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Boosting Your Call Centre's First Contact Resolution

by Galina Solopova, CallScripter - July 19, 2013

Boosting Your Call Centre’s First Contact Resolution 

No matter if you are a small business or an enterprise, managing a contact centre means finding a balance between contact centre efficiency and customer satisfaction. To improve contact centre efficiency, managers need to get the most optimal productivity from their agents (answering as many calls as possible). But what does it mean for customer satisfaction? And, most importantly, first contact resolution?

 

To speed up the workforce does not always mean resolving as many customer queries as possible. It is a numbers game. But what about the quality of the interaction? Did the agent fulfil all the needs of a customer? The most frustrating thing a customer can hear is ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you with this as you need to call this number and talk to this other department. Is there anything else I can help you with?’ In 9 out of 10, this makes the customer frustrated and the customer experience turns bad.  

 

Why the FCR Metric Matters Most

Investing in your customer experience strategies is crucial as the benefits are huge. If you manage the process right, it is most likely that you are going to be turning each customer into a brand ambassador. And, in today’s competitive markets, it is gold.

 

Studies have shown that the first contact resolution is the primary driver for customer satisfaction rates. So, customer care must be a key priority as the costs of retaining a satisfied customer are far less than those associated with finding a new one. Moreover, by increasing first contact resolution percentage, you are automatically decreasing the operational costs and increasing the overall generated revenue for the business. So, why is it so hard to achieve maximised first contact resolution? Why are contact centres still struggling? The first thing you have to determine is where in the ‘customer experience journey’ it goes wrong and why the query can’t get resolved? You need to put the right parameters in place depending on your business and your initial goals. In addition to this you need to determine what technology is most likely going to support these goals. Admittedly, it is never easy to choose a solution - they all seem to do the job.        

 

Supporting the Agent with the Right Tools 

It is a nightmare to measure first contact resolution and customer satisfaction if you don’t have the right tools in place.  How do you know that the agent that spent 40 minutes on a call has given the customer an exceptional customer service experience? Moreover, knowing that the customer query has been successfully resolved. Using a customer interaction scripting system can help you getting this kind of visibility. What a scripting application provides you is the ability to standardise how the calls are handled and ensure that all agents are performing at the top level. In addition to this the route taken by the agent throughout the script is recorded. This means that managers can easily monitor how long the agent and customer spent on each section.

 

There are big advantages of scripting as multiple servers and databases can be integrated into one user interface. This means that agents can access important information in one place and in real-time. The real trick is in the script design. When designing scripts it is crucial to draw a road map of the customer experience journey outlining all the important touch points. It is quite hard to tell how a good script should be put together - it is all about knowing who your callers are. A good script is not just what the agent says but also how easily they can impart and receive information required to satisfy the caller on the line.

 

There is no doubt that scripting is there to fully-support the agent and ensure that the call is being resolved first time around. On top of this, it is helping contact centre managers to measure and track the customer satisfaction rate.  Who does not want happy agents, satisfied customers and profitable business?

 

Author:

Galina Solopova, CallScripter (www.callscripter.com)  

galina.solopova@callscripter.com

+44 844 409 8561

 

 
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