As with any business, your contact center likely makes maximizing your return on investment - or ROI - a priority. When you pour money into your company, you expect to see some kind of return on that expense. Depending on what you’re spending and why, the return may range from greater consumer interest to literal profits - it all depends on how you measure success.

Here, we’ll discuss how to evaluate, measure, and increase your return on investment and use call center technology to improve everything from productivity to efficiency - and even customer satisfaction. Keep reading to learn more!

What is Your Current ROI?

Before you can determine whether you need to improve your ROI or not, you’ve got to figure out what your ROI is. Doing so isn’t difficult - it just takes enough time to gather some basic information about your current, everyday call center operations.

Some of the information you will need to compile to help you understand your current ROI include:

• Current revenue annually
• Number of call center agents currently on your staff
• Expected number of additional seasonal hires
• Number of weeks or months that seasonal hires are expected to work each year
• Employee turnover rate
• Typical amount of downtime during the slower season
• Typical amount of downtime during the busier season

Looking at this information doesn't just tell you how you’re doing right now; it gives you an idea of your potential for growth. The picture you can paint with this information will help you better understand what you’re currently doing well and where your facility needs improvement so that you can tighten the reins and bring about a better ROI.

How Do You Increase Your ROI?

What are some ways that you can increase your call center’s ROI? Focusing on CRM - customer relationship management - is always key. However, saying that is like saying, “You have to tell your agents to do a good job.” It’s too general.

Here, we’ll break done a few ways that you can hit your CRM goals and use that to maximize your facility’s ROI:

• Predictive dialing for outgoing centers - An investment in lead generation can become a budget misfire when that list sits idly by, growing cold. A predictive dialer solution helps speed up the dialing process in an outbound call canter, making better use of time and making more connections in less time. More connections mean more conversions and more satisfied customers. Don’t sit on those leads longer than you have to!
• Multichannel engagement - Are you engaging with consumers across every platform possible? Many of today’s call centers aren’t just using the traditional telephone line. They’re engaging through email, chat, text messaging, media chats using video, and more. Integrating more social media and communication channels into your consumer engagement strategy is a great way to maximize your ROI.
• Coaching, recording, and other in-call solutions - There are so many ways that you can use today’s call center technology to increase your ROI. All of these involve assisting agents in improving customer relations and providing excellent customer service and experience. Some examples include on-call coaching, call recording solutions, whisper and barge technology, and much more. All of these options allow management team members to assist agents in doing their best jobs every day - and making consumers happier every time they call.
• IVR - Your integrated voice response system is your ticket to resolving simple consumer concerns, questions, and complaints quickly and efficiently without getting live agents involved. This frees up your live agents to take care of more meaningful tasks with other customers - and keeps costs low since you only pay the labor costs for the work done by the live agents, rather than for the IVR solution!

The Role of Call Center Technology in Increasing ROI

For all of these great examples of ways to increase your facility’s return on investment, there would be little sense in attempting any of them without the right call center technology.

Outfitting your center with the right technology is an investment in itself. Choosing an affordable solution for software can be a great way to keep costs low, but always be sure that functionality is your top priority when selecting technology of any kind. Remember - your call center technology is the backbone of your operations. No matter what your current ROI, you can’t afford to waste money on a solution that doesn’t work for your facility!

Good technology should not only seem well-suited to your facility’s needs, but also be easy to implement and integrate. It shouldn’t be difficult for you to put your new solution to work alongside your current software and hardware. Excessive training also shouldn’t be necessary; the more intuitive a program is, the better it will be for companies who have a staff comprised of agents at every skill level.

Prioritizing not only the procurement but also the proper adoption and implementation of solid call center technology is the best way to maximize your ROI. No matter how great your software solution may be, there is no sense in investing money in it if you’re not equally willing to invest your time and effort in putting it into action. Be sure to focus on training your agents properly so that new technology can be put to use quickly and correctly.

If you’re looking for the very best call center technology currently available, look no further than the industry leaders at ChaseData. We have what your team needs to compete with and lead the competition in terms of providing excellent customer service, keeping productivity high, costs low, and maximizing your company’s return on investment. Contact ChaseData today to learn more!