First Call Resolution: Customer Perception is Reality

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First Call Resolution:

Customer Perception is Reality

An extract from Achieving First Call Resolution 2009, a new research report published by the Ascent Group, Inc.

First Call Resolution is perhaps the most powerful call center metric. A focus and improvement in FCR brings the best of both worlds—an improvement in efficiency and effectiveness. You don’t have to worry that you are sacrificing quality because you are reducing costs, or vice versa. When you improve FCR you’re improving quality, reducing costs, and improving customer satisfaction, all at the same time.

FCR Pyramid

An 80% FCR rate sounds pretty good. However, an 80 percent FCR means your customers call you, on average, 1.2 times to resolve a question or issue. This 20 percent in “repeat calls” represents increased call volume, inflated operating expenses, and most importantly, dissatisfied customers. Dissatisfied customers are more likely to defect and more likely to tell others about their experiences.

Customers expect to bring a problem or question to your attention and have it resolved in a timely manner. Not all inquiries can be resolved immediately or on the first contact. However, advances in technology, increasing employee empowerment, and scrutinizing evaluation will increase the number that can.

How many of your customers’ calls are resolved on the first contact? It sounds easy enough, however, many companies have found it difficult to define first call resolution, much less measure it consistently. Tactics to measure FCR vary greatly from company to company. Our survey confirms this. While some companies are measuring first call resolution, many are not and would like to. Many companies that are measuring FCR are struggling with the challenge of selecting the best measurement approach for their organization.

Can you tell how frequently your customers contact your company? Can you identify repeat calls? Can you segment FCR by type of contact? Can you ask your customers if they think their concern was resolved and how many contacts were required? This is the type of information you’ll need to effectively measure First Call Resolution.

Find out if your customers think their issues and questions are being resolved on the first contact. After all, your customers are the ones calling you.

Benchmark Study of First Call Resolution

To better understand how companies and different industries are approaching First Call Resolution, the Ascent Group conducted its fourth annual benchmarking study to evaluate First Call Resolution performance and measurement. More than 100 companies from 14 industries, representing 19 countries, participated in the research. The following pages summarize the study’s objectives, findings, and recommendations.

The main objective of the study was to evaluate the various approaches to measuring First Call Resolution and to identify best practices or opportunities for improvement. Secondary objectives included understanding:

The range of First Call Resolution performance by company and by industry,
Strategies for driving improvement in First Call Resolution,
How first call resolution factors into individual, team, and center-level performance objectives and compensation, and
How companies are promoting the importance of first call resolution throughout the organization.

Participants were asked to share the history of their first call resolution measurement approaches, as well as identify any improvement in performance. The study also asked companies to include considerations, successes, and plans moving forward.

Study Findings

Study participants range in size from 22,800 calls handled per year to as many as 295 million. Industries represented in the study include:

Financial Services	Manufacturing
Government	Insurance
Services	Retail
Technical Support	Telecommunications
Utilities	Healthcare
Outsourcing	Consumer Products
Transportation	Publishing

Participants report first call resolution rates from 30 percent to 98 percent, indicating varying degrees of maturity in FCR measurement as well as complexity in call type by company and by industry. The bulk of participants (67 percent) have been measuring first call resolution for 3 years or less, indicating the relative immaturity of this measurement technique across industries.

Within our participant group, we found 4 primary ways of measuring first call resolution:

Call statistic calculations (internal measure)
Agent-driven call logging or tick sheet (internal measure)
Call quality monitoring (internal determination)
Customer satisfaction surveys (external measure)

The majority of participants (75 percent) rely on a multi-measure approach to gauge first call resolution. Customer Satisfaction Surveys (44 percent) and Call Statistic Calculations (32 percent) are the most frequently used approaches to measure First Call Resolution in this year’s participant group.

Only 20 percent of participants measure first contact resolution through call quality monitoring while even fewer participants are relying on agent logs or asking agents to determine if the call has been resolved (9 percent).

What Did We Learn?

Measure and Track FCR Performance. It’s a key driver of continuous improvement and a key determinant of customer satisfaction. If you don’t measure it you can’t improve.

First Call Resolution is an Important Customer Satisfaction and Cost Driver. Customers contacting a company with a problem or issue expect it to be resolved correctly in the timeliest manner. No one likes calling back to explain the same problem over and over, nor are they happy when it hasn’t been resolved to their satisfaction. Repeat calls are costly to the bottom line and to customer satisfaction. According to a recent ACSI study, half of customers with unresolved issues are at risk of defection, or have already decided to leave.

The Customer Perception of First Call Resolution is Most Important.Our research identified four primary ways of measuring First Call Resolution—customer surveying and three other approaches that deliver internal approximations of First Call Resolution. While each approach has its uses, ultimately, the customer’s evaluation of issue or contact resolution is what matters most. Our participants are recognizing this—the most popular way to measure First Contact Resolution among our panel was through customer surveying (44 percent of participants). Make sure you ask your customers how well their issues and concerns were resolved.

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The Ascent Group, Inc.