Balancing efficiency and customer experience in the contact center

Why great CX and efficient operations can (and should) go hand in hand

For decades, customer service and CX leaders have struggled to balance operational efficiency and customer experience. Contact centers are looking to improve agent utilization, reduce Average Handle Time (AHT), remove after-call work, improve routing accuracy, and lower call volume. This becomes a matter of cutting costs.

On the other hand, customer experience teams are looking to build customer loyalty and increase customer lifetime value. This is all about generating revenue.

In the PolyAI AI customer service trends report , over 75% of CX and contact center leaders said improving customer experience is a top priority. Meanwhile, 51% are focused on increasing revenue, and 47% on reducing costs.

The question is always, how can you do more with less? But where does this leave your customer? They’re stuck in the middle.

With pressure to cut costs, companies are pushing digital customer support that enables customers to self-serve. But what about the customer who just wants to phone? Self-serve becomes a barrier to the kind of customer service they expect.

At the same time, as access to support is limited, companies are asking customers to give them more: to buy more, share their data, and recommend them to their friends.

PolyAI's research found that 86% of Gen-Z and younger Millennials prefer the voice channel for customer service.

71% are also willing to engage with intelligent voice assistants, as long as they can accurately resolve their needs.

Handling peak seasons without a spike in operational expenditure

Many companies see monthly call volumes spike by 60% to 200% due to seasonality, trends, or external factors out of their control.

The options to manage call peaks are usually hiring temporary staff or outsourcing call overflow to BPOs . Depending on the intensity of the seasonality, this increases monthly operating expenses by between 50% and 180%. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

Temporary hires

Temporary hires are generally a cultural fit and provide a higher quality of service. However, it’s very difficult to find enough staff, which puts immense pressure on the hiring and training teams. They’re also usually the more costly option.

In a 600-seat call center requiring 25 new agents every two weeks, training classes can be anywhere between 6-8 weeks long. Each training class can cost over $70,000 before agents produce any revenue, totaling $1.5 million in training wages alone. Cutting that half not only saves $750,000 per year but significantly reduces stress on recruitment and the increased tenure and knowledge of staff.

Outsourcing to BPOs

Outsourced providers are often the cheaper and easier approach. However, they experience all the same human labor challenges and often produce low-quality agents and customer service levels. As BPOs face the same staffing challenges as everybody else, this becomes a more expensive option where you are passing your problems over to somebody else and paying their margins.

AI agents

So far, voice technologies like conversational IVRs have offered little support to companies during peak times. Speech recognition has failed for many callers, and rigid call flows have prevented customers from getting the support they need.

Customers are clever, and when they don’t want to use a system, they’ll find a way around it, often mashing keypads and shouting keywords until they get through to an agent.

But breakthroughs in AI technology enable companies to develop ‘customer-led’ AI agents. Rather than making users speak using keywords and following rigid flows, customer-led AI agents enable customers to speak however they like for as long as it takes to solve their problem.

This delivers an experience similar to speaking with a customer service representative and keeps the caller engaged for long enough to offer true resolution, without the need to speak to a person. Not only is your team freed up to focus on high-value calls, but you can expect to reduce your seasonal hiring by 40-60%.

Refocusing your team on high-value interactions

Refocusing your team on high-value interactions

The time agents spend on low-value calls (such as password resets, order tracking, or FAQs) varies, but PolyAI clients have reported that 30-60% of agent time is spent answering queries that could easily be resolved online or through other, cheaper channels.

Beyond missing potential revenue, the phone is the most expensive channel, with a 3-4 minute call costing $2.70 to $5.60. This makes it even more critical to maximize the value of each call.

An underappreciated optimization opportunity lies in automating the low-value part of a call, like customer password resets, ID&V, or simple FAQs. This can drive down AHTs by 20-30%, giving additional capacity to your call center without sacrificing customer service.

Scale efficiency and experience together

Scale efficiency and experience together

Contact centers no longer need to choose between operational efficiency and great customer experience. With AI agents in place, enterprises can automate routine and complex queries, resolve more calls, and give their teams the space to focus on what matters most.

Customers get fast, effective service, and organizations gain capacity and save costs. And your team is better equipped to deliver meaningful, value-driven experiences.