Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution

Helping Contact Center
Agents Improve First
Contact Resolution
A white paper by The PELORUS Group
sponsored by
Publication Date: 5/08Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution
ABOUT THE PELORUS GROUP
The PELORUS Group was founded in 1987 and has emerged as one of the fastest growing independent market research and consultancy companies in the financial services and telecommunications industries. The PELORUS Group produces authoritative analysis and research reports, provides custom business planning services, and offers timely industry conferences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dick Bucci is Senior Consultant for The PELORUS Group (www.pelorus-group.com) where he specializes in contact center technologies. He has authored eight in-depth reports on workforce optimization applications and numerous articles and white papers. Dick is also managing director of Technology Marketing Associates, a marketing consulting firm. He has over 30 years of experience in the telecommunications industry
ABOUT UPSTREAM WORKS
Upstream Works delivers contact center solutions for companies that view their customer service as a strategic competitive advantage and want to improve both their existing infrastructure and their satisfaction ratings. Upstream Works improves connectivity among all facets of a business, providing immediate access to key customer data and empowering agents to resolve customer issues efficiently while in compliance with business rules. The result is a rise in first-call resolution rates that reduces customer churn, lightens the overall call volume and raises employee morale, which makes the call center more productive and increases customer satisfaction ratings.
Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution 2© The PELORUS Group (Published 5/2008)Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABOUT THE PELORUS GROUP 2
Benefits from Gains in First Contact Resolution 4
Causes of Repeat Calls 5
Affect on Handle Times 8
Measuring First Contact Resolution 12
Reporting and Analytics 14
Summary 15
Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution 3© The PELORUS Group (Published 5/2008)Helping Contact Center Agents Improve First Contact Resolution
It's not surprising that first contact resolution (FCR) is becoming a high priority among forward-looking contact center managers. Increasing the percentage of contacts resolved during the initial contact provides three great benefits; customer satisfaction goes up, operating costs go down, and contact-center generated revenue goes up. There are also potential downsides, like extended handle time as agents strive to keep the caller on-line until the issue can be resolved.
While advances in technology have made wonderful contributions to improving contact center performance and cost-effectiveness, in the end success or lack thereof comes down to the individual agent. In this paper we review the benefits of higher FCR rates, carefully examine the causes of repeat calls, and outline specific agent-centric remedies that contact center management can take to improve FCR and AHT at the same time.
Benefits from Gains in First Contact Resolution Customer satisfactionEmpirical research conducted by the SQM Group (Service Quality Management Group, Inc.) showed that every 1% gain in FCR translates into a 1% gain in customer satisfaction. The SQM Group has conducted benchmarking studies for ten years. According to Mark Desmarais, company president, "The measure we believe is most important for measuring and managing call center customer service is - you guessed it - FCR." Dr. Jon Anton and his team at BenchmarkPortal found that "First/Final" had the strongest positive correlation with customer satisfaction. Finally, strong anecdotal evidence comes from Judy Monger, president of Customer Relationship Metrics. Her company is a recognized leader in customer satisfaction measurement. According to Judy, "Field experience in measuring customer satisfaction indicates that caller satisfaction-both with the CSR and with the company in general-will be 5 percent to 10 percent lower when it takes more than one call to solve the issue than it is when the issue is resolved on the first call."
Cost savingsAccording to extensive international... [download for more]