According to a report by Forbes, about 74% of consumers are at least somewhat likely to buy based on customer experiences alone. The key to any happy and profitable business is having an efficient customer support team. Customer care support plays a crucial role in not only customer satisfaction and brand loyalty but also profitability. One of the best ways of knowing if your business is providing the right customer service is by taking a look at First-Call Resolution.
First-call resolution or FCR is an important customer care operation performance metric that helps people understand a customer support team’s ability to efficiently and effectively resolve help desk tickets. The FCR rate refers to the percentage of customers whose tickets were resolved on the first contact. The lower and successful customer interaction is, the better the FCR.
First-Call Resolution is typically measured as a key performance indicator with the help of the following formulae –
9 Important First-Call Resolution Best Practices
1. The hunt for the problem
The first thing to do and keep in mind while trying to improve First-call Resolution rates is to understand the root cause of the problem. Running analysis and finding out where or why the delays are being caused is essential as it helps you understand what needs to be done.
Analyzing patterns and trends is important. Understanding issues like why there was a transfer, when did the transfer happen, if or why was there a follow-up, why the caller wasn’t satisfied with the agent interaction is essential as it helps you make better arrangements for reducing the time taken in an FCR.
2. Don’t make customers sweat!
Take a look at it from the customer’s point of view. If you had to wait for multiple transfers or if you as a customer witnessed a lot of delays, frustrations will lead to poor FCR and unsuccessful agent interactions. Expecting minimal effort from customers is the key.
Customers shouldn’t have to experience the slightest difficulty when reaching out for help or assistance. Accessing customer care or customer support should be super easy and quick. Make it easy for customers to reach out to you for a smooth FCR.
3. Build an efficient workforce
A customer service agent’s performance plays the most important role in FCR. Improving FCR can be a hectic job if the customer support agents are not trained properly. Making sure that agents are well informed and equipped with the right technology to handle customer interactions in an efficient manner is important.
It is important for businesses to make sure that agents are well informed about various things: the workflows, the products, new product promotions, new product releases, product recalls, any kind of technical or marketing issues, etc. This helps them handle customer interactions in a fruitful manner.
4. Facilitate internal communication channels
A smooth flow of information between various departments is absolutely necessary in order to create an effective and efficient customer care experience. Having a centralized communication system or channel that facilitates easy communication between customer service agents and other departments play a very far-reaching role when it comes to improving FCR.
For example, having a centralized internal communication channel helps customer service agents reach out to the logistics department for any queries regarding logistic errors or issues in the fastest way possible. This will significantly cut down the time taken to report back to the customer.
5. Anticipate customer needs
One of the best ways through which businesses can drastically decrease first call resolution times is by successfully anticipating what their customers need or why their customers are reaching out to them in the first place.
Maintaining an organized customer database or having organized customer profiles containing information about the customers’ preferences is the key. Categorizing customers on the basis of their previous interactions, purchase history, demographic, age groups, etc.
Search categorizations allow customer service agents to better understand what the customer is expecting from the agent interaction. Knowing or having an idea of what customers need can not only improve FCR but also increase customer satisfaction levels.
6. Facilitate self-serve portals
Self-serve portals serve as a great customer management tool. In situations where there is a lack of availability of help desk agents, self-serve portals come to the rescue. Self-serve portals enables customers:
- To skip long waiting periods and also helps them solve their own tickets.
- Decrease the number of tickets being raised
- Enable businesses to build a more independent customer base.
7. Invest in the right technology
One of the best ways to improve FCR in the service desk is by making sure you choose and invest in the right technology. Having an efficient customer relationship management system can help customer service teams significantly increase FCR.
To provide the best customer support experience, it is important for businesses to choose the most effective and efficient CRM systems. That will help teams automate customer care operations better. A faster ticket remediation process will improve both FCR and CSAT scores.
Make sure that the CRM system you invest in should have features like omnichannel support, automated ticket assignment, effective categorization of help desk tickets, self-serve portals, etc.
8. Maintain an updated knowledge base
Maintaining a centralized knowledge management system that
- Holds customer information in an organized and easily accessible manner.
- Helps customer service agents better handle customer interactions.
- Makes sure that agents no longer have to physically hunt for information that the customers need.
- Can easily access the KMS and get back to customers within a matter of seconds.
Maintaining an up-to-date KMS has great potential to improve FCR trends. In addition to this, having a KMS enables customer service teams to actively engage employees in customer support operations. It helps businesses keep their employees updated and fully aware of recent updates, recent regulations, new guidelines, use-case scenarios, etc.
9. Collect and analyze feedback
According to a report by Microsoft, about 56% of people around the world have ended ties with a business because of poor customer service experience. One of the best ways to identify how customers feel about customer service is through feedback collection.
Acquiring feedback is always a must-do task for customer service teams. Using a CRM system that automates the feedback collection processes helps customer support teams go a long way.
The next step is to analyze the feedback. The insight gained from the feedback is always valuable as it helps businesses understand delays and their causes better, which helps them identify the root cause of poor FCR.
Technology Matters!
Without the right technology, achieving First-Call Resolution can be extremely difficult and challenging. Thanks to efficient customer relationship management systems like Kapture, businesses no longer have to worry about poor FCR rates.
To know more about Kapture’s CRM click here for a demo.
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