How To Improve First Call Resolution (FCR) For Contact Centres

Customer satisfaction is one of the best indicators of a company’s success. In fact, 80% of customers consider the experience a company provides to be as important as its products or services.

This means that to meet the expectations of today’s consumers, you can’t afford to have anything less than world-class customer service in your contact centre.

One way to achieve this is to actively work on improving your First Call Resolution (FCR) rate, as this is directly linked to your customer satisfaction scores.

In this article, we explore why it’s crucial to track and analyse FCR, the consequences of a poor FCR rate, and practical tips to help you achieve a higher FCR rate in your contact centre.

What is First Call Resolution (FCR)?

First Contact Resolution (FCR) is a metric that measures  the percentage of customer inquiries resolved in a single interaction with your company.

As the name suggests, it measures how often a customer service agent is able to resolve a customer’s issue the first time they call the contact centre. Ideally, the customer gets their desired outcome without needing a second or third call.

In other words, FCR is your ability to resolve customer problems the first time they contact you, with no follow-ups required.

Why is FCR important for contact centres?

FCR is important because it essentially reflects how well the customer service team is doing its job. It provides valuable insight into the company’s customer experience strategy and is a good indicator of its operating cost efficiency.

Improving FCR brings multiple benefits to the company as it helps to:

• Increase service speed and quality
• Meet customer service expectations
• Cut down on customer support costs
• Boost the company’s bottom line
• Improve efficiency and productivity

A high FCR rate can also significantly increase customer retention since good customer service motivates customers to keep coming back.

According to research conducted by Gartner, ‘if customers receive value enhancement during a service interaction, then their likelihood of repurchase or renewal increases by 86%’.

What are the consequences of poor FCR?

A low FCR rate can lead to lost opportunities for conversion and increased operational costs due to staffing requirements. And when support agents have to spend time dealing with repeat calls, this will have a knock-on effect on customer wait times and overall customer satisfaction.

The likelihood of repeat business decreases every time a customer has an unsatisfactory interaction with your customer support team so having a poor FCR will have a direct effect on your company’s future revenue.

How to improve First Call Resolution for contact centres

The first step towards improving FCR is to evaluate your current rate and compare it to the industry standard benchmark, which is typically around 70-75%, with figures ranging from 41% to 90%. From there it’s a case of setting clear and achievable goals and putting a plan in place to achieve those goals.

Here are some key points to include in your plan:

• Agree on what constitutes ‘desired outcomes’ with both your staff and management team
• Train your agents so that they know how to meet desired outcomes
• Track performance (and review it!) continuously
• Measure FCR on every channel, not just one
• Manage customer expectations realistically
• Collect data via post-contact customer surveys so that you can measure your progress

Another great way to improve FCR rates is to work on your team’s communication skills. This is particularly important in today’s digital world, where the human element is so often forgotten.

Here are three communication skills that your customer support team can work on to improve First Call Resolution:

1. Engage in active listening

Active listening demonstrates empathy and shows that you care. Listen to what your customer is saying without interrupting them, and repeat key points to make sure you understand what they’re saying.

2. Ask clarifying questions

Ask the caller specific questions that will give you greater clarity on the situation. Keep in mind that it’s okay if the caller needs more than a single conversation to resolve their issues.

3. Set clear expectations for what happens next

Resolve the customer concern with actionable next steps, including clear instructions for escalation where appropriate. Ensure that the customer knows what will happen next, and when.

How does Twilio impact FCR for contact centres?

Twilio is used by hundreds of thousands of businesses worldwide to build unique, personalised experiences for their customers.

Not only does Twilio help to streamline communication between customers and service agents, but it also provides in-depth analytics to help you measure FCR and other key metrics. This allows you to gain a true picture of the efficiency of your contact centre so you can easily identify areas for improvement.

The following screenshot of our analytics dashboard illustrates the potential value of every call, once it is understood in the context of analytical data:

 

How partnering with Kaptea can help improve your FCR

Twilio Flex is a programmable contact centre platform, capable of providing contact centres with enormous flexibility and analytics to transform your customer experience, your FCR and your net promoter score (NPS). But many organisations need the right support to integrate it into their applications and take advantage of all the features specific to the needs of advisors, managers and operations.

At Kaptea, we are your Twilio consulting partner, here to help you build experiences your customers will love, and improve your productivity, efficiency and profitability.

We offer flexible Twilio deployment and support plans that can be layered according to your specific business needs, and you can count on us to provide expert support – whenever you need it!

Our team of Kaptea experts can help you to:

• Get Twilio up and running quickly
• Integrate seamlessly with your existing CRM
• Configure Twilio for your unique business
• Get ongoing support and training
• Measure customer trust with meaningful analytics
• Take charge of your customer experience on every channel
• Get the metrics you need to drive bottom-line results

We can tackle CX issues big and small, for SMEs and large enterprises alike, and our team has rolled out some incredible solutions including the HSE Contract Tracing Programme.

To find out how partnering with us can help boost your FCR and keep your customers happy, book a 30-minute call with one of our teams today!