What are your additional costs per head in CS as it pertains to technology?

Scott Hopper
Scott Hopper Member Posts: 70 Expert
5 Comments
edited July 2020 in CS Technology

Just curious, IBM managed a lot of technology on the cost per head.  Is this a strong consideration for CS departments.  For those who manage CS is there a size where it becomes easier to make technology investments.

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  • Melissa Logothetis
    Melissa Logothetis Member Posts: 22 Thought Leader
    5 Comments
    edited April 2020

    Interesting idea. I'm sure with some tools where there is a license fee per user this is a huge concern. For other products I think the overall value you expect to gain (ie time savings) are important considerations. 

  • Vijaya Vardhan P
    Vijaya Vardhan P Member Posts: 13 Contributor
    edited May 2020

    @Scott Smith  interesting question. Coming from a technical support ops background, we calculate the operational cost per head that includes technology as well (license, renewal costs etc...). I'm talking about an inbound tech call center having 500+ people receiving 2000+ calls per day. For example, Salesforce, Coveo, Genesys, workforce management tool costs. The tech enables scale and is the lifeblood of the call center, hence its cost and reliability are very important. The goal here is cost savings. I haven't seen CS teams do this kind of calculation in my org. Adding to  @Melissa Logothetis , I'd say, unless we've operationalized CS across tens of CSM's, I'd say that CSM tech should be looked as an investment into retention. For example, if I put a unit value of 1 on a CSM, may be 0.1 or 0.2 of that might come from tech - for high touch. For low and tech touch, it could be a little more like 0.3 or 0.4 of that 1 unit.