Why Now’s the Time to Flex Your Contact Centre

Joe Paul explains how having the ability to flex could benefit your contact centre.

All call centres experience periods where their call volumes fluctuate, often with dramatic increases at certain times of the year.

Typically, these demand increases will not last continuously but will peak and subside again in due course. So having to pay the top whack for those extra licences throughout the entire year can be hugely frustrating and does not make good financial sense. ‘Flexing’ provides the perfect solution to this.

1. No commitment

In the ‘customer-premises equipment’ (CPE) world customers have to purchase outright the maximum number of licences that they will need at any given point and they must pay support on these licences too – whether they are used or not.

That’s a big commitment, big inefficiency and a big cost! Yet some cloud platforms allow customers to commit only to what they know they will use frequently – but with the additional option to flex up as and when needed throughout their contract.

2. No set-up costs

Customers using legacy systems are required to commit from the offset, regardless of how frequently these additional seats will be used. To make matters worse, set-up charges can be incurred for these additional licences.

These costs quickly add up, taking a significant chunk out of the capex budget.

Flexing means you can reduce up-front commitment and choose a more conservative number of full-time concurrent agents (knowing you can still flex up to meet demand during your seasonal peaks).

It also does not incur any set-up costs for the additional agents when used over the contracted period, so it can be a double saving.

3. No prior notice

Sometimes peaks can be predictable if your business is seasonal, but sometimes additional capacity is needed at a moment’s notice – perhaps in response to events that can’t be predicted.

Adding additional licences onto a pre-existing legacy system can take weeks, with additional costs also potentially incurred for ISDN channels, voice cards, other hardware and additional maintenance all adding to the painful process.

Yet some cloud platforms can give customers the power to flex up with no prior notice. The administrator creates a new user within the portal and they are immediately able to access and start using the system.

4. No capex

The initial costs of implementing a new CPE system takes a sizeable chunk out of the capex budget, with this being an offputting cost to many.

Flexing allows for preliminary costs to be reduced as only concurrent agents are contracted, therefore up-front costs are smaller.

Customers can then plan for their flexing periods and incorporate it in their opex budget, as customers are billed monthly in arrears.

5. No restrictions

Cloud platforms can give customers the freedom to scale up to double the amount of agents and then scale back down to their number of licensed agents – without being tied into contract for the flexed agents used.

Having this independence means contact centres do not have empty seats for countless months of the year and avoid those extra costs on set-up (and potentially maintenance too).

Overall, having the tools to flex within the cloud can save you money and give you the ability to manage high call volumes during seasonal periods – without having to commit to a vast amount of seats that will be redundant for much of the year.

With thanks to Joe Paul at Magnetic North