Rapid Assessment for Contact Center The Rapid Assessment for Contact Center service assists contact center managers in improving the management of multipurpose operations serving a variety of constituencies. Escalating customer expectations and requirements have strained traditional contact center environments by driving up complexity and costs. Because the cost of acquiring a customer is 10 times greater than maintaining one, optimizing efficiency, staff productivity and leveraging new technologies to meet today's challenges have never been more critical. Key issues include: How can I control my contact center costs? How can customer satisfaction be improved? Which best practices can be applied to improve training and support? What can be done to optimize my contact center performance to stay competitive? Using the Gartner TCO Chart of Accounts, contact center managers can understand the trade-offs among cost, service levels and customer satisfaction. Furthermore, the analysis provides decision support for staffing and outsourcing issues. Results may include a determination that your client's contact center is effective as currently configured, or that greater investment in resources may be required to build a world-class organization. Sample results (figure 1) show client cost per handled contact are lower than both the database average and the peer average. Further investigation by Gartner Measurement analysts reveals whether this is a positive or negative impact to the organization. Addresses the following business issues: Control the factors that can escalate your contact center costs Identify opportunity areas by analyzing your contact center vs. that of your peers Improve customer satisfaction Weigh cost-efficiency against other factors such as staffing attrition, complexity, outsourcing alternatives and service quality Evaluate long- and short-term goals figure 1 Contact Information: For more information about Gartner Measurement services please e-mail measurement.info@gartner.com