A missed call means lost revenue.
A 2-3 minute wait means a poor customer experience.
A difficult, lengthy phone conversation means losing customers.

A call center is not a “telephone exchange”; today, it is much more of a revenue-
generating, customer-retention, and efficiency-enhancing system—even for SMEs!

A quick response means concrete revenue

The Harvard Business Review’s classic study, The Short Life of Online Sales Leads,
showed that companies that respond to an inquiry within 5 minutes are up to 9 times more
likely to reach a potential customer than those that wait 30 minutes.

A well-configured call center system:

• provides automatic lead distribution

• generates a list of tasks (callbacks, emails, quotes)

• is tightly integrated with existing systems (CRM)

• measures SLA (service level agreement, availability, uptime, response time,
  troubleshooting deadline)

This call center is not a convenience feature. It is a competitive advantage.

Customer retention generates profit

According to research by Bain & Company, a 5% increase in customer retention can
increase profits by 25-95%. (Bain & Company – Prescription for Cutting Costs)

How?

• Faster service

• Less customer churn

And customers aren’t happy because you’re cheaper.
They’re happy because you’re accessible and efficient.

Digitized customer service also reduces costs

According to analyses by McKinsey & Company, digitized customer service processes can
reduce operating costs by 20–30% (McKinsey – The new frontier of customer
engagement), as almost everything can be automated:

• IVR

• call recording and playback

• reports (even in real time)

• performance measurement

• call analysis (even AI-based)

This not only means less manual administration and fewer errors, but also more accurate
capacity planning and more efficient use of resources.

Customer experience as a foundation

According to Forrester research, one of the most sensitive issues for customers is time,
i.e., which company, service provider, or store respects their time. This is not a virtue, but
an expectation. In other words, those who do not respect their time will lose them. They
will lose them if the customer has to wait for 3 minutes, has to repeat the same thing
several times (even if they are talking to a different representative), and if they do not
receive a call back at the promised time.

Why is this particularly important for SMEs?

What happens in small and medium-sized enterprises?

If there is no call center, the receptionist answers the phone, or whoever is available, or
the manager, or perhaps the owner. Or no one. So there are lost calls and lost customers.
There is no CRM integration, no data, no processes, no reports.

However, this is now easily and quickly achievable, as cloud-based call centers are
immediately available without major investment, by subscription, and without the need for
costly hardware upgrades. The solutions can be optimized for smaller teams and can be
quickly and easily scaled up or down to suit your needs.

.. … and AI is here too

According to Gartner’s predictions, a significant portion of customer service interactions
will become AI-supported in the coming years.

In which areas exactly?

• Mood analysis

• Automatic ticket generation

• Chatbot + live operator combination

• Predictive capacity planning

• And so much more…

The goal is not to replace humans, but to make their work more efficient. This is good for
employees, businesses, and customers alike. So why not? Contact us!