Most companies have the ability to estimate expenses associated with customer interactions. The formula is fairly straightforward. Take the cost of a live customer interaction — which is often measured by average handle time — and then multiply it by the “per minute” cost associated with having a live agent on the phone, including any additional relevant overhead. These same organizations, however, don’t always have an effective parallel process to measure the value created by the same customer interaction. 

This unbalanced management style focuses more on cost and less on value, causing contact center and enterprise strategies to look more heavily at cost reduction and less on increasing the actual value created. This alone can be an expensive mistake. A recent Forrester study looked at interactions across 12 industries, and in doing so discovered that quality customer experiences can generate as much as $311 million per year.   See the full article on MediaPost.