I worked at a Very Large Financial Company, doing a lot of internal automation type stuff. The cost per customer interaction was very high (we didn't really out

I worked at a Very Large Financial Company, doing a lot of internal automation type stuff. The cost per customer interaction was very high (we didn't really outsource many things on that side due to regulations needing Series 6/7/etc). Sending mail, receiving a piece of mail, getting a phone call from a customer, all of those really cost a lot of money, and reducing those volumes, and lowering the cost were a huge driver for us. Once you include overhead and stuff, its not unreasonable that a call center employee (especially a skilled one) is costing $50+ an hour. So someone that sends in a piece letter instead of a webform, and then calls and talks for 30 minutes, that might have cost $30-50 to process all of that. It adds up fast.