No one knows how to Calculate First Contact Resolution
The most important thing a contact center can do is resolve customer inquiries the first time.
If you are good at this you are running a great contact center.
If your contact center was forced to pick one metric and one alone — You should pick FCR.
First contact resolution is the most important metric in your contact center.
FCR is the superfood of the contact center — it helps effectiveness and efficiency. Understanding this metric and how to optimize it is important.
Problem is no one can agree on how it is calculated, which then impacts what the targets should be, and how to improve it.
Let’s start with the first challenge. How is it calculated?
There is no debate on the calculation inputs.
Contacts resolved / Contacts Received.
The debate is mostly on the numerator and specifically the term “resolved”.
What constitutes “resolved”?
Is it an honor system?
Should your employees self-report what is resolved?
Do we ask the customer to decide what is “resolved”?
What happens when there is a dispute?
When your perception of what is “resolved” and the customer’s perception of what is “resolved” is in conflict. Customers erroneously think the issue is resolved only to find out it isn’t.
Many organizations simply measure the inverse and use metrics like repeat contact rate, which has many of the same flaws.
The second challenge is goal setting?
What should the targets be?
Most organizations look outward for answers.
They look for ways to “benchmark” and there is a long list of people willing to provide benchmarks.
Problem is most of it is garbage.
The underlying FCR data is based on a formula that differs from company to company so comparing your FCR to another company’s results is an exercise in futility.
The third challenge. How do you improve it?
Most of the focus on improving FCR tends to focus on the metric.
The mistake is creating programs that improve the FCR score — which is bad enough when there are standardized metrics, but worse in this case.
It is like focusing on your weight alone as opposed to your overall health. Eventually it becomes about the made up FCR metric and not improving customer outcomes.
So what should you do?
- Embrace the lack of standard — there is no benchmarking FCR so why not, calculate it as best as you can and make that the starting point.
- Focus on the drivers — Unless your bonus is tied to the number, shouldn’t the focus be on improving the underlying driver of repeat interactions.
If you want to nerd out on FCR, reach out and I can share a course that will take you deeper.
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