The encyclopedia · Software & IT · Operational decision · 1978–1993
AT&T sold call-center redesigns on a simulator customers could test
AT&T's CAPS simulator let business customers try 800-number call-center designs before spending, securing $1b in a $8b market.
AT&T
the move
Since 1978 AT&T developed CAPS, a Call Processing Simulator used to design and evaluate inbound call centers, and by the 1990s it ran on a PC with a discrete-event simulation model plus animation and queueing models of the network and the customer's environment.
The tool let AT&T model a network of call centers using advanced 800-number features before its business customers made capital commitments to start or change a call center, so customers could see how their calls would be handled before they spent.
In 1992 AT&T completed about 2,000 CAPS studies for customers, helping it increase, protect and regain more than $1 billion in an $8 billion 800-network market, and the tool was also a route to more than $750 million of annual profit for customers who ran them.
why it works
- A call-center build is a big spend made before you know how calls behave.
- A simulator lets the buyer test the design cheaply first.
- Lowering a customer's risk makes the network the safe, default choice.
- Measured: $1b protected or gained in an $8b 800-network market.
what transfers
If you sell a system people must buy before they can judge it, give them a simulator to test the design first; reducing the buyer's risk of a bad large spend is a way to win the sale and the account.
what came after
CAPS became a turnkey sales and design tool that grew AT&T's 800-network business and delivered ongoing customer operating profit; it won the 1993 Franz Edelman Award.
references
- AT&T's Call Processing Simulator (CAPS) Operational Design for Inbound Call Centers
- AT&T's Call Processing Simulator (CAPS) Operational Design for Inbound Call Centers
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