc. are (no particular order):
- More distributed agents: at-home and outsourced
- Decreased headcount
- Increased self-service
- Turnover Reduction
- Reduced Technology Costs
When we asked folks to rank specific cost cutting methods according to their potential NEGATIVE impact to customer satisfaction goals here's what we found (a ranking of 1 is most likely to have a negative effect.)
- Reducing agent headcount
- Reducing supervisor headcount
- Using outsourced agents
- Reducing support services headcount
- Reducing technology costs
- Self-service
- Using part-time agents
- Using at-home agents
- Reducing agent attrition
I would be interested in finding out what others are doing to cut costs and what metrics they think are at risk due to the cuts?