Is your company taking advantage of virtualization technologies? Has the company explored the advantages of communication virtualization for the contact center? This post summarizes how virtualization of resources via an intelligent, enterprise communication architecture can deliver eye-popping returns that even the boldest of system sales person would not claim.

Most telecom solutions providers tout savings such as reduced long distance and telco expenses in traditional tactical (OPEX-reduction) business cases. Most of my blog posts aim to elevate communication investment decision making to the strategic level.

One of our clients delivers broadband service to over one hundred cities, with most calls handled locally in small contact centers within the service areas. The customer care leadership recognized that customer service reps skilled at “saving” a cancellation request were rare. When each service center operated on its own, the likelihood was very low that a cancellation request would be matched up with a customer service representative (CSR) with the skill to turn the caller around. The net present value of each subscriber won or lost is nearly $4,000.

The virtualization concept, in this scenario, refers to unifying all of the small contact centers to appear as one set of resources. A short self-service menu picked out nearly 90% of intended cancellation requests. These calls were routed to those select CSRs proven to be capable of retaining subscribers. The save rate tripled from one out of four to three out of four. Put another way, retention rates improved from 25% to 75%. Based on a conservative rate of $3,500 value (NPV of net cash flows) per subscriber, the aggregate value of virtualizing routing calls based on skill set was greater than the entire capital cost of deploying a distributed (VoIP-networked) communication infrastructure.

Allowing customers, partners and even employees’ quick access to the right resources is applicable to nearly all businesses. While the client above is in a heavy customer service (“call center”) industry, all enterprises must improve the ability to communicate with the right resources quickly and on the first call. Being able to problem solve, using the best media, e.g. voice, text, email, IM, video as selected by the customer, is the business value proposition of unified communications.

The moral of this story is that the success described above is an obvious lesson in how communication technology investments aid in the retention of customers. Immediately matching the right resource to a valuable customer scenario was easily quantifiable … Businesses must be proactive in empowering high value customers, knowledge workers, and business partners to collaborate with them on their terms. That takes planning and forward thinking, moving beyond yesterday’s staid communication and information management tools. If your firm doesn’t, your competitor will.

What are your thoughts on telecom virtualization and skills based routing? If you found this post useful, please leave a comment, share with your peers, or subscribe to the news feed to have my future posts delivered to your news feed reader.