Everything You Need to Know about First Call Resolution

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To keep existing customers satisfied, a high level of call center service is extremely important. One of the key metrics to measuring customer satisfaction is FCR (First Call Resolution). It shows whether the customer’s problem or issue was resolved during the first interaction with company representatives. If the customer needs to make several calls in order to solve the problem, it leads to frustration and dissatisfaction. Let’s try to figure out how to make the FCR rate as high as possible.

To keep existing customers satisfied, a high level of call center service is extremely important. One of the key metrics for measuring customer satisfaction is First Call Resolution (FCR), or First Contact Resolution rate. It shows whether the customer’s problem or issue was resolved during the initial call or other interaction with company representatives. If the customer needs to make several calls after the initial call in order to solve the problem, it leads to frustration and dissatisfaction. Let’s try to figure out how to make the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate as high as possible.

So, what is First Contact Resolution definition? How to measure the First Call Resolution in call center? What are first call resolution best practices? Is call center first call resolution a vital metric? What is call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) industry standard?

Let’s answer those questions.

What Is First Call Resolution (FCR) and How to Calculate It

What is FCR? First Call Resolution (FCR), or First Contact Resolution, is a percentage measure that shows how many customer queries the call (contact) center managed to answer at the first time of asking.

How do you calculate the First Call Resolution rate and what is the First Call Resolution formula? There are various approaches so you can choose one that suits your business needs.

Call Centre Helper recommends using one of two formulas:

Another expert resource, Contact Babel, lists four methods on how to calculate First Call Resolution (FCR) in their recent research The Inner Circle Guide to First Contact Resolution:

  1. The total number of contacts resolved correctly on the first attempt divided by the total number of contacts in a given period of time
  2. The total number of contacts resolved correctly on the first attempt divided by the total number of contacts in a given time period that can be resolved correctly on the first attempt
  3. The total number of contacts resolved correctly on the first attempt divided by the total number of first contacts
  4. The total number of contacts resolved correctly on the first attempt minus total contacts reopened, divided by the total number of first contacts

Why Is First Call Resolution Important?

After reading these First Call Resolution formulas, you may think: “Is it necessary to calculate this tricky metric? My customer service agents can’t fix everything with a magic wand!”. Yes, your agents aren’t wizards. But many customer requests don't require too much effort and can be solved quite quickly. Otherwise, your customers will lose their temper and go elsewhere. Moreover, a low First Call Resolution (FCR) rate means that you may lose your customer service team as well. Why? Well, it’s hard to keep your cool when dealing with angry callers who contact you due to the same problems again and again. Also, a low First Call Resolution (FCR) rate means extra spending on IP telephony because it is you who pays for inbound calls to your toll-free numbers.

Let’s take a look at these two graphs from Contact Babel’s research, mentioned above.

The first picture shows how business sees the First Call Resolution (FCR) importance.

Figure 1. How the US (left) and the UK (right) businesses view FCR. Source: Contact Babel

As you can see, 42% of the US respondents put the first call resolution in the first place and 24% consider first call resolution the 2nd most important factor to customers. In the UK these figures are 52% and 20% accordingly. Figure 2 shows us that customers’ view is somewhat different. Even in the youngest group (18-34 years old), more than half of the US respondents (53%) put First Call Resolution (FCR) in the top three, while the older customers consider it even more important: in the oldest age group (65+) this number amounts to 71%. In the UK, these numbers are 47% and 44% among the youngest groups (16-24 and 25-34 accordingly) and 70% in the oldest age group (65+).

Figure 2. How the US (left) and the UK (right) customers view FCR. Source: Contact Babel

This gap may seem not so huge but only until you look at how the board or senior management perceives First Call Resolution (FCR). When they were asked to name a CX metric upon which they judged the success of the CX program, only 3% of them (6% in the UK) mentioned First Call Resolution. Figure 3 shows that executives value the end product of the CX program - customer satisfaction (34% of respondents in the US and 36% in the UK) more than First Call Resolution (FCR) although it’s one of its key drivers.

Figure 3. How the US (left) and the UK (right) board / senior management views FCR. Source: Contact Babel

What do all these numbers mean for you? First call resolution (FCR) is a really important factor for your customers. We live in a time-poor world where every call transfer, and every extra minute we wait on hold matters. If your customers see that you value their time and don’t make them contact you time and again on the same matter, they’re more likely to stay with you. That’s why your business should pay attention to First Call Resolution (FCR) and track it regularly. One of the ways to succeed in doing this is by using efficient call center software.

What is call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) industry standard?

Call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) has a precise industry standard that is accepted by most call center experts and executives. Based on their opinion, perfect call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) rate is around 80-85%. Nonetheless, in such a competitive market there is no place for such “one size fits all” statements.

Why? There are industries that work with more complex products, which means customer issues are also more complicated. For such occurrences, call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) is rarely higher than 75%, or even 70% in some cases. Can it be considered a low call center FCR (First Contact Resolution) score? No, at least because sometimes hurrying with closing a support ticket means poor customer service and low customer satisfaction as a result. Such “one call solutions” are often used by agents who don’t want to harm their personal customer service performance rates, but this harms the customer-brand relationships, so finding a FCR call center rate that will be perfect for your business depends only on your personal needs and specifics of your business.

How to Collect Data for First Call Resolution (FCR)

Another question that arises as soon as you want to calculate the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate in your call center is how to collect data. Are there any First Call Resolution (FCR) collection services? To find out how many customer queries were resolved in a “one call resolution” manner is not as easy as it may seem. You can use different methods like:

  • Agent feedback / Logging. Agents ask customers if they resolved their issue or if customers called about it previously. After that, they mark each call with a relevant disposition code. Also, agents can tag repeat calls in the CRM (Custoemr Relationship Management) system which can then be reported upon. This way of determining First Call Resolution (FCR) may seem the most accurate one but you should use other methods as well. Firstly, your customers may not want to come across as impolite even though they aren’t satisfied with the response. Secondly, if their problem requires extra steps to solve they won’t know whether it’s been resolved at the end of the call. And finally, agents could abuse their right to mark calls as resolved (especially, if they are rewarded for high First Call Resolution (FCR).
  • Post-call surveys. This type of survey is typically used for measuring customer satisfaction when a customer is asked to evaluate the quality of service. However, it can help you in collecting data for First Call Resolution (FCR) as well. For example, you can use outbound automated surveys when a customer’s phone number is put into an outbound dialer’s queue, which calls them and offers an IVR survey. All they need to do is to choose one of the options from the IVR menu. This survey saves you time and resources as your employees don’t need to be involved. It’s also highly accepted by customers: according to Contact Babel’s report, the acceptance rate is up to 70% if a call-back is made in minutes. Another option is SMS sending. Text messages don’t require too much time to answer, so customers accept such post-call surveys as well. Other types of post-call surveys include system-generated emails, web forms, outbound agents’ calls, automated IVR surveys at the end of the call.
  • Quality monitoring and assurance. Call monitoring tools give your managers a range of opportunities to control call quality. For example, the Voiptime Cloud call center solution offers you quality cards that can be easily created based on your criteria. Your quality team can score calls based on whether they have been resolved the first time by simply adding a new block to a card’s template. However, this method should be combined with other ways of data collection for measuring the First Call Resolution rate because it’s impossible to listen to 100% of recorded calls.
  • Interaction analytics. It means an automatic evaluation of calls by using natural language processing. With interaction analytics, you can search for keywords and phrases like “called before” to find the conversations where callers have indicated that they have called earlier. Further analysis will help you to find how First Call Resolution (FCR) can be improved by optimizing processes outside the call center.
  • Tracking of reopened issues. Some workforce optimization solutions allow you to count calls from the same phone number, customer account, or ticket number within a specific amount of time. This feature can provide the basis for First Call Resolution (FCR) figures but you should take into account that some customers may contact you for different reasons.
  • Repeat contact reasons. This method means that you create individual First Call Resolution (FCR) rates at a contact reason level - billing, fulfillment, etc. - by analyzing the CRM system. It allows businesses to achieve two goals: to see if their focus on fixing the broken processes works at an issue level; to define whether the problem is at an agent level or a process level.

As you can see, you have a range of data collection methods that can give you some material for First Call Resolution (FCR) calculations. We recommend using at least a couple of them to get more accurate results. And after getting these results and calculating your First Call Resolution (FCR) rate, move to the next step - improving it.

How to Improve FCR in Your Call Center. Best Practices

1. Create a checklist

Although there is some common definition of First Call Resolution, you should specify it for your business. Here is a possible checklist from Contact Babel:

  • Does a fully resolved contact mean that the issue was closed and that the customer was satisfied with the response? (e.g. a customer who turned down a bank loan is unlikely to rate themselves as being satisfied with how the call was handled)
  • How do you wish to classify calls where a supervisor joined the conversation or otherwise coached within the call?
  • How do you wish to classify calls that were transferred to another agent within the same tier?
  • How do you wish to classify calls that are transferred to an agent in a higher tier?
  • How do you wish to classify calls where the caller contacted the wrong department and has been transferred?
  • What about calls that are abandoned by the customer in the IVR or phone queue?
  • For emails: is there a maximum number of emails in a conversation before the contact is marked as not having been resolved the first time?

2. Find the reasons for repeat calls

Once you’ve detected repeat calls, it’s time to figure out why customers contact you again. According to business consultant Stephen Perry, 50-70% of incoming customer contacts may be caused by a failure within systems and products. For example, if many customers call the wrong department, there may be some problems with IVR settings, and that’s the main issue that harms your First Call Resolution rate. If you have many escalated calls, your agents may need additional training or greater empowerment to improve the First Call Resolution score. Sure, repeat calls aren’t always your contact center’s fault. The root of the problem may be in other departments as well so be ready for lots of communication and cooperation.

3. Put yourself in the customers’ shoes

How do your customers feel when contacting your company? You’ll never know that until you try. Such occasional calls to your contact center will allow you to see your company from a customer’s perspective. You can spot the most common IVR mistakes, and weak points in a call script, assess the level of agents’ training, and so on. That, in turn, can be the reason for a low First Call Resolution (FCR) rate.

4. Keep the balance between different metrics

No metric is an island. Too much focus on the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate may have adverse effects on other KPIs. Your agents will spend too much time to make sure that the issue is 100% resolved which may affect Average Handle Time (AHT), Average Response Time (ART), queue lengths, cost per call, and call abandonment rates. In their research, Contact Babel recommends tracking both FCR and AHT in a call center that may help you identify the most inefficient processes or contact reasons.

5. Gather feedback from agents

Ask your agents about the common issues your customers contact again and again. Their answers may shed light on low First Call Resolution (FCR) reasons. They should have a good understanding of what’s going wrong but many companies underestimate them as a source of information.

6. Deliver quality training

Cross-train your agents as widely as possible, because the high First Call Resolution rate totally relies on agent skills. They should have comprehensive knowledge of your products and services as well as an understanding of what other departments actually do. Decent training gives them more confidence and makes them more able to meet customer expectations.

By the way, let’s tell the truth - the First Call Resolution depends on the person who handles the first call. Who is it? You call center agents, who face a difficult task - handle the customer calls and resolve them from the first try. Ask yourself - are all of your contact center agents ready for such a task at this moment? The answer can be a bit upsetting.

But there is no situation that has no way out of it. Agent training and coaching is the best way to let agents understand their task, show the ways to tackle this task and help them gain all needed skills to deal with this task. Main agent skills that are needed for a high First Call Resolution rate include:

  • Adaptability - a skill that allows agents to talk to customers in the way customers talk to them;
  • Conflict resolution - ability to deal with conflict situations without unneeded escalation
  • Empathy - empathy is needed to avoid conflicts and make customers more “soft” and ready to cooperate;
  • Communication skills - sometimes it is needed to have a small talk when another specialist is dealing with the issue. Won’t the agents be silent for a few minutes, will they?
  • Stress resistance - some customers can destroy even the most positive person’s day. Agents should know how to keep their emotions under control and deal with stress and angry customers.

7. Update your knowledge base regularly

No training can replace the core of your support effort - a knowledge base. Regardless of the target users (customers or employees), it has to be user-friendly and informative. Your agents have to be informed about new caller issues and ways of handling them, new product launches, marketing campaigns, changes in pricing, and other company policies that may cause questions from customers.

8. Leverage self-service options

Such self-service options as the IVR menu, chatbot, or FAQ section on your website will help you to reduce the number of simple and repetitive questions. It allows your employees to focus on tasks that require their involvement. However, it also means that your agents have to handle only the most difficult requests that, in turn, may affect your First Call Resolution call center rate as well.

9. Build better links with the marketing department

We’ve mentioned that your agents have to be informed about all the changes in company policies that may affect them. However, it’s quite a common situation when a call center learns about a new marketing campaign from...customers. It puts extra pressure on agents and harms your brand image. The close cooperation and constant communication between these two departments are therefore extremely important.

10. Keep your employees motivated

When your agents are motivated they will be more eager to assist your customers. And one of the best ways to increase their motivation is financial rewards for meeting KPI targets. Unfortunately, as the Contact Babel research shows, many contact centers don't take First Call Resolution (FCR) into account when rewarding their customer-facing employees financially. The average number of those who do it is 15% in the US and 11% in the UK. It gives you the chance to stand out from the competition. However, First Call Resolution (FCR) should be only one of the metrics used to reward agents. Otherwise, it may be skewed to boost earnings.

Benefits of improving a First Call Resolution (FCR) rate

We have already stated that the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate is an extremely important part of CX strategies, and basically one of the main components of customer experience itself. But what are the measurable benefits of improving the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate in your contact center? What can you earn from it?

Spoiler: more than you could expect.

Higher customer retention

What is the most important thing for any business to keep scaling up, get more revenue, and stay stable in any circumstances? Customer retention. It is stated numerous times, in numerous studies, that customer retention is up to 25 times cheaper than customer acquisition. Well, it doesn’t mean you don’t need to acquire customers anymore, but paying attention to customer retention is the only way to become successful, and what’s more important, retaining the success of your business. One of the best ways to avoid customer churn is to improve your First Contact Resolution performance.

Why is First Call Resolution (FCR) so crucial for improving customer retention rate? Firstly, customers don’t want to spend much time resolving their issues or getting needed service - and the First Call Resolution (FCR) rate is a synonym for saving customers’ time. Secondly, First Call Resolution (FCR) shows how you provide customer care - and who leaves the business that cares about its customers? Finally, there are not that many firms on the market that can provide stable FCR services - and that means you can overplay many competitors by showing an unreachable level of customer service.

Increased customer satisfaction

What satisfies customers? Careful service, fast service, effortless service, and finally, non-annoying service. Now think about what connects all these characteristics - maybe, First Call Resolution (FCR) rate, doesn’t it?

Customers are tired from lazy, inflexible service that can’t adapt to their needs and wishes, as well as it can do almost nothing but consume valuable time. After all, what does any customer dream about when calling a call center? We bet that not about three call transfers, one “link me to your manager” and zero issue resolution at the end.

Another important point is to collect customer feedback, both positive and negative. You can do it via phone survey, web forms, or any other way, but remember the main tip - the only way to get the true customer satisfaction rate is to ask your clients about it.

Lower customer effort

What makes service effortful? A need to repeat or just do unneeded tasks, spend hours on being transferred from agent to agent, and inability to get the service in expected way. It is quite easy - when you offer to reduce overall resolution time by providing a high First Call Resolution (FCR) rate, you reduce customer effort during customer interactions.

Customers are more and more willing to get effortless service, automated, fast, and effective. What can be more effective and fast than resolving customer issues during a first contact in every single interaction?

Better agent performance and faster professional growth

Let’s be honest, if you set a goal for agents to solve 85% of customer problems during first contact, they will have to do their best to reach this objective. Not every agent can be that effective in providing FCR customer service as you can guess - some workers just can’t be as adaptive and flexible as needed.

Moreover, the First Call Resolution (FCR) call center metric is often difficult to reach in some industries - if we talk about high scores, from 80% and higher. Imagine that a customer calls and says that his purchased software doesn’t work, but the real reason for the problem is that you have server maintenance going on and it will not end until tomorrow. Moreover, a customer says that he needs the working tool here and now because it is needed to close a vital business deal. Is it possible to solve the trouble within a first contact, especially if an inexperienced agent has taken up the phone?

Anyhow, it is normal to have 15-25% of customer inquiries unresolved, and in some cases this percentage can be even higher. By the way, all businesses are different, and this doesn’t mean that having a First Call Resolution rate lower than 75% in an architectural agency is a bad thing - just the industry is too specific to be measured with generally accepted industry standards.

Cost saving

Surprise! Isn’t it? You could think that investing in a higher First Call Resolution rate means spending on agent training, investing in more advanced software tools, reviewing your SLA (Service Level Agreement), or involving an outsourcing call center, but that’s not the case.

By decreasing the number of calls you have to process on the path to providing a great customer service experience and resolving a customer issue, you decrease costs. Sounds obvious, isn’t it? But not every manager takes this factor into account when building a customer experience strategy.

Now we will show you a little calculation. If you need three calls on average to resolve a customer issue, and the cost of each call is X dollars, how strongly will the cost of resolutions decrease if you achieve a two times boost in the First Call Resolution rate? You can easily predict the answer.

Conclusion

First Call Resolution rate is one of the most important call center KPIs. Its neglect can harm your customer satisfaction and, as a result, your bottom line. Fortunately, efficient call center software can help you significantly improve your First Call Resolution (FCR).

To improve your First Call Resolution rate and find one call solution for every customer who calls you, you need a powerful tool with multiple features and capabilities. We have something to offer in this case - Voiptime Cloud Contact Center, the perfect solution for setting up your own call center that will be really customer-oriented. Interested?

Tanya Gonchar

Expert in call center process automation, Head of Marketing at Voiptime Cloud. Interested in customer service, B2B sales, marketing, business analysis.

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