Reducing hard costs
I've been in IT for over 25 years, and it seems that no matter how hard I try to drive projects with business value, it always comes back to costs. It probably originates from the fact that at most companies, IT is a cost center and doesn't drive any revenue directly. That is, unless you are a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company. As you are reading this, you might be thinking the same thing: I'm going to have to show how this implementation project will save us some money, or at least not cost us any more than we are paying today.
I'm reasonably confident that Connect will save you money over operating on-premises with a conventional system. However, there are two types of costs associated with a call center. They are the soft costs and hard costs. The soft costs are things like time savings, and hard costs are the real dollars you pay for equipment and services. Hard costs are easier to substantiate, and typically where I focus the majority of my efforts, so we will cover those first. Although they are genuine, soft costs are often qualitative versus quantitative and don't sway people into decisions easily. We will cover soft costs in the next section.
No circuit costs
One of the more apparent savings with Connect is that you no longer have to pay for any circuits for telecommunications for your call center. These would typically be in the form of T1 or T3 circuits that come into your building from the telephone company. Conventional phone carriers charge you for both the circuit and the phone calls going out over that circuit. Since Connect is an over-the-internet product, you won't need these phone circuits. AWS will handle all of your circuit needs for you. Like the phone company, AWS will charge you for the minutes you use only.
The Connect model is attractive to businesses because there are no sunk monthly costs with the pay-as-you-go model. For instance, let's say that your company sells Christmas ornaments, and your busy sales season is from June to November. However, in December, since all the store displays are already set up, and everyone has their inventory, your call volume drops to near zero. On premises with a conventional system, you would still have to pay for those circuits even though they aren't being used. If using Connect, your costs would drop to near zero along with your call volume.
It should be reasonably easy for you to identify the costs for your circuits that you currently use. If you are setting up a new call center, it might make sense to call a phone company and find out how much a circuit would cost, so that you can include an on-premises comparison. This comparison will help paint a picture as to how Connect is more cost-effective than other solutions.
No long-term contracts
If you have ever worked with a phone company with any circuit larger than a standard phone line, you will know how they lock you into a long-term contract. Typically, a T1 circuit could have a contract as long as three years. While this might not sound like an expense above and beyond the circuit costs we just talked about, it can be. The contracts that you enter with a phone company lock you into a specific usage pattern at a particular location. If any of those two things change, you might be on the hook for expenses to terminate the contract early. If you were to move to a different state where the provider didn't have a presence in order to move your circuit, you would probably owe them termination fees. These fees immediately recoup the cost of the installation from you.
Phone companies lock you into a contract because it costs them money to bring the circuits to your building. They spread this cost out over time to recoup them. It's similar to how you used to get a cell phone for nearly nothing but had to sign up for a two-year contract with the cell carrier. The cell carrier was just recouping the cost of the phone from you over a longer period.
Since Amazon Connect uses a pay-as-you-go model, these costs will never exist in the first place. You can create and remove phone numbers, call flows, or even whole Connect instances with no penalty. Although you might not be in a situation where this kind of hard cost would affect you, it does make a compelling argument against a conventional system.
No long delays for implementation and upgrades
With conventional telephone circuits, there is a lengthy delay with the installation. At best, you can get a circuit installed within 30 days. However, it wouldn't be uncommon to see an install timeline in the 90-day range. Unfortunately, there isn't much that can be done to accelerate the phone companies and get the line installed faster. While you're waiting for the circuits to be installed, your business isn't stopping. This delay is where the costs come in. You can't expand to meet increasing customer demand or launch that new product. While at a standstill, your company is burning real dollars in lost revenue and decreasing your customers' satisfaction.
Again, since Connect is a pay-as-you-go internet-based product, you don't have to wait for anything to be installed. You get to start using it the second that you want to. This lack of delay means that you can immediately address increased customer demand or launch that new product line. This agility and speed mean that your company can start to reap the benefits as quickly as you implement your Connect instance. Once Connect is up and online, it will scale to meet your needs, big or small. I might sound like a broken record right now because I keep stating all of the pay-as-you-go benefits, but they are numerous and essential.
No demarcation extension costs
Unless you are fortunate in terms of the layout of your building and where the phone companies' circuits come in, you will probably run into some costs associated with extending the circuit to your suite or telecom room. The phone company will only bring your circuits into the building. They aren't responsible for the rest of the way. The responsibility to extend that circuit is up to you. Typically, these costs are not astronomical, maybe a couple of thousand dollars. However, it is an inconvenience as another piece in an already complex puzzle.
Since we already discussed that with Connect, you wouldn't have any circuits in the first place, you wouldn't then need to extend the circuit. However, this is another instance where it's an important cost to incorporate when making a financial comparison against an existing or potential on-premises deployment. Many of these small costs get lost when performing an analysis since they don't occur often. Employee churn is very common in IT, and it wouldn't be unheard of for someone who installed a circuit to leave before the next one is provisioned. When the employee left, they took the tribal knowledge required for the circuit extension. These types of oversights lead to cost overruns or incomplete comparisons.
Extra equipment
I have saved the best hard cost for last: extra equipment. Since Connect is based on a software platform, there isn't any need to buy phones, cards for a telephone system, or special power over Ethernet switches. Suppose you take a second to think about all of the world's phones out there, sitting on desks unused. I'm sure the costs of those phones are in the hundreds of millions. The COVID-19 pandemic made this problem even worse. Phones are a depreciating asset that you don't have to purchase when using Amazon Connect.
With Connect, your users will use the computers and headsets that they already have. You won't need to purchase any extra equipment that depreciates or sits unused. Determining how much phones would cost is an important variable when comparing Connect to typical call center systems. The cost of phones alone adds up to be a significant expense. To make matters worse, the phones themselves depreciate very quickly. At one company I worked for, we purchased our phones second-hand and saved significantly. Others' misfortunes were our gain.
We have now covered the hard cost savings that can be attributed to utilizing Connect. If you can allocate costs appropriately for an existing system, you should be able to compare to your current system and show how migrating to Connect will save you a small fortune. Likewise, suppose you are going to be creating a new call center. In that case, you can properly compare and contrast costs and demonstrate how a software- and internet-based solution is far superior to on-premises systems.
