Increasingly, the contact center is used to deliver holistic customer experience throughout a lifetime of customers’ journeys. This makes sense since many of the activities designed to acquire and retain customers and to deliver and support products and services all utilize the contact center in some fashion. But what do you do if your outdated call center software can’t deliver? Asking for money to modernize your contact center can be fraught with career peril unless you know how to speak the language of business.
So, what is the language of business?
The language of business is less of a language and more about making a persuasive case for change. One must be able to frame the problem, create a vision for why change is good and then show a benefit which outweighs the costs.
Consider this example. If you’ve ever had a savvy teenager, you’ll may recall the “I need a car” conversation. It probably went something like this: mom and dad, now that I have a job, I need a car to get to work (the need). Once I have my car, you will never need to shuttle me around, plus I promise to run errands for you (the vision). By owning my own car, you will save on gas and you will have more free time (the benefit).
So how do you apply this example to making a compelling business case for new contact center? By using the same steps.
Think about the objectives your organization is undertaking this year. In what ways could your contact center make an impactful contribution? Now think about any capability gaps which affect your ability to deliver. What is the opportunity cost of not being able to deliver? For example, assume your company is trying to acquire new customers. However, you are concerned that long wait times are resulting in lost orders. If the average sale is $100 and you believe you are losing 50 sales a month, then the annual cost of lost sales is $60,000
Now think about what you need to solve the problem. Let’s assume you need better reporting and self-service options. With better reporting you believe you can accurately identify and correct inefficiencies allowing you to handle more interactions. Furthermore, you believe that better self-service options will empower prospects to complete an order without assistance. You also determine that a new cloud-based contact center will solve these problems and cost less than operating your legacy system. This will yield saving of $70,000 a year.
In this example, you now have all the elements you need to make a compelling business case. Want to now know how to put it all together?
Donna Fluss, the founder and President of DMG Consulting has conducted extensive research into the most effective ways to build a compelling business case for modernize legacy call center software and how to best present this information to business leaders. Learn more from this informative discussion.
