Contact centers are not revenue centers
At a contact center conference last fall, the most packed breakout session was titled: How to Turn Your Contact Center into a Revenue Center. You might as well call it: How to Eat Ice Cream Without the Calories. Contact center leaders have been chasing this dream since the George W. Bush administration. Everyone who runs a contact center is in love with this idea.
The presentation was compelling?—?slides galore, but the thesis was simple: contact centers can sell. Whether it’s taking reservations or handling inbound sales, contact centers bring in revenue. Q.E.D. The crowd ate it up. I joined in, giving a standing ovation?. The argument is seductive. After all, some of the earliest call centers in the ’70s were catalog sales hubs. Even today, when revenue from call centers might land on a different P&L sheet, the idea that sales-focused centers are revenue centers holds up. Objectively.
But then the pep rally ended, and the reality check hit:
Why are most contact centers still cost centers?
The hard truth is this: sales-focused contact centers are a minority. The vast majority are service centers, focused on support with the occasional upsell or cross-sell. Their primary purpose isn’t revenue generation. It’s service. Any revenue they bring in is tangential, not foundational.
What About All the Data?
My cohost and friend Bob loves to point out that contact centers are gold mines of data. They hold insights into brand perception and, more importantly, predictive data?—?things like a customer’s likelihood to churn or buy. These insights could, theoretically, drive wallet share and retention. This argument says the data makes the contact center a revenue center.
And this argument is not wrong on principle.
The problem is, few contact center leaders know how to turn those insights into measurable dollars. Fewer still can convince their organizations to credit them for the revenue or cost savings their data generates.
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The CFO Decides
Here’s the deal: contact centers are not revenue centers. Don’t shoot the messenger. I don’t make the rules; the CFO does. And most CFOs don’t see your contact center as a revenue center.
Why? Because revenue is something you want to grow. Sure, you want to manage costs, but growth is the goal. If your contact center were truly a revenue center, you wouldn’t face the annual mandate to cut costs or stay flat.
Every single day, senior leaders come to me with one request: shrink their contact center. Automate it. Use AI to reduce costs. The entire enterprise pitch for service AI boils down to this: it will save you money in the contact center.
Take Marc Benioff, for example. He’s hiring 2,000 people to sell Agentforce. On the sales side, they’re doubling down on humans. But the landing page? It’s a calculator showing how Agentforce will reduce costs?—?especially in contact centers. Whatever revenue the contact center generates clearly pales in comparison to its costs.
The Hill You Don’t Want to Die On
I get it. The contact center is undervalued. It’s underappreciated. But if you want to make the case that your contact center is a value center?—?or even a revenue center?—?the burden of proof is on you.
Don’t die on the “revenue center” hill. Value is what you’re really after.
Make your case. Be straightforward. Be convincing. But until then, you run a cost center. And that’s okay. I don’t make the rules?—?your CFO does.
I’m rooting for you.
(Oh, and buy my book. It’s been featured on NPR, NBC News, and other publications. Follow me Amas Tenumah for more irreverent truths about customer service and other musings.)
North America Leader, Financial Services @ CI&T | Driving Tech Modernization, Customer Experience and Product Transformation
4 周100% spot on Amas. Well said!
?? I help banks, tech, and telecom companies unlock hidden value in their contact centers—cutting attrition by 15%, increasing efficiency by 25%, and boosting ROI without new tech.
4 周I like your article, Amas. The business strategy defines the purpose of your contact center. Some businesses rely on their contact centers for sales and marketing, but this is an 80/20 proposition, with 80% of contact centers being customer service cost centers. I also agree with your points that contact centers collect a lot of valuable data and information, but this data is mostly unutilized due to a lack of focused resources to transform it into actionable information. This is where a good-to-great CX leader can make their career, by the way. But even as a cost center with loads of FTE expense and technology & real estate overhead, there are plenty of costs to avoid that can show up in the EBITDA of the balance sheet. So, do not give up on getting some bottom-line goodness from a cost-center contact center, it is there to be gotten.
The Service Culture Guide | Keynote Speaker
1 个月I think you're directionally correct, Amas Tenumah. Especially that your CFO is usually the one who decides if you are a cost center or revenue center. It's really all about accounting. Cost center? You can tell that just by looking at the P&L. Revenue center? That argument usually requires a lot more managerial accounting. As you point out, it's a tougher argument to make. Two caveats. 1. What is a contact center? I think you're referring to inbound, customer service contact centers in your article. Inbound and outbound sales teams often work in contact centers, too. 2. Your CFO can help. Get your CFO to bless the calculations and you can change the perception. Can you work with the CFO to prove stats about customer growth, retention, etc.? I've seen it happen and it can work wonders. Ultimately, I think your message is on target. Contact center leaders need to be proactive about showing their value and enlisting the CFO to help tell the story.
Proven, experienced digital leader fusing technology and business to drive greater consumer experience and greater ROI for those engaging with consumers
1 个月Very clickable title - content centers are not revenue centers - very clickable on LinkedIn (and only linked in). Some of that subtly is caught here and in the comments. But until we start to think about our supply chain the way any good industrial manager would do, we're deliberately not seeing the full picture and that slows growth. The ability to close a deal, to implement it, to maintain the customer relationship, to maintain entire backend infrastructures - these things all add cost but also ensure revenue. As I used to tell folks at Viacom digital, "your ad isn't sold until it's delivered."
Vice President | Sales & Solutions | Travel, Transportation & Hospitality | BPS
1 个月In certain industries (like Hospitality) Reservation Contact Centers, are very well the Revenue Centers. A focused approach to enhacing conversion rates, even by a few basis points helps foot the bill (a percentage) of Service Contact Centers. But yes, as you said such centers are only a minority. Most centers are service centers.