Call Center Cost Per Call: How to Calculate, Benchmark & Reduce It?

Call center cost per call is a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) that represents the total cost incurred by a business to handle a single inbound or outbound telephone inquiry. This call center metric helps you measure how efficiently your call center uses its resources and manages communication operations.

Tracking cost per call helps call centers manage expenses, improve team efficiency, and make informed decisions on pricing and resource allocation. By optimizing this metric, businesses can handle more calls without extra costs and support long-term growth and scalability.

1. Profit Control: By tracking cost per call, you gain better control over operational expenses and protect your profit margins. This allows you to make informed budgeting decisions and avoid unnecessary overspending.
2. Operational Efficiency: This metric highlights how effectively your team uses time, workforce, and resources. A high cost per call often signals process gaps, long handling times, or inefficiencies. By identifying these issues, you can streamline workflows, reduce waste, and improve overall productivity.
3. Smarter Pricing Strategy: Understanding cost per call enables accurate service pricing. For BPOs (Business Process Outsourcing) and outsourced call centers, this is critical to remain competitive while maintaining healthy margins.
4. Long-term Growth & Scalability: Lower operational costs create room for reinvestment and expansion. When you can handle higher call volumes without increasing expenses, your business becomes more scalable. Over time, this supports sustainable growth and stronger market positioning.

Cost per call is calculated by dividing total operational expenses (labor, technology, overhead, training) of the call center over a specific period by the total number of calls, including inbound and outbound calls handled during that same period.

Formula:

Cost Per Call = Total Operating Costs ÷ Total Number of Calls

Where,

• Total operating cost means the operating expenses, including agents' salaries, infrastructure, maintenance, etc.
• The total number of calls handled represents all interactions, both inbound and outbound, where an agent was successfully connected.

Example:

If your call center has a total monthly operating cost of $60,000 and handled 12,000 calls in the same month, the calculation is:

Cost Per Call = Total Operating Costs ÷ Total Number of Calls

= 60,000 ÷ 12,000

= $5 per call

This means you spend $5 to handle each customer call.

Reports suggest that the industry-standard benchmark for call center cost per call remains between $2.70 and $5.60 for inbound service. However, due to evolving calling costs, the actual cost can vary based on call duration, service provider, agent skill level, and economies of scale.

While simple inbound service calls often stay within this benchmark, standard inbound customer support for general issues ranges between $4 and $8 per call. When interactions become more detailed or technical, costs rise even further. Technical or complex support, especially in IT, software, or specialized troubleshooting environments, can reach $8 to $15 or more per call.

Moreover, in high-skill or heavily regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, and insurance, the cost per call is often higher. It can easily exceed $10 due to data security measures and the need for highly trained agents.

The cost per call for a call center depends on factors such as agents' wages, the technology used, call volume, and economies of scale.

The wages of call center agents directly affect the cost per call. Higher salaries increase the expense for each call handled, while lower wages reduce it. Additionally, if employee turnover is high, recruitment and training costs rise, which also contributes to higher per-call costs.

The higher the call volume,the more agents and infrastructure the call center requires. You must upgrade the equipment and invest more to maintain quality and capacity.

Each call attended in the call center is billed by the minute or second. A longer call means more resources are consumed, increasing overall operating expenses.

Outdated technology requires frequent maintenance and inefficiencies, leading to higher expenses. On the other hand, modern technology comes with automation and self-service options, which increase the agent's productivity and reduce call handling costs.

Well-trained and skilled agents can handle calls more efficiently. They are capable of effectively addressing customers' issues, leading to shorter call durations and fewer callbacks.

If a call center operates oncloud-based call software, it must pay recurring fees for each service it uses. Subscription costs vary depending on the features a business requires—plans with basic functionality are cheaper, while those with advanced tiers cost more.

Adopting cloud-based technology helps lower costs by eliminating upfront hardware expenses and allowing you to pay only for the services you use. You can utilize AI-powered automation to reduce costs further as it handles repetitive tasks like call routing, data entry, and answering routine queries.

Additionally, investing in agent training helps them handle calls faster and professionally, reducing average handling time (AHT) and improving first call resolution (FCR), which lowers cost per call.

Cloud-based technology is managed and hosted online, eliminating the need for costly on-premises hardware, software, or IT infrastructure.

Moreover, it offers a pay-as-you-go pricing, allowing call centers to incur costs for only those services they actually use. This flexibility lets you optimize your call center operational cost and avoid overpaying for unused capacity.

Utilizing AI tools like chatbots and virtual assistance automates the common tasks and queries, reducing the cost of additional staffing. These technologies handle general questions, update data, and analyze customers' sentiments, empowering support teams to resolve complex issues with fewer resources.

An advanced call routing efficiently routes calls to the best-fitted agent, leading to fewer transfers and callbacks, which minimizes the cost per call. Initially, connecting callers to the right agent decreases the call handling time, which ultimately lowers calling costs.

Providing self-service tools like FAQs, knowledge bases, and chatbots, customers can find answers and resolve issues without speaking to a live agent. It decreases the volume of calls requiring human intervention and associated costs.

A structured training program creates confident, efficient agents. They need less supervisor support and make fewer mistakes, which reduces repeat calls, contributing to long-term cost savings.

Utilizing advanced workforce management tools, businesses can ensure that staffing levels are aligned with call volumes. Forecasting the peak hours, WFM tools enable call centers to create efficient schedules that align staffing levels with demand, minimizing idle time.

Evaluating call cost helps you understand how effectively your business is handling customer interaction. Each resource or service you use to interact with the client influences the call center cost per call. Despite these factors, using the right customer service solution, modern technology, and skilled manpower helps businesses maximize their resources and reduce call costs.

If you want to reduce cost per call without sacrificing customer experience, moving to a cloud-based phone system like Calilio can help.