First Call Resolution

Definition of First Call Resolution:

First call resolution (FCR) is a CRM and contact center concept that refers to serving a customer in a satisfactory manner the first time he contacts a company. It is often used as a metric for assessing contact center performance and many companies consider it to be of paramount importance. Most of the time, FCR conflicts with average handling time (since more actions are required to resolve issues within the limits of one interaction).

Why is FCR important?

FCR is important for several distinct reasons. First and foremost, it highly increases customer satisfaction. Just try to remember how much frustrated you get every time you call a company to express a request or a problem or inquire some information. Doing it right the first time indicates that the company actually cares about its customers and their concerns, offering quality personalized services. It also shows (and requires!) that the company is well organized and knows exactly what is going on with every single customer they got.

The second reason FCR is considered very important is cost savings. High FCR rates directly result in less incoming calls. Various surveys have studied the effect of this in contact center operational costs and they report cost savings that can reach up to 30% for high FCR rates. A simplified way to calculate how much savings can be achieved by improving is described in this article.

There are other benefits also in measuring FCR. It is an indication of agent performance that can be used to reward skilled employees. It helps improve overall business processes by analyzing what went wrong in the cases where one interaction was not enough. And, finally, it helps appreciate the reasons why customers call and what conditions caused their problems in the first place.

Measuring FCR.

Due to the importance of FCR, most contact centers today actively try to measure it. The calculation is included in the metrics presented by many contact center statistics packages available today. However, there are significant problems in measuring FCR accurately.

The first and most important problem is the perspective under which to measure it. Does it matter if the customer is happy with the resolution? This is a subtle difference between methods of measuring FCR and sometimes even subjective. A popular method used to calculate FCR taking into account customer satisfaction is actually asking the customer. This can be done either by an agent or even by a simple IVR question. This approach is not enough to yield accurate results though.

Another problem that cannot be solved by asking the customer is the asynchronous nature of some customer requests. For example, a customer may call about a problem he has and request some credit on his account as compensation. The representative verifies the issue and assures the customer that he will get the credit. However, whether the credit will be actually finalized might not be obvious until the customer receives a future bill (which might occur several months later). At the time the transaction takes place, neither the customer nor the agent really know if the issue was solved in a single interaction. Thus, FCR calculation is usually a long procedure of collecting and evaluating data, so as to be able to take into account as many exceptions as possible.

Improving FCR.

To improve FCR rates, a company must first trace the root cause of failures to deliver fast and efficient customer service. Typical methods used are:

• Improve agent skills by training.
• Improve agent access to CRM information, using better integration among company systems. Ensure that these systems are accurate, current and always working.
• Allow the agents enough time to solve the customer’s issues and avoid rewarding them for achieving a short average handling time.
• Ensure that back end systems operate correctly, without any bottlenecks or points of failure