First-Call Resolution: Best Practice?

Jackie
Member

Posted 14-Jul-2005 09:03 AM
Dear Bill,

I work in a telecomms company and we are working on targets for First Call resolution in our call centre.

Would you have any information on what is best in class first call resolution score. We are interesting in benchmarking against our own industry and other industry types.

Your advice on how best do this is much appreciated.

Jackie

Gwynne Young
Managing Editor, CustomerThink
Member

Posted 15-Jul-2005 10:40 AM
[Posted for Bill Price]

First call resolution (or first contact resolution, also abbreviated as FCR), is beginning to split into two distinct benchmark definitions: (1) the first person who tackles the problem (or request, or issue) handles it, or what is now called "first point resolution", and (2) it might take several successive handoffs within the same call, but by the time the caller/customer hangs up, it’s resolved.

Further complicating this, you have to figure out how to measure whether FCR by eithervdefinition is really effective, from the customer point of view, In telecoms (and I spent 8 years at MCI), it’s a little easier
than software or systems industry contacts, but of course telecom is getting more complex, too.

OK, so what are good nums?

FCR benchmarks we like to see are >95%, meaning fewer than 5% of the cases that the customer’s issues are not resolved in the first point or the series of handoffs. Few companies achieve >95%, and do keep in mind that the customer needs to "decide" if there’s resolution, not the agent or some deduction that no subsequent contact = resolved. Let me know if you’d like to explore surveying and measurement.

Between first point resolution and handoffs—this is too new to call, but we strongly believe that customers do not want to suffer handoffs at all, necessitating higher degrees of training and authorization and knowledge access at the first point.

Having said that, >80% of the FCR should be first point, with benchmark "best" being >90% first point (I’ve seen as high as 93%, but over 90% risks handling too many contacts before escalation or handoff."

Bill Price
President & CEO, Driva Solutions
Creating and sustaining highly effective contact center strategies and solutions, locally and globallyCreating and sustaining highly effective contact center strategies and solutions, locally and globally
A LimeBridge Global Alliance founding partner
http://www.drivasolutions.com http://www.limebridge.com

phone 1-206-321-0841

Dave Earl
Member

Posted 17-Nov-2006 01:49 AM
Hi,

I am working on a FCR project and was looking in to the best ways to measure it. It seems the most common practice is to use customer survays but I am considering tracking customer CLI numbers and was wondering if there is an flaw in doing this. Its just it seems the most obvious way of recording repeat contacts but no one else appears to be doing it this way.