The true cost of a customer interaction is almost always higher than you think.
Here’s why:
It comes down to how you calculate it.
Most people measure:
→ Time the agent spends talking to the customer
But they’re missing:
→ Every second of non-customer-facing time wrapped around that call
For example:
Your agent picks up a call.
Before they can even help the customer, they need to pull up their account.
Slow system? That’s 30 seconds of dead time. On every single call. Across every single agent.
Multiply that by your daily call volume and you’ve got a significant hidden cost.
This is why I use time and motion studies.
The goal is to get down to one precise metric:
Exactly how much time is spent on each interaction and why.
When you break it down that way, you find costs hiding in places no one is looking:
→ Slow systems adding seconds to every call
→ Agents navigating between multiple screens
→ Manual data entry that should be automated
→ Unnecessary steps baked into the workflow
Each one feels small in isolation.
Together, they can represent 15-20% of your total labor cost.
Fix the workflow, and you lower your cost per interaction.
Without touching headcount. Without impacting quality.
That’s the difference between cutting costs and finding them.
I’m Mark Danielson, and I help healthcare leaders reduce support costs while improving patient satisfaction.
Follow me for practical insights on cutting contact center costs, improving service quality, and modernizing operations without the tradeoffs.
