Improving first contact Resolution (FCR) requires a systematic strategy. This starts with defining FCR and evaluating the existing state of your contact center operations. Here’s a methodical approach to address and improve FCR in your organization.
The Importance of FCR
FCR is critical because the number of interactions required to resolve a customer’s problem directly and significantly impacts their satisfaction. A high FCR indicates fewer customer contacts, which leads to improved satisfaction and loyalty. According to COPC’s research, customers’ satisfaction might vary by up to 50% between those who resolve their issues on the first contact and those who do not.
When customers have their difficulties fixed in a single contact, they frequently report satisfaction rates of around 90%. However, this drops to about 55% when three or more contacts are required. The level of satisfaction at three or more contacts is not much better than if we had not resolved the customer’s issue (~35%).
Define FCR
FCR can be viewed from two perspectives:
- The business’s perspective: “Our staff followed all policies and procedures.”
- The customer’s perspective: “The customer’s issue was resolved to their satisfaction.”
COPC Inc. advocates taking the customer’s perspective. Viewing FCR via this perspective helps align operations with customer expectations, increasing customer satisfaction and retention. Defining FCR solely by internal procedures breaks the connection to the customer’s voice. This results in a “high” FCR that contradicts customer feedback, indicating low satisfaction.
COPC recommends capturing the business perspective on adherence to policy and procedure in the “business critical” attributes of effective quality systems. This perspective should remain separate from the concept of FCR.
Diagnose FCR Issues
- Process Design versus Staff Performance: Determine if unsolved issues result from flawed processes or a lack of skills and expertise. This necessitates data collection and analysis, which many businesses may currently lack.
- Service Blueprinting: Map a typical end-to-end customer service journey to discover redundancies, superfluous tasks, and pain areas. This approach helps identify areas to streamline the process to increase FCR.
Address Process Design Gaps
- Evaluate Customer Journeys: Intentionally design service processes to reduce customer effort and complexity.
- Review Policy and Procedure: Identify and remove outdated or unneeded policies impeding resolution efficiency. Simplifying processes and allowing first-tier employees the authority to resolve more issues without escalation can significantly improve FCR.
- Review Systems Integration: Enhance system integration to eliminate delays and streamline the resolution process.
Improve Staff Preparedness
If processes are well-designed, focus on strengthening the skills and expertise of frontline employees.
- Training and Upskilling: Regularly assess and fix employee knowledge and skills gaps. Do not assume that employees have acquired the requisite knowledge—periodically quiz them on the appropriate steps for addressing issues that currently experience low FCR. You may find that staff lack the knowledge you assumed they had. Regularly revise and assess ongoing training programs to ensure their efficacy.
- Coaching and Feedback: Use organized coaching and feedback procedures to continually improve employee performance. Do not assume the efficacy of coaching; instead, determine a method for evaluating its effectiveness. Many programs ignore this area at great cost.
Manage Knowledge
Effective knowledge management is vital for enhancing FCR:
- Develop Knowledge Management Practices: Establish systematic knowledge management procedures, such as governance and regular knowledgebase upgrades. Ensure the knowledge base is a dependable and complete resource to encourage personnel to use it regularly.
- Review the Knowledgebase: If your agents do not regularly consult the knowledgebase, skip articles, or jump piecemeal through the article without consistently following the content, this indicates that it is incomplete, inaccurate or overly complex. Ensure the knowledge base is up-to-date, accurate and easy to use. Regularly examine and update knowledge articles to ensure they contain clear and actionable information.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is no universal “quick fix” to improving FCR, but there are common areas that often yield opportunities for impressive short-term improvements. Improving FCR necessitates a multifaceted strategy that includes process improvement, employee training and effective knowledge management.
Organizations that focus on these areas can achieve large improvements in FCR, resulting in increased customer satisfaction and loyalty. If your business hasn’t addressed these areas, start here to improve FCR.
Brent Jernigan, Director at COPC, brings over two decades of expertise in customer experience process improvement, specializing in performance improvement, quality systems, and workforce management. Brent has led enhancement efforts across five continents, improving contact center performance in diverse industries such as technical support, hospitality, airlines and healthcare.
Noted for his ability to translate complex analytical concepts into everyday language, Brent is a highly sought-after training facilitator. His primary areas of focus include contact center certification, business transformation and training.