Why a cut price contact centre could cost your SME dear

Preparing to upgrade your contact centre and trying to decide whether to use a cheap or free open source solution, or invest rather more on a platform from an established vendor?

Saving money is an imperative for most businesses in today’s tough times. But scrimping on the system that sits at the heart of your enterprise can be dangerous and counter-productive. Here’s why.

Stability saves money

Outages are disruptive and expensive, as many business owners who’ve opted for a budget platform have found out, to their cost. Wages are the biggest expense associated with running a contact centre and every hour your agents sit idle represents wasted money. If outages occur frequently and can’t be fixed quickly, your losses will mount apace. So will your customers’ frustration when they can’t get through to you, for the umpteenth time this year.

Agents, meanwhile, will lose confidence in the system they work with, along with their motivation to deliver a great customer experience, as they sit round waiting, yet again, for normal service to resume.

These are issues you’re less likely to experience if you buy from a vendor which invests in updating its product, and in a technical team that can resolve problems rapidly. That level of support isn’t free or cheap and it’s a big part of what you’re paying for when you invest that $100+ per seat in licence fees each month.

Getting serious about security

Data security used to be a background issue for many businesses and individuals but, of late, it’s been thrust into the spotlight.

Today’s customers want to know that their personal data is securely stored. It may be tricky for you to provide the certainty they seek, if you’re using a cut price contact centre platform that’s hosted in an offshore jurisdiction which doesn’t have a rigorous data protection framework in place.

Whether that offshore facility has failover provisions in place is also a question worth asking. That’s a level of protection you can generally take for granted with a locally hosted solution but, again, it comes at a cost.

A solid base for growing your business

The coronavirus pandemic has reminded businesses that a contact centre can be essential to business continuity – and an enormous asset. That’s why it makes sense to say no to scrimping and yes to a platform that’s robust, secure and always available.