Cost- per -contact should be metric that should be used by customer contact centers'  to judge efficiency .Skill- based routing(SBR) can directly connect the caller to the agent reducing time taken per call. Average abandon time (ABT) can be used as a metric also. Workforce management tools forecast the amount of calls in the future and agents' work schedule throughout the day. Workforce Intelligence deals with division of agents according to their specialization in terms of skills so that lesser time and cost are spent. Last but not the least self-service options would benefit in terms operational efficiency and overall customer satisfaction.Read more at: http://www.incontact.com/blog/reduce-cost-per-contact-5-tips/