7 Ways To Improve First Call Resolution in Your Company
While customers differ in their personalities, preferences and patterns, there is one unifying thing that brings them all together in a spirit of shared loathing: bouncing around from rep to rep, or being endlessly reminded of the “importance of their call” while they languish on hold. Of course, that’s assuming that most customers will wait on hold in the first place – which is not the case. A survey by live chat software vendor Velaro found that 60% of customers won’t stay on hold for longer than a minute, and 32% won’t wait on hold at all.
Thankfully, however, the flipside is also true: companies that succeed in resolving the majority of calls (or chats) at the first point of contact reap substantial rewards. For example, American Express found that 66% of customers are willing to spend more following an excellent customer service experience. And IBM’s Bluewolf found that in larger organizations, a 1% increase in first call resolution reduces annual operational costs by a whopping $276,000.To point your organization in the right direction, here are 7 tips to improve first call resolution so you can show – rather than tell – customers that “their call is important to you”.
As noted by Oracle, root cause analysis helps detect why issues aren’t getting resolved at first contact, or why issues are crossing channels when they shouldn’t (i.e. some customers will agreeably shift or self-shift if they see it as a benefit, such as moving from phone to web, etc.).
While not all issues can be resolved through self-support, many of them can - which isn’t just good news for companies and their beleaguered reps. It’s also a big win for customers. Research by Zendesk found that 50% of customers feel it’s important to solve product/service issues on their own, and the Aspect Consumer Experience Index found that 65% of customers have a positive impression of a company when they can get answers via self-support.
Reps are positioned to fail - and customers are assured of getting frustrated – when sales, marketing, technical, finance, and other teams aren’t sharing knowledge about what they’re doing now, and what they plan to do in the future. As noted by the training firm Impact Learning: “A common reason for repeat customer calls occurs when there is a disconnect with what the customer knows or has heard and what the agents know. Understandably, customers will become frustrated if they expect to receive a discount, or have heard about an updated service, and the agents must first conduct fact checking before they can assist the customer”.
IVRs allow customers to identify the problem they’re having or the department/team they wish to connect with. Skills-based routing compliments this feature by increasing the likelihood that customers will connect with a rep who can resolve their issue on the first call, or if that’s not possible, take ownership of the matter and usher it through to resolution. Also, keep in mind that skills-based routing (despite the term) is not limited to pushing calls to reps with specialized training or areas of expertise. Calls can be intelligently routed based on the language spoken, geographic area, demographic characteristics, and so on.
Giving customers the option to get a call back at a time that fits their schedule is one of those delightful strategies that not only prevents unhappy customers but can actually be positioned as a value add and leveraged as a competitive advantage. For example, as pointed out by CustomerThink.com, having callback technology in place is a vital piece of the customer service puzzle when callers exit the queue or get cut off.
Morale has a major, defining impact on first call resolution. As highlighted by DestinationCRM: “Engaged employees aspire to solve customer issues and will go above and beyond to make customers happy….Managers who are able to offer praise and constructive feedback are better able to optimize the performance of their team.” It’s also a good idea to offer incentives that reward employees who adhere to best practices, support their colleagues, and go the extra mile with customers.
Zoomin for Salesforce helps companies get closer to their customers at every stage of the buyer’s journey - from initial contact to post-sale support and relationship-building. The solution improves first call resolution and overall customer experience by providing reps with:
The Bottom Line
73% of customers surveyed by Forrester and Salesforce.com said “valuing their time” was the most important thing a company can do to demonstrate good customer service. As such, regardless of whether you run a multi-site contact center or a small team of reps, it’s clearly in your best interest – along with your current and future customers’ - to improve first call resolution. After all, you want customers to be raving fans; not raving mad!