Measuring and improving your first contact resolution rate is beneficial to both the customer and the contact centre. The customer is likely to be more satisfied if their queries are resolved quickly, without them having to repeat themselves to multiple agents. Contact centres can free up agents to handle a new customer if most queries are resolved at first contact. In fact, a low FCR rate would mean that your agents are performing poorly both in terms of efficiency and CSAT.
Let us explore the meaning of FCR is more detail to understand how contact centres could improve it.
First Contact Resolution (FCR) Rate Definition and Formula
You can define the FCR rate as the percentage share of total calls or queries across various contact platforms that are resolved in the first instance, without having to reopen the interaction or transfer to a different agent.
FCR is typically measured at inbound contact centres that handle incoming customer queries. Unlike first call resolution, which focuses on telephonic conversations alone, first contact resolution is best suited to omnichannel contact centres. You can measure FCR for emails, chatbots, and, of course, phone calls to understand how efficiently agents are addressing queries across each of these channels.
The formula for calculating first contact resolution is as follows:
(Incidents resolved at the first point of contact ÷ total number of interactions during the period of measurement) x 100
If you are unable to pin down the exact number of incidents resolved at first contact, you can modify the formula as follows: