What does Cost Per Call mean?
Cost Per Call can be defined as the total costs involved in operating a call center divided by both the inbound or outbound calls. These costs or expenses would typically include infrastructure (including any leasing), salaries, utilities, software and support services.
Although this KPI can be a good way to gauge call efficiency and costs, and access the impact of cost on internal processes, caution is needed when using this indicator to monitor and measure employee performance. Lower call costs may not be a reliable indication of quality, so it should be used in conjunction with other performance measures such as call satisfaction ratings.
Reducing Cost Per Call
Once you’ve determined your cost per call over a determined period you can take some practical steps towards reducing the costs, such as:
- Leverage skill routing in the call process to get the callers query, or resolution dealt with by the right technical agent.
- Coaching and training your calling agents regularly to provide them with the skills to get convert calls as efficiently as possible.
- Investing in integrated call center software and telephony integration (CTI) in conjunction with self service software that enables user to complete many tasks autonomously, like bookings, purchases or settling invoices.