Most travel businesses know their payroll and almost none know their cost per call. When you work it out properly the figure is uncomfortable — and it explains why automating the routine half of your calls changes the economics of the whole operation.
Fully loaded cost per call
Start with salary, then add employer costs, management time, tooling, premises, recruitment and training for attrition. Divide by the number of calls actually handled — not the number of hours worked. For a typical six-minute travel call the result usually lands between five and eight pounds. These are illustrative figures; your own will depend on wages, utilisation and call length.
The hidden costs
- Abandoned calls: every caller who gives up in the queue is a booking you paid to attract and then lost
- Repeat contacts: the same question asked twice because the first answer was not recorded
- After-hours silence: enquiries that arrive when nobody is there and are cold by morning
Where AI changes the number
A voice assistant handles routine calls for well under a pound each, around the clock, with no queue. Your agents stop being the first line and become the specialists for the complex, high-value conversations — which is also the work they are good at and enjoy.
A worked example
Take 6,000 calls a month at a loaded cost of £6. If the assistant resolves 65% of them at £0.90, the monthly cost of those calls falls from roughly £23,400 to about £3,500, while the remaining calls get more agent time. Run your own numbers in the ROI calculator; the shape of the result is remarkably consistent.
What not to automate
Complaints, bereavement, complex group bookings and anything where a distressed traveller needs a human. Automate the routine so these calls get the attention they deserve — that is the point.
You cannot manage a cost you have never measured. Work out your cost per call this week.
