How to Improve First Call Resolution: Invest in Customer Service Training

Stud­ies show there is a direct cor­re­la­tion between First-Call-Resolution (FCR) and employee sat­is­fac­tion. Call cen­ter agents who are skilled at solv­ing cus­tomer issues receive praise from man­age­ment and pos­i­tive feed­back from cus­tomers which boosts their con­fi­dence and increases job sat­is­fac­tion. Here are four sug­ges­tions for improv­ing FCR in your cen­ter with cus­tomer ser­vice training.

1. Invest in Your Employees

First-Call-Resolution can be an elu­sive goal if cus­tomer ser­vice rep­re­sen­ta­tives do not pos­sess the needed prod­uct or ser­vice knowl­edge or com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills to ade­quately resolve cus­tomer issues. Invest­ing in cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing will ensure agent suc­cess and high cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion rat­ings. Cen­ters that invest in train­ing see improve­ments in call qual­ity, agent effi­ciency, and employee sat­is­fac­tion which add up to sig­nif­i­cant increases in FCR.

2. Increase Employee Engagement

Employ­ees who feel val­ued and are rec­og­nized for per­form­ing well are more likely to con­tinue the desir­able behav­ior and encour­age oth­ers to do the same. Engaged employ­ees aspire to solve cus­tomer issues and will go above and beyond to make cus­tomers happy. If team leads and super­vi­sors do not nat­u­rally pos­sess the skills required to effec­tively pro­vide feed­back to agents, pro­vide them with train­ing to hone their coach­ing skills. Man­agers who are able to offer praise and con­struc­tive feed­back are bet­ter able to opti­mize the per­for­mance of their team.

3. Mea­sure Success

If you are not cur­rently mon­i­tor­ing FCR, start imme­di­ately! First-Call-Resolution is one of the key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors every cen­ter should mea­sure to not only deter­mine cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion but also pin­point ways to reduce oper­a­tional costs.

Each cen­ter has a spe­cific way of mea­sur­ing FCR. Many use call cen­ter agent ques­tions at the close of the call such as “Have I suc­cess­fully addressed all your needs?” and “Is there any­thing else I can help you with?”. Some cen­ters use sur­veys or call qual­ity mon­i­tor­ing. Oth­ers review records using phone call auto­matic num­ber iden­ti­fi­ca­tion match­ing to ver­ify if cus­tomers called back in a spe­cific time period, or to see if the cus­tomer record was noted as resolved, esca­lated or sched­uled for a call back. Choose the mea­sur­ing method most suit­able for your cen­ter and start mon­i­tor­ing to deter­mine whether or not your agents are solv­ing cus­tomer issues appro­pri­ately the first time.

Need addi­tional val­i­da­tion? Con­sider a cus­tomer ser­vice assess­ment for your cen­ter and have a pro­fes­sional con­sul­tant high­light areas that can be improved.

4. Set Real­is­tic Expectations

Cus­tomer calls are often lengthy or esca­lated because the cus­tomer had expec­ta­tions that exceeded agent job duties or com­pany pol­icy. Cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion and agent per­for­mance is based on what the cus­tomer expected to take place – not nec­es­sar­ily poor per­for­mance by the agent.

Cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing will aid your team in estab­lish­ing a con­sis­tent process for han­dling dif­fi­cult cus­tomers and give employ­ees nec­es­sary com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills to expertly con­trol the call. To estab­lish con­sis­tent FCR make sure that Mar­ket­ing and Ser­vice depart­ments are aligned and not over-promising your prod­uct or service.

Increas­ing FCR will add value to your ser­vice or prod­uct. When cus­tomer issues are resolved quickly and cor­rectly the first time — cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion increases and so will your rev­enue. Be sure to equip your employ­ees with the tools nec­es­sary to be suc­cess­ful. Use the above sug­ges­tions and improve First-Call-Resolution with cus­tomer ser­vice train­ing in your cen­ter today.