The Cost Benefits of a Cloud Contact Centre

Posted: 1 March 2018

We regularly see news articles describing the pressure businesses are under to reduce costs and grow revenue.

However, these commentaries rarely offer solutions to the challenge, leaving the audience scratching their heads wondering: where to from here?

 

In Asia, the need to address costs continues to be one of the highest concerns of any business. Research from industry analyst house IDC suggests the financial landscape will only become more complex resulting in the continued grumble about weak budgets.

Along with the traditional cost reduction and efficiency focused actions, in the contact centre space, one practical way to address costs and potential revenue leakage is to consider the benefits of software:  more specifically, cloud software over traditional on-premise hardware.

The various benefits of cloud services versus hosted and/or on-premise solutions are often hotly debated and we often see a myriad of misconceptions: on-premise does this, cloud does that. While we encourage healthy debate, in an effort to continue the discussion, my focus will be on the top cost advantages cloud software brings to the contact centre space:

Reduce reliance on and cost of third parties

Of all the advantages that a cloud contact centre solution brings, the ability to ‘self-manage’ is one of the greatest. By reducing the need and therefore the associated (often high) costs of engaging a third party for additions or amendments to IVR scripts, agent numbers produces significant savings both in time and efficiency.

In this “anytime, anywhere” age, businesses can’t afford – either from a time or money perspective – to be held back by third parties delaying the roll-out of new campaigns or charging prohibitive prices for the privilege. Businesses using cloud in the contact centre have complete control over their own destiny, launching scripts in seconds and configuring new agents in minutes.

Reduce CAPEX

On-premise contact centres burn through CAPEX, which can chew into your bottom line. CAPEX means the full cost of the asset is imposed straight away and the expense depreciates over time. A cloud contact centre uses OPEX with a pay-as-you-go model, freeing up funds that can be spent more efficiently spent and better aligned with business needs. Many customers find that savings accrue from simply changing their accounting for technology assets from CAPEX to OPEX.

Reduce hosting, maintenance and infrastructure bills

Eliminating costs for the space, supporting infrastructure, electricity, security and monitoring of hardware is a big tick in the CFOs book. Cloud contact centre software is charged per agent per minute and includes all enabling infrastructure costs. So your costs only scale in line with business growth.

Reductions in costs, increases in efficiencies, improvements in cash-flow management. These are not new concepts and are unlikely to disappear as key business drivers. Cloud contact centre solutions are one way – what other options have you implemented in your business?