Software As A Service (SaaS) Business Models For Contact Centers
Let’s face it. One of the key reasons why Enterprises like the SaaS model is it eliminates or dramatically reduces upfront capital outlay. Given the capital crunch that businesses are facing these days, it is no surprise that SaaS and Cloud Computing Services are making huge leaps in adoption and acceptance.
However, there is more than meets the eye. Software has been available for lease for several decades now. Software when leased, offers similar financial advantage as SaaS. When leasing software, there could be little or no upfront capital outlay just like SaaS. In case of an operating lease for software, the monthly payment shows up as an operating expense on the income statement. The leased software stays off the balance sheet and does not show up as an asset. It would seem that the financial benefits of a SaaS model are not much different than getting an operating lease for software. This is true in theory.
At the current time operating leases to purchase software-based technology are not really being considered, because the leasing companies want a hard asset. Software may have tangible value, but it is often customized to meet the needs of a specific client, making it hard to transfer to a new owner. Software programs are also often governed by licensing agreements that either limit or prohibit the transfer of a license to a new owner. A lot of software products would not be an option for operating leases since the software license can’t be in the lessor’s name.
With SaaS, Enterprises can now truly rent software and pay only for what they use and when they use it, and still get all the financial advantages of leasing the software. In case of Contact Centers, 3CLogic has come up with innovative models to make SaaS truly attractive from a financial perspective.
1) Customers can rent Contact Center seats on a monthly basis. They pay a monthly subscription fee per seat for the use of Contact Center software. The model is similar to how salesforce.com charges for its SaaS. In case of Contact Center SaaS from 3CLogic, the customer pays an additional fee for call termination for outbound application, or toll free service charges for inbound application. It is customer’s responsibility to manage the number of seats they will be using from one month to next. They can increase or decrease the number of seats in any given month. This model provides tremendous amount of flexibility to the customer – they only pay for the seats that they use and when they use it.
2) It is well known that the attrition rate in Contact Centers is one of the highest in the business world. When a Call Center agent quits or is terminated, it is still necessary to retain all the statistics and analytics associated with his or her ID; at least for a few months. In some marketing companies, the telemarketers are frequently active for a few months and then become inactive for some time, only to return back after a few months. In such scenarios, the enterprise may find it difficult to keep track of active and inactive seats on a monthly basis; and which IDs to retain for tracking purposes and which IDs to be deactivated. 3CLogic offers a purely usage based model as well. The Enterprise only pays for the total number of hours the agents are logged into the hosted Call Center Service.
3) The third model that is tied to the usage works as follows. The total number of call termination minutes are calculated for the entire Call Center in any given month and the enterprise is charged a fee based on the number of minutes consumed. This per minute charge consists of both a software charge plus a charge for call termination for outbound application, or toll free service charges in case of an inbound application.
3CLogic can offer these kinds of flexible business models because its platform is designed to be a multi-tenant platform from the ground up. The original design took into account that every tenant on its hosted service is going to have different technical and business requirements. 3CLogic’s distributed computing platform has been designed not only to address a variety of technical and business requirements, but the results are delivered to the customer in a matter of days, as opposed to months and years it takes with traditional Call Center platforms.
