Understanding TCO and Its Components
When evaluating the cost of your contact center’s voice communications, it is essential to consider the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). TCO encompasses all the expenses associated with the acquisition, deployment, and maintenance of voice technology. It consists of two types of costs: visible and invisible.
Visible costs are relatively easy to calculate as they include tangible components such as servers, phones, phone lines, and computers. On the other hand, invisible costs are harder to track, but they make up the majority of your TCO. These costs encompass factors like licenses, in-country labor and maintenance, and downtime. Identifying and managing these invisible costs is crucial for optimizing your contact center’s expenses.
Factors Affecting Contact Center Voice Pricing
o determine the most cost-effective solution for your contact center’s voice communications, several factors come into play. Let’s explore these factors in detail:
Voice Infrastructure
The cloud voice infrastructure forms a significant part of your contact center’s costs. Traditional telephony systems involving phone lines, telephones, servers, and computers can incur substantial expenses in installation and maintenance. However, a modern contact center voice platform provides a viable solution to reduce telephony spending while gaining access to robust call tools. Some of the essential features and capabilities offered by a cloud-based solution include:
- Platform Intelligence: An intelligent platform consolidates telephony carriers and call tools into one interface, automating tasks and streamlining workflows to increase efficiency across your tech stack.
- Voice Management and Routing Capabilities: Optimizing voice resources through a cloud-based solution helps create operational and cost efficiencies by eliminating reliance on outdated infrastructure. Visual drag-and-drop routing capabilities enhance flexibility and require no architectural changes.
- Configurations and Setup: Cloud contact center solutions offer quick setup and configuration, reducing implementation time and associated costs. Additionally, platform maintenance becomes the responsibility of the provider, requiring minimal oversight from your end.
Number of User Seats
The number of user licenses required directly influences the pricing of contact center software. Typically, pricing is determined on a per-user basis. By integrating a cloud contact center voice solution with your legacy on-premise call center or CCaaS system, you can scale your operations without driving up costs. This approach also allows you to incorporate your existing devices, reducing expenses on desktop equipment.
Company Size
Contact center voice providers offer solution packages and pricing that cater to the needs of organizations of all sizes. Larger companies often make and receive a higher volume of calls, requiring additional tools and features. Hosted contact center voice solutions come in tiered structures, allowing you to choose features and services that best fit your needs and budget. This flexibility ensures that you only pay for what you require while scaling your operations effectively.
Features
Contact center features play a significant role in determining the cost of your call center. Traditional on-premise voice stacks may have limitations in terms of offering advanced features. However, with contact center voice software, you can enhance your legacy stack to support international calls and leverage standard and advanced features. These features can include Interactive Voice Response (IVR), Automatic Call Distribution (ACD), call recording, call queuing, personalized IVR, skills-based routing, real-time analytics, and integrations. By bundling these functionalities into your plan, you can improve efficiency through automation and no-code solutions, thereby reducing costs.
Call Rates
Companies relying solely on on-premise phone systems may overpay for their contact center’s call rates, particularly when expanding into new markets. Cloud contact center voice providers with strong carrier relationships offer more favorable rates for global voice services. By adopting VoIP services, organizations can save up to 90% on international calls. Understanding the impact of call rates and coverage on your call center’s TCO is essential for cost optimization.
Support
significantly lower costs, minimize downtime, and prevent revenue loss. Different levels of support are available, including standard support, real-time support, and premium support. While premium support may involve additional costs, the value lies in ensuring excellent customer experiences and resolving issues promptly. Efficient support can enhance call quality, improve routing, and maintain customer satisfaction, positively impacting your contact center’s performance.
Analytics and Reporting
Detailed analytics and reporting tools are necessary for monitoring and optimizing the voice performance of your contact center. Basic reporting capabilities are usually included in contact center platforms, but more advanced reporting tools may incur additional costs depending on the level of detail, customization, and integration required. Investing in these tools can provide valuable insights into Quality of Service (QoS), call traffic patterns, call audio quality, and other key metrics, helping you make data-driven decisions to optimize costs and enhance performance.
Challenges Faced by Tech Leaders in Call Centers
Tech leaders in call centers often encounter financial challenges that impact their operations and budget. Some common challenges include:
- Lower or Reduced Budget: Economic uncertainty can result in lower or reduced budgets, prompting leaders to seek cost-effective voice offerings that minimize IT expenditure.
- Employee Attrition: High employee attrition rates can lead to a loss of institutional knowledge and increased pressure on the remaining staff. This situation can result in employee burnout, increased training costs, and reduced capacity.
- Consolidating Incompatible Tools: Using multiple tools that lack integration compatibility can create gaps in functionality. Organizations may need additional apps and tools to fill these gaps, resulting in higher costs and a more complex technology stack.
- Paying for Unnecessary Features: Subscribing to packages with unnecessary features can force organizations to pay for higher-tiered plans. Understanding the required features and selecting appropriate packages is crucial for cost optimization.
- Frequent Outages: Frequent outages not only lead to lost productivity but also result in dissatisfied customers and increased costs associated with issue resolution. Ensuring a stable and effective call center environment is essential to maintain productivity and reduce costs.
Solutions to Reduce Costs and Scale Efficiency
To address these challenges and optimize the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of your contact center’s voice communications, consider the following solutions:
- Evaluate Cloud-Based Solutions: Transitioning to a cloud-based contact center voice solution can help reduce costs by eliminating the need for expensive infrastructure and maintenance. Cloud solutions offer flexible pricing models and provide access to advanced features and tools without the need for significant upfront investments.
- Consolidate Voice Infrastructure: By consolidating telephony carriers and call tools into a unified platform, you can streamline workflows, automate tasks, and improve efficiency. This consolidation reduces costs associated with multiple vendors and simplifies management.
- Right-Size Licenses: Assess your contact center’s user needs and right-size the number of licenses accordingly. Avoid overprovisioning or underutilizing licenses to optimize costs. With a cloud-based solution, you can scale licenses up or down as needed, ensuring cost efficiency.
- Consider the Scalability Advantage: Cloud contact center voice solutions offer scalability, allowing you to adjust capacity based on demand. This scalability ensures that you pay for what you use, avoiding unnecessary expenses during low-demand periods.
- Choose the Right Feature Set: Analyze your specific requirements and choose a contact center voice solution that offers the essential features you need. Avoid unnecessary features that can drive up costs. Opt for solutions that include standard and advanced features bundled into the pricing plans.
- Negotiate Call Rates: When selecting a cloud contact center voice provider, consider their carrier relationships and negotiate favorable call rates. Providers with global voice services and strong partnerships can offer cost savings, especially for international calls.
- Optimize Support: Select a contact center voice solution that provides proactive and responsive support. Efficient support minimizes downtime, reduces revenue loss, and ensures smooth operations. Evaluate different support tiers to determine the level of service that best fits your needs and budget.
- Leverage Advanced Analytics: Advanced analytics and reporting tools provide valuable insights into your contact center’s performance. While some tools may involve additional costs, they enable data-driven decision-making, improve call quality, and optimize resource allocation.
Conclusion
Understanding and managing the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) associated with your contact center’s voice communications is crucial for financial optimization. By considering factors such as voice infrastructure, user seats, company size, features, call rates, support, and analytics, you can identify areas where costs can be reduced and efficiency can be enhanced. Embracing cloud-based solutions, consolidating infrastructure, right-sizing licenses, and leveraging advanced analytics are among the strategies that can help modernize your contact center’s voice system, lower costs, and improve overall performance.
About Telecoms-Channel
Telecoms-Channel.co.za is your one-stop source for the latest news and insights from the telecoms industry in South Africa, so that you get comprehensive coverage of the industry and keep up with the ever-evolving market landscape.
Whether you need to understand market trends, identify new opportunities, or stay informed of the latest developments, we have you covered. Check our favourite content here.
In addition to bringing the best news together, we have access to an extensive supplier network that makes it easy for any telecoms company looking to tap into new markets or enter the telecoms industry. With the comprehensive range of solutions available in the market, we help you to find the perfect combination to suit your business.
Take advantage of our expertise and contact us today to find your next partner!
