There is a strong correlation between FCR and customer satisfaction, with every 1% increase in the FCR rate resulting in a corresponding 1% uptick in CSAT. One of the most effective strategies for improving FCR is by leveraging call analytics. Analytics helps understand genuine customer intent behind a query, flag issues on time, and prevent agents from repeating the errors of their colleagues. This helps to incrementally enhance FCR rates in your contact centre, both in real-time and over a specific measurement period.
Here’s how:
- Use speech analytics to map trends in customer intent
By applying speech analytics to conversation recordings from repeat callers, you can detect hidden trends that are probably holding you back from resolving queries at first call. A good example is when customers call every month to revisit their subscription settings. By analysing calls, you’ll find keywords that indicate the lack of adequate self-service and readily available FAQs that are causing this problem.
- Flag instances of weak communication skills
An analysis of historical call recordings will also surface issues in agent soft skills. Someone might be allowing protracted gaps in the conversation, leading to disengagement and lack of focus. Someone else might be unintentionally adopting an aggressive tone. Call analytics (particularly speech analytics), can detect these known signs of weak communication skills, so you can deploy further training.
- Measure net FCR on a daily basis using analytics
While FCR is what you should always aim for, repeat callers aren’t necessarily always a bad thing. There are some calls that cannot be resolved at the first line of contact. Customers might call multiple times a day with different queries or with follow-up questions. It is important to filter out these instances so you do not skew the results when calculating your FCR rate. Call analytics can help log customer intent and specific calling conditions to arrive at your net FCR.
- Implement real-time analytics for problematic calls
Problematic calls (and new or untrained agents) are among the top reasons for a low FCR rate. Fortunately, real-time call analytics allows you to spot warning signs during ongoing calls so that a supervisor or more experienced co-worker can intervene in real-time. They can use the whisper mechanism to offer silent support, or barge into the call in drastic scenarios.
- Predict agent requirements and staff accordingly
When your queues are longer than average and agents are rushing through calls to keep up with demand, there is a high possibility that your FCR will fall. You can prevent this by applying predictive analytics and anticipating peak periods based on market, product, customer, and seasonal data. Having enough agents in your contact centre will give the workforce the confidence to handle each call attentively and drive FCR.
Importantly, these best practices can be applied to other channels of communication like email or live chat (using text instead of speech analytics) to improve first-time resolution (FTR).
