The recent pandemic forced us into remote working…
…Remote working forced many organisations to implement collaboration solutions.
…And collaboration solutions brought unforeseen improvement.
The rate of the implementation of collaboration and other solutions – which would have not arrived in many organisations for another 8-10 years (or so Gartner and McKinsey estimate) – is what is being called the dramatic digital transformation of 2020: a decade’s worth in just 6 months.
As we touched on in an earlier blog (Part I and Part II of 2020 shaped our 2021 CX trends: Now What?), the early transformation of some organisations, particularly in customer service, in turn forced an evolution in many others: The landscape of the customer experience had truly changed, and was never going back.
As has been widely circulated, Microsoft Teams saw phenomenal growth, with Microsoft reporting nearly treble growth between March and October 2020, and the number of daily global users of the platform in April 2021 now at 145 million.
And in June 2021 it was reported that Microsoft Teams has come from a 2019 market share of zero percent to being the number two UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) provider, globally.
CRN: Microsoft now second biggest UCaaS vendor behind RingCentral
So what is so special about Teams? Why are organisations adopting it so fast, forsaking all others? And why is Microsoft Teams a benefit to the contact centre specifically?
Measuring the ROI of Teams in the Contact Centre
There are several good reasons for why Teams is not just feasible but actively recommended for the contact centre and we’ve included references to some of our eBooks at the end of this blog that cover more of the benefits of a Microsoft Teams contact centre.
- This Whitepaper by Metrigy (formerly Nemertes) looks at the benefits of providing collaboration for your contact centre team: Team Collaboration in the Contact Centre
Our objective here is to provide you with tips for calculating the ROI (Return on Investment) that comes from Teams.
Calculating the ROI for Teams means working out the value gained from the solution, in as close to monetary terms as possible, over and above its cost (both outright and ongoing).
ROI for a contact centre solution should examine:
- Cost of solution
- Overall impacted costs
- Productivity
- Employee retention
- Revenue
1. Cost of Solution
This includes cost of infrastructure, support and maintenance, and implementation and training as well as licenses (both ongoing and reactive/on demand).
2. Overall impacted costs
What impact has the new solution had on overall costs? While many of these are organisation-wide, and not limited to the contact centre, the contact centre typically has one of the highest urgency ratings for adds, moves and changes as well as bringing the greatest impact to the business for anything going wrong – which usually costs money.
3. Productivity
Improvements in productivity are very measurable in the contact centre, simply by reviewing pre- and post-implementation data for such fundamental numbers as call waiting and AHT (average handle time). Contact centre staff are backed up efficiently and effectively (for example using Presence and Chat) by experts all over the business, both inside and outside the contact centre. This reduces both onboarding/training time and ongoing challenges, permanently impacting contact centre statistics.
4. Employee Retention
One of the highest costs in any contact centre is staff attrition (or the resulting recruitment and onboarding). Keeping staff is an accepted priority, and factors to this include adequate tools, a strong team environment, personal development, the satisfaction of doing their job well, and a space that supports them in doing their best. Since many workers own high quality personal devices, they have high expectations for their work tools – and Teams, with its consumer-standard chat and superior collaboration definitely qualifies! Meanwhile, video meetings, group chats and more will help to build and maintain a healthy team engagement, even when working remotely. These tools along with one-on-one chat (even more useful while an agent is on a call) allow supervisors in a Teams contact centre to support their teams more easily, and agents will also have easy access to useful resources will empower them with current, highly accessible information. Finally, being well supported in a great environment will allow agents to deliver a superior customer experience that will continue to keep them happy in their jobs.
5. Revenue
Revenue should be positively impacted by several factors; while the reduced call waiting and handle time will bring costs down, these and an improved customer experience will also result in higher call volumes for sales, or more opportunity to upsell – or greater chance of retention in a customer services environment.
In the contact centre the effect of a collaboration solution such as Teams is very measurable, in fact more so than most areas of the business due to its nature as a tightly managed cost centre. Even before implementation it is possible to review some of these numbers and make logical forecasts for improved outcomes and positive ROI based on the new features that Teams brings.
Check out our eBook: The ROI of Microsoft Teams for your Contact Centre
Other resources:
- We recommend this eBook from Metrigy: Team Collaboration in the Contact Centre
- Check out our Microsoft Teams web page for more information: enghouseteams.com
Contact us to find out more about enabling your contact centre on Teams at helloAPAC@enghouse.com
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