Not only are today’s customers more mobile and information-enabled, they also have higher expectations. They demand services that are ‘always on’ and ‘always accessible’ from multiple touch points and channels. And through it all, customers expect their journey to be consistent, relevant, and personalized.
First Call Resolution (FCR) – a Powerful Metric for Excellence
From a customer’s viewpoint, FCR is a leading indicator of their satisfaction. They want their requests resolved immediately. From an organizational and support center perspective, FCR is critical as a means to gain reputation and slash costs.
An integrated and intelligent system can augment the skill levels of a L1 support professional with that of an SME to execute and resolve specific tasks. This will boost FCR, and enable analysis of repeat contacts across all interaction channels with varied customer profiles to derive predictive patterns. When done correctly, this will reveal efficiencies and inefficiencies in policies and processes. Leveraging such insights leads to embedding real time intelligence to augment the support executive with subject matter skills and expertise needed to rapidly resolve issues.
The Importance of Technology
Agents are the delivery mechanism of customer experience and satisfaction. Giving them tools that are fast, that eliminate repetition, and prevent errors will help them respond with knowledge to resolve calls right the first time.
Workforce management solutions such as quality monitoring, speech analytics, HR management and training strengthen traditional workforce features of forecasting, scheduling, adherence and reporting.
The right tools and technology will empower agents to handle high volumes and complexity of data, and extract vital information they need to drive successful outcomes.
Educating and Empowering Agents
Agents perhaps are the most knowledgeable about customers and customer care. Smart organizations will actively solicit suggestions and insights from their agents to elevate issue resolution outcomes.
Inputs for this may also be obtained from insightful reviews of past customer interactions. Such analysis can help in knowing why some issues are resolved and others are not. This will help organizations provide agents with knowledge and skills to remedy problems with speed and understanding.
Ensuring that each member is aware of the latest support issues and their resolutions and workarounds helps the support team to identify and respond with meaning to clients.
Optimizing Workforce Management Processes
In addition to skilled agents, right tools and technology, accurate forecasting and smart scheduling are critical. Such skills-based routing ensure that clients are routed to the aptly equipped agent to handle and resolve their issues instantly.
Automating certain processes and implementing intuitive applications can create great efficiencies. For example, intelligent call routing and queuing, interactive voice response (IVR) and custom messaging software allow calls to be sorted and directed based on the caller’s specific problems. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems that provide fast access to client information will reduce the time required to diagnose and resolve their issues, especially if integrated with other business improvement technologies.
An integrated system with targeted tools to coach agents in boosting first call resolution can act as a winning enabler of productivity. With further training in call handling skills, escalating calls with confidence, and handling complex situations in a user friendly and time efficient manner will add to an enterprise’s reputation. It calls for a holistic approach to help both agents and customers feel more satisfied with the use of their time.
