How to Improve First Call Resolution (FCR)?

In an ideal world, every customer would be able to get the help they needed from the first person they spoke to. In reality, however, customers aren’t always able to accurately relay their needs over the phone. For example, if they’re having trouble understanding you, or have a language barrier. If you’ve ever worked with a company that struggled with FCR, you know that customers can be a pain. You’re not able to get them to speak clearly, they’re often slow to respond, and they don’t always understand what you’re asking them to do. It’s frustrating for you and frustrating for the customer too. So, how can you improve your company’s FCR? Keep reading to find out.

What Is First Call Resolution?

First Call Resolution is the process of helping customers resolve issues as soon as possible after they contact your business. This means that when a customer calls in, they should be able to get all of the information they need about their issue within the first call with someone from your customer service team. The goal is to make sure that the customer feels like they were heard and understood by the time they hang up the phone.

How to Calculate Your FCR Rate?

To calculate your FCR rate, simply divide the number of customers whose inquiries were resolved on their first call by the total number of unique inquiries and then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

For Example:

If you have 100 unique inquiries and 10 of those inquiries were resolved on their very first call, then your FCR rate is 10%.

5 Steps to Improve Your First Call Resolution Rate

Do Your Research

Determining the proper way to go about improving your FCR can be difficult. Companies have widely different needs and goals, which means that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. To figure out what your company should do, you need to do some research first.

There are a few questions you should ask yourself before deciding on an approach:

• What is your current FCR?
• What is your ideal FCR?
• What are the major challenges your team faces when trying to reach this goal?
• Who should be responsible for tackling these challenges?
• How will you measure the success of the new methods?

By answering these questions, you can pinpoint what needs to change in order to improve your FCR. You can then discuss with your team how they would like to tackle these challenges and get input from them on how they want to measure success. It might take some trial and error, but it’ll be worth it!

Another way to discover what causes a lower FCR rate is by using a call recording service – our Power Dialer provides call recording as part of its extensive features. This will allow you to listen back to all of your calls and identify what’s causing hang-ups. You can then take this information and use it to improve your FCR through training, better communication techniques, or by updating your phone system.

Train Your Team

One of the best ways to improve your company’s FCR is to train your team. You want to make sure that they’re able to relay your company’s requests as clearly as possible, and also capable of understanding what customers are telling them.

Training new employees can be a challenge, but it’s well worth the effort. To start, you want to find out how clear their speech is. If they don’t speak clearly, or use complete sentences when communicating with customers, you might want to consider training them on how to do so in a more effective manner.

Next, you’ll want to work on their customer service skills. Make sure that they have an understanding of the products and services you offer, as well as the industry you operate in. Training your team should always be a priority for any business looking for better FCR. You can check out our article on the most helpful customer service tips, too!

Develop Better Scripts

Developing better scripts can help your business improve FCR. The best way to do this is by conducting customer interviews. These interviews are designed to understand the customer’s needs, wants and expectations so you can create a script that will work for them and work for your business. It takes time and effort, but it’s worth it in the end. Your customers will be more engaged when they’re able to communicate with someone who understands them and their needs. And if you develop scripts that work for both you and your customer, it means less money spent on rehiring staff or paying for outside help.

Create a Walkthrough Video

You can create a walk-through video to help customers understand what they need to do. A walk-through video can be extremely helpful if a customer has trouble understanding you on the phone. If a customer is in front of their computer and able to watch the video, it’s much easier for them to understand your instructions. You could also use recordings of your live support team solving problems for customers.

Create an FAQ and a Knowledge Base

A key step to improving your FCR is to create an FAQ and a knowledge base. This will be helpful for both you and the customer because they’ll be able to access the information they need without being on the phone with you. You can also direct them to a web form or email address if they want specific answers or want to send in feedback. They’ll have the opportunity to read about their problem before calling, which means you won’t have to spend as much time repeating yourself.

Always Ask If the Customer Is Satisfied

One way to improve your FCR is by asking customers if they’re satisfied. This sounds like a simple question, but it’s actually very important. You want to make sure that their experience with your company was positive, and that you provided the best service possible. It’s an easy way to get feedback from them and make improvements where necessary. It can also be empowering for the customer to have a say in what happens next. In the world of customer service, this feedback is invaluable. These are things that you can use to make your customer experience better and show them how much you care about their opinion by making changes based on their input. If they responded positively, great! If not, try to find out what went wrong so you can fix it next time.

Since you are interested in this topic, we suggest reading what are the customer service trends for 2022, too!