How Do I Know I Need One?

When does it make sense to fly versus driving to your destination? We were discussing this around the water cooler the other day. There were three of us and each one of us had different preferences. One of us had a pretty high threshold. For him if he could get there in 8-10 hours of driving, that’s what he would default to. For me, the threshold was five hours. Driving 300 miles would take me 5 hours. Given where the Airline industry is today, and assuming that I could take an hour and a half flight, it would still take me 5 hours door to door after everything was said and done. Probability of variables like not finding a direct flight and getting caught in traffic would mutually cancel each other out. So for me the threshold is, if I have to drive for more than 5 hours, I would opt to fly.

A lot of times we get asked by prospective customers: How do I know I need a contact center? We have a PBX system and phones and my reps use the company phone system to make and receive calls. Why do I need an automated system?

I offer them a very simple thumb rule. If your reps are on the phone for more than 2 hours a day, you need a cloud based contact center system. 2 hours a day is 40 phone calls every day. Assuming that 80% or 32 of these calls are to and from customers, these are some of the most valuable interactions between the company and its customers or prospects. There is all kinds of Business Intelligence (BI) hidden in these interactions that I would really like to get my hands on. A traditional PBX or phone system is just not going to give you that kind of insight into how your reps and customers are interacting with each other.

At about $150 per rep per month you get a phone system that is integrated with your CRM. Because of automation the reps can now call or service more customers making them two or three times more productive. You get a 360 degree view of all your prior interactions with a prospect or customer whether it was voice, chat or text communication. You get management, reporting, analytics and BI that you just wouldn’t get with a PBX system.

So here’s the bottom line: If you have reps in your organization that are on the phone for more than 2 hours every day, you should really start evaluating cloud based contact center systems.