Call Centre Services: Customer satisfaction is the key to business growth. Even if you use the best strategies to run business processes, customer satisfaction rates play a major role in building up a successful business. Instead, you need to focus on faster resolutions through efficient call center services.

Some business owners may believe that the emergence of new customers automatically leads to business growth. And so, they do not pay attention to retaining existing customers.  But that approach can hinder the growth of your business. If a brand always brings in new customers but fails to retain its old customers, it indicates that the products and services that it offers satisfy only short term needs of customers. Do not expect customers to care about your products and services if you do not care about them.

It goes without saying that business growth relies heavily on both customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Loyal customers will always stick with the brand, bring in more sales, and will be concerned about the progress and continuity of your business. 

First Contact Resolution

Customer satisfaction has a strong correlation with FCR or First Contact Resolution. Companies with higher FCR will have higher customer satisfaction rates. FCR is also known as First Call Resolution or one-touch resolution. FCR measures both productivity and customer experience.  It is defined as the percentage of customer queries that are resolved by the company with the very first interaction with the customer. In case of live calls or web chats, it would mean that the customer’s issue is resolved before the customer disconnects the call or ends the chat session. This eliminates the need for escalating the issue to another source of support.

Higher the FCR rate, higher the customer satisfaction level. Customer satisfaction can also be measured by combining FCR with other key metrics like average customer call duration. Fast customer talk time averages with low FCR rates may be an indicator of low customer satisfaction levels. If the FCR rates are higher, it indicates that agents at your call centre services are addressing customer needs the right way, at the first interaction itself, thus, eliminating the need for the customer or IT support to follow up with customers for a second contact. 

Lower FCR rates mean more follow up calls are made to solve the customer issue, which negatively affects customer satisfaction rates.

FCR Measurement and Calculation

There are a number of internal and external methods to measure FCR. But the customer is the one who can decisively tell whether the issue is resolved in the first call itself.  Some of the internal measurement methods include:

• Web survey: After three business days of issue resolution, the customers are invited to participate in an online survey to record their feedback.
• IVR survey: It is done within one hour of the call or immediately after problem resolution.
• Phone survey: It is initiated within two days of issue resolution.

Calculation

The First Contact Resolution rates are calculated by dividing Tickets resolved on the first contact by the total number of tickets. It is not possible to solve all issues remotely by contact centre agents just with the first customer interaction. Such incoming issues are subtracted while measuring Net FCR. It is calculated by dividing the number of tickets resolved on the first contact by (All incoming tickets – Tickets that cannot be resolved at the agent level). Whereas Gross FCR is calculated by dividing the number of tickets resolved on the first contact by All incoming tickets. Net FCR is more relevant among the two, as Gross FCR gives only a distorted picture of the performance of the call centre services.

Ways To Improve FCR Rates

• Create a knowledge base: All customer support contact centres should maintain a knowledge base which provides information for both customers and Tier 1 support agents. Identify common issues raised by the customers and include information about the same in the knowledge base so that the customers can address minor issues themselves. By making the knowledge documents accessible to customers and lower-level IT support, your FCR rates will increase as specific queries or requests won’t need escalation. 

• Equip Your Customer Support Agents With Necessary Skills: Right training and resources in call centre services will empower agents to resolve the incoming calls effectively. Scripted responses are not beneficial in all cases. Train your customer support agents to use their skills and insights to quickly solve customer issues. This will avoid unnecessary escalations and improve FCR rates.
• Integration Of Artificial Intelligence Into Customer Support Systems: AI collects information from previous customer interactions and intelligently routes queries to the most appropriate contact centre agent. AI-enabled systems analyse patterns of content, previously used by agents to resolve a ticket with one response. Such analysis will help in providing suggestions to solve issues with a single response. Thus, integration of AI to your customer support systems will help in improving FCR rates and in turn, increase customer satisfaction.

• Set Goals and Measure FCR on Multiple Channels: Enterprises should define their FCR goals and expected results beforehand. This will help and direct agents to work towards achieving the same. It is also important to measure and analyse FCR rates on multiple channels of customer interaction. For instance, higher FCR rates in calls and lower FCR rates in chats can negatively affect the overall FCR rates.  

Benefits of Improving FCR Rates

• Reduction in Operational Cost: Statistics show that a 15% increase in FCR rates can reduce repeat calls by 57%. As customer issues get solved in the first contact, there is no need to call back. This direct impact on repeat calls reduces operational costs considerably.
• Improved Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction rates increase as their issues get resolved with initial contact. Happy and satisfied customers are more likely to recommend the brand to others. Hence, increased FCR rates improve customer satisfaction and eventually lead to business growth.
• Employee Satisfaction: Increased FCR rates boost employee confidence. They feel satisfied as they are able to resolve the customer issue during the very first interaction. Employees feel good about themselves and the company, and as a result, the employee turnover rate decreases.

Getting your FCR rates to improve will require a torrent of in-house resources. However, experienced call centre services providers have affordable and proven methods to get results. And for good measure. FCR does have a significant impact on customer satisfaction. By fixing this one element in customer support, you will enjoy a transformational business impact.