How to calculate your cost and revenue optimization point

How can a predictive dialer really help you with cost and revenue optimization? See for yourself and estimate your own cost and revenue optimization plan with our calculator!

Knowing what your options are when you make a business decision which affects your call center is important. But knowing what the actual results of choosing one of those options could be is even more important. Follows are some actual benefits of one business tool that can potentially transform the way you do business.

When time is money, don’t waste yours

As we mentioned in a previous blog post, a reliable dialer is to an outbound call center what an engine is to a car. But Talk Time – that’s the fuel driving it forward. Put simply, if your agents spend more time talking with customers, they will generate more revenue (click here to find out how you can maximize your Talk Time by using call blending).

Of course, there are other factors, such as communication skills, Quality Management, and well-prepared scripts, that can help drive you forward. But if your agents are spending less time talking and more time being idle, they won’t meet their goals and will only start generating costs. The ultimate task for every business owner and manager is to find the golden mean – that happy medium that produces the desired balance between costs and profits. And this is where you need to start to think about cost and revenue optimization.

What happens when your contact center wastes precious time?

Running an outgoing contact center is costly. Expenses include the purchase of equipment and services, telephony services, maintenance and other operational costs. And naturally, the employees and agents handling calls are also part of these costs.  But at the same time, they are also responsible for generating the revenue needed to cover the above-mentioned expenses. Here are some simple calculations to illustrate what this means in in terms of numbers.

For example, an agent’s cost per month is 1300 euros for an 8-hour work day, which means that the agent’s cost per hour is 7,74 euros. If this agent uses a manual dialer and has an average Talk Time per hour of 15 minutes, this means a 0,52 euro cost per minute spent on the phone. How many deals does this agent have to close in order to cover these costs and bring revenue?

But, what if the same agent has an average of 40 minutes Talk Time per hour at the same 7,74 euro cost per hour? Their cost per minute spent on the phone will drop down to 0,19 euros per hour! And since they are speaking more than twice as much, chances are they will also sign approximately twice as many deals. This means that with a smaller team of agents who spend more time speaking, you can achieve the same results at a significantly smaller cost. But what about revenue?

When talking is money, do it more

Increased Talk Time per hour can also have a positive effect on the revenue your call center generates. If speaking twice as much decreases costs, it can surely increase revenue as well!

For example, let’s take the agent from our previous case. For every hour of work, which includes 15 minutes of active speaking, the agent generates 10 euros of revenue per hour. Now imagine this agent speaks double the time and sells double the deals. This will in theory bring in double the revenue.

In this example, the agent generates 10 euros worth of Revenue per hour by spending 15 minutes of Talk time per hour. Increase the Talk Time to 40 minutes, and this results in a revenue of around 26,67 euros (more or less) per hour being generated.

Speaking of revenue, with our calculator you can also find out how much you can increase your margin with increased Talk Time. Using the above example, an agent’s cost per month is 1300 euros, and with an average Talk Time per hour of 15 minutes, they generate 10 euros of revenue per hour for your business. This means that your margin per agent is 380 euros. That’s not bad, but let’s see what happens if you increase the average Talk Time per hour to 40 minutes. Your margin increases from 380 euros to 3186 euros. Yes, that’s a 738% growth for your company!

Now, multiply these by the number of agents in your team, and it becomes clear: the longer your agents speak, the more revenue you will get! But how much exactly? Calculate it below!

Do the math

Business is all about making the right decisions, and this needs careful planning. It’s probably best to calculate and create your own estimations to learn about the scope of savings and productivity gains you achieve by automating dialing in your contact center.