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Question: What are the benefits of consolidating contact center and back-office operations?

Answer:

Based on our research, DMG estimates that companies can reduce the number of employees in a back-office department by 25% – 40% while speeding up processing, increasing first contact resolution (FCR), and reducing errors, by combining it with related contact center or customer service functions. The reason is that the contact center often starts a process and then passes the case, application, approval review, or fulfillment to a back-office department that completes the interaction. The idea is to decrease hand-offs and redundant work efforts by consolidating operations and to reduce errors by automating many of the tasks performed by front- and back-office departments. This will likely increase the amount of time front-office and contact center employees spend handling customer issues, but on a combined basis, there will be a substantial reduction in servicing costs, an increase in FCR, and an improved customer experience (CX).

Productivity improvements and cost savings are just the beginning of the benefits that companies will realize from combining appropriate front- and back-office functions. By expanding the number of employees who are trained to handle front-office inquiries, organizations will be able to scale more easily in response to volume spikes, improving the CX. Employees will have additional work options, career opportunities, and greater input into schedules, which will vastly enhance the employee experience (EX). Granted, it will require a revamp of existing job descriptions and levels, but it will substantially increase employee retention and reduce hiring, onboarding, and training expenses.