5 Strategies to Achieve First Call Resolution

5-Strategies-to-Achieve-First-Call-Resolution

In our previous blog, we have discussed on the 5 Reasons You Should Aim for First Call Resolution. Now that we have ascertained that First Call Resolution (FCR) is a critical measure of customer satisfaction and contact center efficiency, we will move on to how exactly you can achieve an exceptional FCR strategy implemented. Customers bring up their problems and issues to your attention and expect it to be resolved timely. But not all enquiries can be resolved immediately. However, with advanced technology, employee empowerment, and scrutinised evaluation, an increase in this number can be made.
Every organization normally define their own standard or business protocols in achieving First Call Resolution, since the nature of calls differ. However, here are few strategies that your organization can implement to achieve First Call Resolution.

  1. Agent empowerment: Agents should be empowered with the right kind of tools to resolve customer issues quickly. They need access to customer information at the right time, to deal with customers, most of them being frustrated. Providing a 360-degree view of customers puts both, information and the ability to empathise with customer issues or queries, at the agent’s fingertips. Proper training in handling objections, customer furies, etc are critical elements in the process. Moreover, agents are to be granted a level of authority to handle and resolve customer issues.
  2. Get the Customer to the Right Place: and at the right time. You should leverage your IVR software to minimise common queries, by creating an IVR that is properly aligned to handle majority of the call types. Vague and generic IVR will end up with a customer landing in a wrong queue, and result in an unnecessary transfer. Customers should easily understand the level of IVR, and should be easily able to land up at the right queue in the minimum time possible.
  3. Unified Agent Desktop: A unified agent desktop grants the agents easy access to process-critical tools and mission-critical applications to expedite the process of problem resolution. Providing agents with a single-point of access to the necessary tools and information makes it easier for the agents to prep about the customer and his/her problem at hand.
  4. Optimize Workforce management: Even the best of agents need a breather between calls. It is critical to manage the workforce optimally, to deal with all customer issues, and to minimise agent pressure. Workforce management tools like Skill-based routing integrated with Automated Call Distributor, optimises the workforce, and directs the call to the right agent.
  5. Build incentives around First Call Resolution: It seems common sense to give away incentives to agents, but is not widely practiced. Aligning fair rewards and recognitions with agent performance and contact center goals boost agent performance and employee morale. Since FCR should be top priority for every contact center, agents that consistently meet or exceed FCR goals are to be rewarded and recognised, and made an example of FCR objectives should be maintained and published, and should be made known that a customer problem should be closed as ‘resolved’ only if the customer himself/herself states the same. This can only be done by educating the agents about the importance of the metric, and how they are directly beneficial from the same.