Self-service saves UK contact centres £1.6bn per year

“The UK Contact Centre Operational Review (6th edition - 2008)”, a recent major study of over 200 contact centres carried out by ContactBabel, has found that although only 6.5% of inbound calls are dealt with entirely through self-service, rather than a live contact centre agent, the savings to the UK contact centre industry amount to over £1.6bn per year.

Findings within the “Self-Service” chapter of the report, sponsored by Vicorp, show that of the 10.3bn calls per year that UK contact centres receive, 670m of them are dealt with entirely through automated processes. Respondents to the survey stated that on average, each call dealt with by a contact centre agent costs £2.88, whereas one dealt with by self-service costs only 43p.

“This demonstrates how organisations can benefit from self-service,” says Brendan Treacy, CEO at Vicorp.  “The business case for appropriate automation of simple and repetitive tasks is impressive and now that such services are more widely accepted by callers the savings impact is growing.” [click heading for more]