upstreamworks.com
First Contact Resolution (FCR) is now accepted as a critical key performance indicator for contact
centers. Managing to FCR reduces call volume, and ties closely to customer retention – both powerful
influences on the bottom line.
Measuring FCR accurately has, until now, been costly and difficult. Thus, contact centers typically
evaluate FCR by subjective means (“Did we solve your issue?”) or based on incomplete data. Also, FCR is
rarely correlated to the other contact center process data needed for First Contact Resolution
improvement.
S The Executive Guide to Improving First Contact Resolution
By: Rob McDougall
Upstream Works Software
White Paper
The Executive Guide to Improving FCR
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INTRODUCTION
A large number of organizations have heard about First Contact Resolution. However, it seems to be a
peripheral concern as they look to increase contact center efficiencies and handle issues more quickly.
Ask yourself – is the impact of First Contact Resolution truly understood in your contact center?
Make no mistake – improving your First Contact Resolution rates is of extreme importance to your
business, your agents, and to you personally.
Many businesses operate remotely from their customers – your customers never come down to “the
store”. They deal with you online for self-service, and they will phone you if they need to.
This means your contact center is your store. It is the face of your business to your customers. And since
it’s virtual, they are a phone call away from taking their business elsewhere.
Let’s look at car insurance – everyone has it. Ask yourself – what competitive differentiator does your
insurance company have over the hundreds of others in the market? Are the rates really better? Are
they providing something that no other insurance company is providing you? Likely, that answer is ‘No’.
Your insurance company keeps you as customer for one of two reasons. You stay because they have
built loyalty through great customer service. Or, you stay because they haven’t given you a reason to
leave.
Too often, companies rely on apathy to maintain their customer base. They have customers – what
should be considered the single biggest asset a company can have – and they take them for granted.
As a result, service is poor, and churn is a huge problem.
Contact centers today seek to improve productivity by increased efficiency. They are like the sprinter,
who trains for years for the big race; weight lifts and runs laps; carefully monitors his diet; chooses his
style of clothes and hair cut to minimize wind resistance.
And then, on the day of the race, the gun goes off…
So our sprinter leaps out of the blocks and exerts every ounce of strength and determination he has –
draws upon his extensive training.
Gets into the proper rhythm of legs, of arms, of breathing. He runs as fast as he can
But in this race, there are no rules as to what you can and can’t do.
There are no referees to cry foul. The first person across the finish line wins.
And the competition passes him on a bicycle. Because the competition just found a more effective way
to cover the distance.
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We all know First Contact
Resolution (one and done) is
the #1 driver for customer
satisfaction with best practices
reported at 86%.
However, this means that 14%
of your customers are
contacting you more than once
(even more than twice or three
times) to resolve their issues!
This not only frustrates your
CSRs and yourselves, but your
customers as well.
Repeat calls are costly not only to
operations and the bottom line,
but they negatively impact
customer satisfaction.
The importance of customer service and increasing a contact center’s effectiveness crosses all
businesses and all boundaries. And implementing a First Contact Resolution strategy is the primary way
to increase the overall effectiveness of your business.
The question is – how do you get a bicycle?
THE IMPACT OF FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION
Simply stated, you need to make sure that you speak with your
customers about an issue, and provide great service, once and only
once. Make a mistake on the phone, and your customer has to call
you back. From that moment forward, everyone starts to lose.
Multiple industry studies show the number of repeat, dissatisfied
calls is between 20% and 30% of your total call volume. Let’s make
this really clear: 20% to 30% of every dollar you spend in your
contact center is spent on fixing what you didn’t do right in the first
place.
And your First Contact Resolution rates are directly related to your
customer satisfaction rates.
In his seminal book, ‘The Ultimate Question”, Fred Reichheld,
(author of “The Loyalty Effect”) speaks of the Net Promoter Score –
the percentage of customers who are likely to promote your
services. His research found that the value of a “Net Promoter”
customer is significantly higher than that of a neutral customer in
bringing in word of mouth business.
Your best customer – the one most likely to recommend your services – is one who actually interact
with your business and gets great service. Pushing calls off to IVRs and self service systems often are
seen by your customers as cheap substitutes to speaking with a company representative.
Self service systems remove the opportunity to listen to that customer. They eliminate your ability to
earn the right to sell more to your customers.
The net of all this is that you really want your customers to call you and speak to your service reps. You
want them to have a great experience with your company, and have their issue resolved. You improve
your effectiveness by eliminating their need to call you back again for the same thing – calls that provide
no additional value.
The quickest way to move someone from being a net promoter to being a net detractor is to mess up
the phone call. Give them bad information. Refer them to the wrong person. In short, make a mistake
that results in that customer having to call you a second, or a third, or a fourth time.
Wasting their time as they try to get an issue resolved. And wasting your time as you throw more
resources at resolving an issue for a customer whose net worth to your company is steadily dropping.
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The best way to become more effective is to eliminate those repeat calls that you don’t need to take in
the first place.
WHY MEASURE FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION?
Your First Contact Resolution (FCR) rate is the home run of contact center statistics. It is the single key
performance indicator that has an effect on almost every other meaningful statistic and measurement in
the contact center. To measure it properly, you need to ensure that the information you have collected
is clearly actionable. With this in mind, there are three direct benefits to be gained from improved FCR
rates:
1. First Contact Resolution reduces call volumes.
Today you may be measuring contact center performance through metrics like Service Level. Service
Level equates productivity to the number of calls processed. It will identify issues related to calling
patterns but does not allow you to improve operations except by using preexisting processes – such as
bringing in more staff. In an FCR world, productivity equates to the number of customer issues
successfully resolved. But this has a huge impact on Service Level, as a 15% improvement in FCR results
in an 18% reduction in call volume. FCR improvements directly reduce cost by reducing the demand for
the service.
2. First Contact Resolution directly affects your customer satisfaction rates.
First Contact Resolution rates are directly tied to customer satisfaction. When your customers call, they
are giving you the opportunity and permission to showcase the value that you provide to them. An
increase in FCR translates to a corresponding improvement in customer satisfaction, an improvement in
your overall net promoter scores, and overall reduced customer churn.
3. Increased FCR means increased customer revenues.
You must earn the right to do business with your customers. When you resolve an issue on the first call,
the customer is open to up sell or cross sell activities. If you can’t fix the problem right the first time,
they will only be interested in getting their problem solved. Selling more services or upgrades is not an
option.
In an average contact center, increasing your FCR rates by 10% will lead to a 14% improvement in up sell
ability.
Additionally, you increase the number of net promoters of your business who will improve sales through
word of mouth recommendations.
Using IVR to Eliminate Calls
One of our customers developed a business case for NOT using the IVR system. As a retail credit card
vendor, they coveted every chance they got to connect with their customers In fact, they put logic in
their IVR to eliminate self service for select callers – those that they felt were worth more to them – by
collecting the account number and then sending them straight to an agent. This had the obvious effect
of increasing the overall call volumes in the contact center, as they eliminated self service for a
percentage of callers. It had the non-obvious effect of increasing their revenues by $7,000,000 over
three years by upselling those same customers.
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In a recent study (Ascent
Group) more than 90% of
companies measuring First
contact Resolution reported
improvement in their
performance. Another study
(callcentres.com) reported a
dramatic fall in call volume —
identifying that a minimum of
20% of all calls were repeat
calls from customers needing
an answer or help they didn’t
get. Further, that the absence
of First Contact Resolution was
found to account for a
minimum of 30% of a contact
center’s operational costs!
CAUSES OF CALL RESOLUTION ERRORS
Not having problems resolved on the first call can be directly
attributed to one of five causes.
1. Does the agent have the right skills?
Ensuring that an agent has the skill and the ability to do the job at
hand will allow them to resolve calls properly. Gaps can be addressed
once identified by training, coaching, or modifying skill allocations
accordingly. Skill gaps may also be personnel related and reflective of
staff that are not able to handle the types of calls they are receiving,
or who are not appropriate for your organization. FCR tracking allows
you to determine if there are personnel issues and resolve them.
2. Does the agent have access to the right information?
Access is the key word here. If the information is available, but the
agent can’t find it or it takes a long time to locate, the agent will
either:
a) Have increased average handle time
b) Not find the information at all
c) Provide potentially wrong information from memory
d) Guess
Make sure information is relevant, current and accessible. Your customer will do their homework before
calling you; your agents need to be able to get up to speed quickly. A CRM system is great, but if it can’t
tell when the warranty replacement part shipped, then the agent can’t resolve the call. Easy access to
the multiple ERP and back end systems is almost always needed.
For other information that falls outside the above systems, a Knowledge Base can be a great tool to
consolidate information into one place. But, a Knowledge Base must be kept up to date, and there must
be a process for agents to add and correct information in it. Otherwise, it will quickly fall into disuse.
3. Does the agent have the authority to do the job?
If your agent says, “I can’t help you because I don’t have the authority”, your company has just told the
customer that they are wasting their time. The customer must call back and escalate to someone who
can help them.
Often agents are given zero discretion to depart from the rigidly defined process. But giving an agent a
little authority and a little flexibility can dramatically improve FCR rates. Management should provide
the agents with guidance, and then back the agents up.
Customers should never have to call back to talk to a manager to get a different answer. If a resolution is
clearly outside the agent’s bounds of authority, the person with authority should be brought in during
the initial communication.
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Unfortunately, if a caller doesn’t get the answer they want to hear, they may continue to call and
escalate. If the agent has done their job appropriately, and subsequent agents have access to the caller’s
history, the impact of these calls can be minimized. People are stopped cold when the second agent tells
them that the first agent already addressed the issue with them during their previous contact.
4. Does the business have the systems to back the agent up?
You’ve given the agents everything they need to do their job, but
you haven’t addressed the business systems behind the contact
center and throughout the business. Agents are doing everything
right, but there is a breakdown somewhere else in the process; the
part isn’t getting shipped; the bill isn’t being credited etc... All of
these create call backs.
It is the contact center that takes the productivity hit, and it is the contact center that has to deal with
the irate customer. FCR driven process improvement WILL extend to the rest of the business. But, it is
based on hard cost, customer satisfaction and churn numbers – you WILL get senior management
attention and support.
A less obvious area is the self service system. If a customer has a problem with a web transaction, they
will call you. From every respect, this is a single call to the contact center which could reasonably be
handled properly by the agent the first time. However – the entire reason for the call was that the self
serve system didn’t do the job properly in the first place.
5. Does the customer just want to call you back?
Some customers call at different times to speak with different agents in hopes of getting a different
answer. The key to properly handling these calls is to ensure that the agent knows about previous
contacts and can address the concern appropriately. Once the caller knows that you are on to them,
repeat calls will drop off.
7 WAYS TO MEASURE FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION
Most contact center reporting systems are heavily based on PBX and ACD statistics. This leads to an
information gap when trying to measure FCR rates, as FCR encompasses significantly more than can be
measured strictly with PBX / ACD reports.
First Contact Resolution requires, at a minimum, knowing who the caller is and why they are calling:
Know your customer’s identity.
Many organizations measure FCR rates based on simple Calling Line ID tracking. This is using weak data
to measure a difficult statistic. Calling Line ID has all the related limitations that you already know about
– it’s often missing, it’s incorrect, and either it’s not unique or it has multiples identities for a single
number.
For proper FCR measurement you must determine the caller identity by a unique identifier. This could
be a customer entered number in an IVR system, or even agent determined after the call has been
answered.
The 5 Reasons for Call Backs:
1. Agent Skills
2. Access to information
3. Authority
4. Business Process
5. Customer Behavior
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Know the reason for the call.
First Contact Resolution rates will vary across different call types. Without understanding why people
are calling you, you can’t determine if they are calling you back to complain about an error, or to buy
more products and services from you.
This illustrates that FCR is a customer focused metric, not a technology metric. Measuring it is difficult
because of the additional dimensions of information required.
It is critically important to remember that understanding your FCR rate,
is in itself, only a means to an end. If you are not collecting actionable
information that allows you to improve your FCR rates, then you have
little reason to measure it.
There are several ways to measure First Contact Resolution rates, and all
of them will provide you with an approximation of the real FCR rates.
Even asking the customer right after a call is not 100% accurate - they
may believe that their issue is resolved, and run into problems later that
result in another call.
We recommend you measure FCR using multiple mechanisms to gain a
better understanding of how well your contact center is performing. To
determine how to improve, you will require correlated historical data
containing a broad range of telephony, agent, and customer
information.
First contact Resolution can be measured in 7 different ways, with
varying levels of accuracy and varying levels of cost/ capital commitment:
1. Interaction tracking and management is the most powerful FCR measurement tool. It allows a
business to define a repeat interaction horizon – the frequency in which a second contact needs to
occur for a specific contact type, and then track FCR rates automatically.
Interaction tracking differs from other FCR measurements, as it:
Does not rely on impressions – only relies on actual repeat interactions.
Provides FCR information on all calls and interactions, not just sample sets.
Provides all associated information, including agent ID, customer number, call times, call reason,
and multi-call correlation.
Is derived as a standard ongoing reporting metric from an interaction management strategy,
rather than as a targeted project.
Interaction tracking is a powerful tool that allows you to automatically collect information that can be
used to determine root causes of problems. It also lets you properly retain and reward agents in the
contact center using the Agent Solve Rate - a fair and unbiased mechanism that cannot be gamed.
Solve Rate – the rate at which agents finally solves a contact – regardless of whether it was the first or
fifth contact - helps you align the goals of each agent with strategic business goals, identify problem
areas, and take corrective action through process adjustment, training, tools, or discipline.
From an Ascent Group
Study, the four primary
ways of measuring FCR
were:
34% Call statistics
calculations (internal
measure)
26% Agent-driven call
logging or tick sheet
(internal measure)
15% Call monitoring
(internal determination)
25% Customer satisfaction
survey (external measure)
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Since Interactions straddle multiple systems and silos, First Contact Resolution is difficult to measure. By
tracking and managing the basic interactions you have with your customers, you start to learn what
really goes on in the contact center, regardless of the contact medium or application silo.
Repeat calls can be caused by processes and policies owned by other departments. However, good FCR
measurement will provide a concrete “Price of Non-Conformance” that show executive management
where the problem is and how much it is costing them.
Finally, Interaction tracking and management gives you an incredible marketing asset – customer
intelligence – that truly provides your business with a competitive edge.
2. A Post Call IVR survey captures the customer’s impression of the call immediately after the
interaction. FCR measurement is straightforward - the survey asks if their problem was resolved while
the call is still clear in the customer’s mind.
Surveys provide an excellent snapshot of a moment in time and provide an excellent benchmark for FCR;
however they generally do not provide the ongoing detail information about how and where to change
processes in order to implement a program of continual improvement for FCR.
A good post call IVR survey will tie the survey to customer information and call reason, so that you can
resolve any issues with a specific customer or call type. When used in conjunction with an Interaction
management strategy, they become an extremely powerful tool for associating customer perceptions
with actual business performance.
Ideally, you attach agent IDs to the survey as well. This has disadvantages if the agent perceives that the
information is used to measure them. If a secret post call survey is required, it may be best
accomplished using a live call back immediately after the call.
3. Live customer surveys are an alternate way of collecting customer feedback. Since you are using
people to perform the survey, it is a more expensive option than the IVR survey. A live survey must be
performed immediately after a call to ensure that the information collected is accurate and relevant.
Live call back surveys that occur days or weeks later will be less accurate due to:
Poor customer recollection. The details of the call may no longer be crisp.
Customer willingness. The customer is more willing to speak with you about an interaction if
a) You’ve asked permission, and b) they just called you.
Relevance. The customer’s perceptions in a live survey may include other contacts or non
contact center related service issues that are unrelated to the original call. Contacting them
immediately after the call ensures that the survey will be relevant to the call that was just
completed.
4. Agent Logging is the easiest FCR measurement to implement. Agent logging can take several forms:
• Collecting the agent’s perception at the end of the call if the issue was resolved.
• Asking the customer at the end of the call if their issue has been resolved.
• Asking the customer at the start of the call if they have called about this issue before.
Agent logging may be viewed as of little value since it is often subjective and can be “gamed” by the
agent. However, it has the benefit of being “real time”, and when crosschecked against other FCR
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measurements, tells you valuable information about your agents. Also, the act of focusing your agents
on providing FCR will, by itself, improve your FCR rates.
5. Mail/Email surveys usually have very low response rates. Response rates fall if the business does not
ask permission before sending the survey out. Email surveys require that you have the customer’s email
address.
Survey accuracy is variable depending on how quickly the customer responds.
Email surveys should allow the customer to respond with information that is preformatted and that can
be added automatically into the FCR reporting system without manual intervention. Ideally, it should be
associated with the original call reason, the customer number, and the agent that handled the call.
6. Call recording analysis lets you define specific criteria related to FCR and then have an analytics
application sample recordings to determine if the call meets the predefined criteria for resolution.
Call recording analysis requires a full time recording system, as a sampling quality monitoring package
will only allow you to evaluate a small sample of FCR calls from recordings, making the results less
statistically significant. Automated call analysis is subject to error, so recordings must be manually
evaluated after the fact.
Full time recording used in conjunction with repeat call tracking lets management review both the
original and related repeat calls accurately. This can yield valuable insight about why the repeat call was
needed.
7. CRM Case Management involves measuring tickets opened when a customer calls. If a ticket is
opened twice, that could be a call back. It can be complex but if you have a system that is ticket-based
or one that captures the customer’s history and you can access the data you need to find repeat calls,
then CRM Case Management can provide FCR measurement that includes call reason information and
allow you to analyse root problem causes.
HOW TO IMPROVE FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION
First contact Resolution starts at the agent’s desk. Improving FCR involves process changes, call
routing, agent training, and access to the tools and information. But knowing what to change flows from
FCR tracking and reporting.
Note that FCR tracking and reporting is a rear view mirror – it can’t tell you where you’re going, but it
will show you how you got to where you are now. But by evaluating agents based on FCR, overall
forward looking process improvements can be made.
FCR Impact By capturing details about repeat calls, their effect on your business becomes clear. Simple
cost per call calculations translates repeat calls into dollars. It’s easy to justify to senior management
why you want to improve training internally, or resolve specific issues outside of the contact center,
when you can show them a report that indicates exactly how much money these issues are costing the
company.
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Once you’ve identified some of the problem areas, you can start to determine why calls are not being
handled properly the first time, and fix the source of the problem, or its root cause.
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
A good FCR measurement process will tell you specifically what happened and under what
circumstances. It should provide correlated details from the viewpoint of the customer, the agent, the
contact center, and the equipment. Because at this point you have no idea why the call was not
handled. And you want to solve the problem, not just mask the symptoms. Root Cause Analysis is a
process that identifies an underlying cause over which management has control and which can be
feasibly, economically resolved.
There are six steps to Root Cause Analysis:
1. Definition. (e.g. We get too many repeat calls for password reset).
2. Gather Data. Which you now have from your FCR measurement process.
3. Identify issues that could cause the problem. (e.g. Could be training, could be customer
knowledge, could be system problem).
4. Find the root cause. Analyze the FCR data then talk with the agents. The answer may be
obvious at this point, or you may need to refine your measurements or widen your
investigation.
5. Develop recommendations.
6. Implement.
There is a seventh unofficial step - you want to measure to see if the solution really helped. Fortunately,
your FCR system will give you a quick “apples to apples” comparison, as well as a heads up if the
problem reoccurs.
Agent Tools
Your agents are the delivery mechanism for your business. As a management team, your job is to
provide them the tools and information they need to do the job correctly, quickly and easily. Providing
them with a fancy new application with a 30 second response time will NOT help your FCR rates
improve.
Human nature dictates that agents will follow the easiest path to the desired end, so make the right
path the easy one. Give them tools that are fast, that eliminate repetition and prevent errors and your
agents will respond – by resolving calls right the first time.
SUMMARY
Efficiency is up against the wall of diminishing returns, and
improving First Contact Resolution lets you become more
effective. No other statistic affects the performance of your
business like your First Contact Resolution rates. It is the
“Canary in the Coal Mine” for how your contact center is
performing for your business.
Measuring FCR is complex, and is poorly understood
The Bottom Line:
Your front lines are the interface with
customer’s issues.
Invest in your people—give them the
training, the tools, and the authority to
get their job done right the first time.
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because of a contact center’s legacy of telephony based metrics. However, once proper collection and
reporting mechanisms are implemented, it becomes an invaluable business tool that allows you to use
your customer base as a strategic advantage and to use your service to differentiate your company from
all others.
Five Elements of Omnichannel Success
8000 Jane Street,
Tower A, Suite 401, Vaughan, ON L4K 5B8
info@upstreamworks.com
upstreamworks.com
.
ABOUT UPSTREAM WORKS SOFTWARE
Upstream Works provides organizations around the globe with omnichannel contact center software to
increase agent success and build exceptional customer experiences. Our all-in-one, intuitive, smart
agent desktop suite with seamless integration, reporting and analytics provides omnichannel interaction
management and a unified view into the entire customer journey for insightful, personalized service
excellence across every communication channel.
With over 15 years of award-winning, omnichannel innovation, we bring contact center expertise and a
proven, market-leading solution that extends our partners’ contact center capabilities. We’re committed
to achieving the highest standards of excellence from product design to implementation and support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rob McDougall, President and co-founder of Upstream Works has been a catalyst for change within the
contact center industry for many years. With Upstream Works, he developed a successful business that
provides contact center solutions to many high profile customers.
To ensure that Upstream Works continues to be a leader of innovation, Rob plays an active role in
promoting the company through corporate evangelism, articles, and various speaking engagements. Rob
is the author of many of Upstream Works’ whitepapers.
Prior to the creation of Upstream Works, Rob held the role of R&D Director for TSB International/Telco
Research, where he was responsible for product development and the tactical direction of InterLYNX CT,
which served as the basis and the origins for Upstream Works’ Business Interaction Management. He
graduated as an Electrical Engineer from the University of Western Ontario.
FEEDBACK AND MORE INFORMATION
Thanks for reading this report. I hope that you have found some valuable information that will help you
achieve your contact center and corporate goals. I welcome your comments about this white paper, and
invite you to suggest other topics that you would like us to address.
My contact information is below.
Rob McDougall
President
Upstream Works Software
Phone: (905) 660-0969
Email: rmcdougall@upstreamworks.com
© 2015 Upstream Works Software, Ltd. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution of this document in
any form, including photocopying, faxing, and image scanning is against the law and prohibited without the express
written consent of Upstream Works Software.
