We’ve discussed what Contact Center Unified Communications is, so now let’s look at how and why Contact Center Unified Communications can benefit your business. Aberdeen Research recently performed a survey on the topic and, as it turns out, it has many benefits. These include improved contact center performance, which leads to better customer satisfaction, which then leads to better financial results.
This is the second in a series on Contact Center Unified Communications.
Why Contact Center Unified Communications Improves Performance
The data from Aberdeen Research show that Contact Center Unified Communications helps boost key contact center metrics, as shown in Figure 1 below:
And here’s the why Contact Center Unified Communications can give your contact center :
- A 4% annual improvement in agent productivity. This is three times the increase in agent productivity than companies without unified communications. Why such a big increase? Because Contact Center Unified Communications gives agents the ability to connect and collaborate on-demand with whoever in the business has the answer they need for a customer. Agents can see who is available to help resolve an issue and through which medium – chat, email, office phone, mobile or video. They no longer have to go hunting through multiple systems for the answers or blindly call around to find someone with the answer, wasting time trying to reach people who aren’t available.
- An 5% annual boost in first contact resolution rates. This is again nearly three times greater than contact centers without Contact Center Unified Communications. This is primarily because agents are no longer limited to their scripts, documentation or training when handling a rare and difficult question. Instead, they can reach the expert in the company that has the answer and provide that to the customer during their first interaction.
- A 2% annual increase in the number of quality Service Level Agreements (SLAs) met. This is in line with the increase in agent productivity and first call resolutions. Higher performing agents mean better quality – and you don’t have to add personnel to reach your SLA goals, so in that sense it’s also a cost savings.
- A 6% annual increase in agent utilization rate. While this may not sound like much, it is nearly five times greater than the agent utilization increase achieved by businesses who don’t take advantage of Contact Center Unified Communications.
- An annual decrease in agent overtime costs. Companies with Contact Center Unified Communications are seeing a 4% year-over year decrease in agent overtime costs, while other businesses continue to go in the hole with overtime. This is again because Contact Center Unified Communications makes agents so much more productive, they don’t need to work as much overtime to meet your SLAs.
Why Contact Center Unified Communications Leads to Better Customer Satisfaction
Based on the Aberdeen research, it’s clear that Contact Center Unified Communications leads to improved contact center performance overall. Meanwhile, the same studies by Aberdeen Research have shown that businesses with Contact Center Unified Communications triple their customer satisfaction rates. The reason why is pretty clear, because what do customers want? They want a consistent experience across all channels, their goal accomplished on the first contact as quickly as possible, and for you to understand their needs and get them the right resolution as productively as possible.
As you can see by the above graphic, contact centers with unified communications have happier customers:
- An 11.8% year-over-year improvement in customer satisfaction
- Nearly 10% yearly improvement in customer retention, which is even more valuable as customers increasingly become more difficult to replace
- A 6% annual improvement in the number of customer complaints
Why Contact Center Unified Communications Leads to Better Financial Results
We’ve seen that Contact Center Unified Communications leads to improved contact center performance, and that leads to improved customer satisfaction. Improved customer satisfaction in turn leads to better financial results, because happier customers stay and buy more.
As this graphic shows, companies with Contact Center Unified Communications increase their annual revenue, customer lifetime value and cross-sell and up-sell revenue.
In addition, these companies save money. Fully 15% of employee time is spent looking for customer data, so giving your agents timely and relevant insights can save a company with 200 agents an average of $1.5 million in unnecessary costs each year.
This is Why Best-In-Class Companies are Best-In-Class
Best-In-Class companies are known for keeping their customers happy and having year-over-year (YoY) improvements in their customer satisfaction rates. Just look at the difference between those who are best in their class versus everyone else. You knew they were better, but look at how much better – 30% better in customer retention and almost the same in year-over-year customer satisfaction.
Similarly, best-in-class companies have the best first-contact resolution rates, average handle time, and agent utilization rate.
| Year over Year Annual Improvements | Best-in-Class | All Others |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Retention Rate | 83% | 53% |
| Customer Satisfaction Rate | 29.8% | 1.3% |
| First Call Resolution Rate | 19.1% | 1.2% |
| Average Handle Time (decrease) | 16.5% | -6.0% |
| Agent Utilization | 13.2% | -1.2% |
At the beginning of this discussion, we said we’d explore why Contact Center Unified Communications benefits your company. Integrating unified communications with your contact center agent desktop improves your:
- Contact center performance
- Customer satisfaction
- First contact resolution rates
- Agent performance and utilization
- Financial results
And the dramatic improvements demonstrate why Contact Center Unified Communications is important. The Aberdeen Research study results prove that unified communications in your contact center will deliver a:
- 3.2 X annual improvement in customer satisfaction rate
- 3.0 X annual improvement in agent productivity
- 2.8 X annual improvement in first-call resolution rates
Why Contact Center Unified Communications? Because it will improve all the things that make a company Best-In-Class. If you want your business to be Best-In-Class, Contact Center Unified Communications will help get you there.
Stay tuned for the next blog in this series, How Contact Center Unified Communications Helps Your Customers.
For more in-depth information:
- Listen to the Aberdeen Research on-demand webinar The Business Value of Contact Center and UC Integration
- Download the Aberdeen Research Infographic Maximize Customer Satisfaction through Communication & Collaboration
