How to Evaluate the True Cost of Your In-House Support Operation

The true cost of customer support extends well beyond salaries or vendor invoices. PwC and McKinsey both emphasize that indirect costs - recruiting, onboarding, training, management overhead, idle time, and attrition - materially increase the real cost per interaction.

McKinsey has noted that many organizations underestimate service delivery costs because they fail to account for inefficiencies created by fixed staffing assumptions. PwC similarly highlights that labor flexibility is a key driver of cost efficiency in modern service organizations.

This article walks through how to evaluate support costs more accurately and why elasticity changes the economics.

Key considerations explored in this article include:

• The difference between visible and total cost per ticket
  
  

• How idle time quietly erodes ROI in fixed staffing models
  
  

• Why usage-based models better align cost with demand
  
  

Supporting research:

• McKinsey & Company, Service Operations: Hidden Costs and Efficiency
  https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/service-operations
  
  

• PwC, Customer Transformation and Service Economics
  https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/industries/consumer-markets/consumer-insights-survey.html
  
  

Recommended next step: ROI Calculator