{"id":844,"date":"2015-12-14T00:18:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T00:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/?p=844"},"modified":"2020-06-22T17:08:34","modified_gmt":"2020-06-23T00:08:34","slug":"how-to-measure-and-improve-first-contact-resolution-fcr-in-your-contact-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/cx-culture\/how-to-measure-and-improve-first-contact-resolution-fcr-in-your-contact-center\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Measure and Improve First Contact Resolution (FCR) in your Contact Center"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">Over the last several years, an increasing number of our <a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/about\/clients\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">clients<\/a> have asked for advice on<\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">how to measure First Contact Resolution\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">how to improve First Contact Resolution\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This increased focus on FCR (that is, fully addressing a customer&#8217;s need the first time they contact a company about an issue) is well placed for several reasons that I\u2019ll enumerate below, but it&#8217;s chiefly because of the relationship between FCR and customer experience scores. Specifically, our clients are concerned by the strong correlation between repeated contacts for the same issue and negative customer satisfaction scores.<br \/>\n<\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-162\" src=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/self-service_x2-281x300.gif\" alt=\"self-service_x2\" width=\"281\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/self-service_x2-281x300.gif 281w, https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/self-service_x2-768x819.gif 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 281px) 100vw, 281px\" \/>Providing good customer service is reason enough to track and improve FCR, but there is a financial incentive too. Repeated contacts for one issue raise costs: two interactions are more costly than one, obviously, and the second conversation is likely to be longer as the customer explains the details of the first contact. Worse, customers are more likely to request a supervisor in these follow-up interactions adding either time to de-escalate or cost if the customer is transferred. FCR makes good business sense.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>How to Measure?<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">There\u2019s no perfect way to measure FCR, and as a result, there are several ways that contact centers do so. In the not-so-distant-past, the most prevalent method of measuring FCR was to review logs and records to find instances where the same customer made repeated contacts within a time frame. This approach necessitates that organizations<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Have the ability to relate two contacts to the same customer when they are initiated in different channels or from different phone numbers (or email addresses, etc.)<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Know how much time should elapse after an initial contact before we consider it to be resolved.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><strong>Measure Based on Multiple Customer Contacts within a Given Time Period<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Relating multiple contacts across channels or from different phone numbers is straightforward for a contact center that has a modern, robust solution for storing customer records. You may or may not refer to this system of record as CRM, but it must provide you with the capability to store everything you know about a customer including name, phone numbers (as many as the customer has), addresses (physical, email, and social) as well as a complete interaction history with that customer, including all interactions (both inbound and outbound) across all channels. The \u201call channels\u201d criterion reflects all the ways that a customer may choose to interact with you (including social), whether they fall under your purview (from an org chart perspective) or not. If you don\u2019t have a solution that meets all these criteria, you should.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The timeframe in which two contacts constitute a missed FCR opportunity varies widely across our customers who measure FCR in this way due to the differences in the way those customers do business and interact with their customers. For example, a customer wishing to enroll in automatic bill payments may call a utility twice in the span of forty-five days for that issue while an active trader may interact with a brokerage multiple times in a day about distinct trades. That said, whatever your business is, there is no magic number (or hours or days) that will accurately delineate two interactions about distinct issues from multiple contacts about the same issue.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Some of our clients rely on their agents and their <a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/solutions\/enterprise\/#caseissuemanagement\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">case management<\/a> systems to correlate related interactions \u2013 in this case, two interactions about the same case. This approach improves on the \u201ctimeframe\u201d approach by allowing agents to discern related from unrelated interactions. A drawback is that it is based upon an agent\u2019s perspective using only information available at the time. Instead, we recommend that FCR reflect the customer\u2019s perspective of whether the issue was fully resolved.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong>Measure FCR by Survey \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">More and more of our clients now\u00a0measure FCR from the customer\u2019s perspective through surveys. These surveys may take place immediately at the conclusion of an interaction or after a pre-determined number of days and include a question about whether the customer\u2019s issue was fully resolved. While surveys allow customers to determine FCR, they also face challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Customers who called their banks before contacting you about a charge may consider their email to your team to be a second contact, even if your employee resolved the issue. A customer who indicated that an issue was resolved while filling out the survey may later have a question that triggers an additional contact that might have been avoided. And these issues pertain only to customers who respond to the survey. Contact center managers lose a lot of sleep wondering whether all those unanswered surveys are potential ones or fives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">If you are measuring FCR in any of these imperfect ways, congratulations, you have a metric that is correlated with customer satisfaction that you can baseline, track, and demonstrate improvement against.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\"><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-287\" src=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi-265x300.jpg\" alt=\"intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi\" width=\"265\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi-265x300.jpg 265w, https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi-768x868.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi-906x1024.jpg 906w, https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/intelligent_routing_v2.600x0-is-hidpi.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 265px) 100vw, 265px\" \/>How to Improve FCR<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">So, how does one improve FCR? There are many ways, and I enumerate a few below. But the most important first-step to improving FCR is to empower your staff to spend a little extra time on each interaction to ensure that the customer\u2019s issue is resolved. This isn\u2019t for the faint of heart, and requires buy-in from contact center leaders, supervisors, coaches, and the quality team to accept that getting serious about FCR may mean an initial increase in handle times in exchange for the promise of reduced volumes in the future.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">One of our clients has dedicated <i>concierge<\/i> teams (for some customer segments) that handle every customer\u2019s need from beginning to end. While the concierge agents have been given additional training to handle most interactions, when they encounter an issue that they cannot resolve, they place the customer on hold, make as many calls (or chats) as needed before getting back to the customer with a resolution. This model does not work for every contact center\u00a0but reflects the investment some are making to resolve issues on the first contact.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">The other half of agent empowerment is to provide them with the information and authority to resolve issues. Below are a few ways to do this:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul class=\"ul1\">\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">A good solution for storing customer information will go a long way to providing agents with customer information needed to understand the issue.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/solutions\/enterprise\/unified-desktop\/\"><span class=\"s2\">unified desktop<\/span><\/a> will easily present the agent with previous interactions with the customer in order to provide context.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">A robust <a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/solutions\/enterprise\/knowledge-management\/\"><span class=\"s2\">knowledge base<\/span><\/a> can provide agents with information about how to resolve infrequently occurring issues.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">A modern <a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/solutions\/contact-center\/workforce-optimization\/interaction-recording\/\"><span class=\"s2\">interaction recording<\/span><\/a> solution will capture both screens and voice to improve the efficacy of quality reviews and coaching.<\/span><\/li>\n<li class=\"li1\"><span class=\"s1\">Reduce the number of actions that require \u201csupervisor\u201d approval and instead trust your agents (or the quality process) to make good decisions.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Even if you have directed your team to resolve issues and provided them with the tools to do so, most agents are reluctant to spend extra time on an interaction if there are a lot of items in the queue that have been there for a while. Your routing strategy should initially target the very best match of customer and need to agent, automatically route but include a provision to target the \u201cnext best\u201d agent if service levels are in jeopardy.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">This feature of automatic overflow evens out the peaks and valleys of intra-day interaction volumes allowing your team to meet its service level commitments while providing the service you aspire to. To learn more, please <span class=\"s2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ptpinc.com\/staging\/site\/assets\/files\/1949\/parkinson_next_contact_resolution.pdf\">download my SpeechTEK presenation.\u00a0<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"ast-oembed-container \" style=\"height: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Craft an NCR Approach\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Be-KVtRQAQY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Over the last several years, an increasing number of our clients have asked for advice on how to measure First Contact Resolution\u00a0 how to improve First Contact Resolution\u00a0 This increased focus on FCR (that is, fully addressing a customer&#8217;s need the first time they contact a company about an issue) is well placed for several [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":162,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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