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Improving Customer Issue Resolution Rates: FCR Strategies

customer support agent smiling at work

Not all incoming calls are a good sign that adds up to your call volumes. Why not, you may ask. As a customer support agent, how would you feel if five out of ten calls you accomplished for the day contained a single caller?

That call is a case of an unsatisfied consumer. How would your business managers feel about unresolved calls? Unresolved issues are a red alarm resounding in your business premises, and it’s shouting attention. Businesses can avoid this with top-notch BPO and call center service. The success of each call is a sign of success in climbing your business ladder. It also means a thicker funnel that drips down to your ROI.

So, where is our discussion going? This article will let you dive deeply into one of the most important call center metrics: First call resolution.

First Meet with First Call Resolution Metric

You may struggle to implement a better strategy that your agents and call representatives follow when resolving issues via calls. Or it could also be that you are a starting business and want to pave a seamless first step to building a streamlined business process.

The Indeed Career Guide defines FCR as a key indicator that measures how quickly an agent can solve a customer’s question or concern. You can also visit our previous articles and other resources for a detailed understanding of FCR.
Having at least the basics about various Call Center Outsourcing metrics will help you focus your strengths on boosting the capacity of your staff. Even if it is your first time outsourcing your lead generation agent or your CX employer, you can still follow through on their performance with this type of metric.

Having this key indicator in mind, you can plan and set up your tools for evaluation and assessment. Voice recordings, cheek, a team lead to listen to the performance, check! Even if you’re remotely working from your staff, you can do this and come up with t a fair and in-depth analysis of their call performances.
Ultimately, having records and hard copies of the performance will help you listen to your customers even if you do not take the calls. You have in your hand the answer. You can gain insight into what the issues are about. What category of concerns are often difficult to resolve, etc.?

If you have seen low follow-up calls from your diligent customers, a high FCR rate indicates that customer inquiries are resolved effectively during the initial contact, reducing follow-up interactions.

Strategies for Improving First Call Center Outsourcing

Now that you are geared with the tools and hard facts, you notice a decline in performance. A drop in customer satisfaction would soon trickle down to your other matrices as your ROI. Quick!

Let the strategies we listed below be your guide, and find the tips and pro advice to help you improve your call center agents’ performances!

Tip #1: Clear Definition of FCR

But what the professionals would do is to identify your market needs and get to know your consumer needs.
Will your FCR ratings reflect how fast a problem was resolved at the first call or how many times the customer made a callback? Give your agents a target period of time. Or better, give them a range that will be the equivalent of the number of calls over the number of first contact resolutions.

You can identify your FCR by industry. Here is an overview of top industries with their industry-based average FCR ratings:

  • Call Center Customer Service Industry- 60% – 80% Average 70%
  • Retail Industry – 70% -80% Average 75%
  • Energy & Finance- 60% – 80% Average 70%
  • Insurance – 65% – 80% Average 75%- 70%
  • Tech Industry – 55% – 75% Average 65%

 

With tech support, there are necessary follow-ups and callbacks to get the precise process and steps when resolving technical product issues.

happy and feeling accomplished call center agent

Tip #2: Staff Training & Advanced Technology Integration

The following strategy is to take advantage of emerging trends. Automation is now a trend that will streamline your incoming call process. Integrated automated chatbots help you streamline your predictive analysis process. You can initially ask about the main issue at hand.

You can use a chatbot or an IVR for this step.

Once your CX agent takes the call, they already have an idea ahead of time and may already adjust their scripts to handle the call. 

To integrate new tools, you need to, of course, invest in training your staff. Do not hesitate. The return on your investment is going to be worth it.

employees attending a training inside the conference room

Enhancing Customer Satisfaction Through Outsourcing

Outsourcing your customer support agents will allow you to plant agents around the clock to answer calls. That is why, aside from cutting labor costs, hiring remote call centers can help you secure the spot wherever a customer needs your assistance.

For a swift resolution, heed this pro tip: The best strategy is to partner with an experienced call center provider. They can handle looking for suitable customer support agents for you, and they can provide the training. They were taking these complex tasks out from your shoulders.

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