Date: June 11, 2019
Category: Blog
First Contact Resolution (FCR) is simple: the lower the amount of interactions your customer faces to get their query sorted, the better. Lower amounts of customer interactions equal lower costs for your brand and- most importantly- a fantastic experience for your customer. So, how can we improve that all-important First Contact Resolution?…
Ask the Right Questions
Asking the right questions is important when it comes to getting the most out of the interaction. Asking simple questions with simple answers helps direct the conversation in such a way that the Advisor knows exactly what to do next.
And one of the most important questions of them all? Asking the customer if they feel their issue has been resolved… If the answer is no, you’ve got some more work to do!
Listening
Asking the right questions is all well and good, but if the Customer Service Team aren’t listening to the answers their customers are giving them, there isn’t really much point. Customer Service Advisors should be developing their soft-skills, as well as the real practical knowledge. Listening is an extremely important skill for all employees; not just for the benefit of customers, but for their colleagues as well!
And it’s not just the Advisors at the forefront of customer communication that should be listening. Your Marketing and Insight teams should be working together to understand what your customers want from/think about your brand to improve the chances of first contact resolution.
It’s always important to understand your customers’ opinions and demographics. Once you have some meaningful information around the kinds of people your Customer Service Advisors are talking to, and why, you’ll be able to use this information to improve first contact resolution by anticipating your customers’ needs.
The Right Systems
With the right systems, you can encourage and support customer self-service options, as well as automating a number of data input tasks.
Forgetting to update Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems is a leading cause for decreases in FCR. By investing in top-class systems, you remove much of the need to input data, providing a better experience for both your customers and your Customer Service Team.
Well-being and Training
The performance of your Customer Service Team can be directly attributed to well-being. As Virgin founder and CEO, Richard Branson, once said: “If you look after your staff, they’ll look after your customers- it’s that simple”, and it really is!
Training is an important part of the employee journey. Soft skills are important, but so is the practical knowledge. The training your Customer Service Team receive is incredibly important when it comes to getting that customer interaction right.
Without the right soft skills, the customer may become agitated and choose to escalate the call. Likewise, if the Customer Service Team are lacking in the practical knowledge, the customer may need to get back in touch another time to resolve their query.
And training and development won’t just lead to improved operational performance; by providing employees with the time and support for training and development, you’re acknowledging that they’re important to the business, and that you think they can go further. This commitment to your employees will, in turn, improve their sense of well-being and engagement. We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: happy employees equal happy customers.
Avoid Interaction ‘Back and Forth’
Although it’s always best to respect the customer’s choice of communication platform, there are times when it may be a good idea to offer the customer a phone call or live chat.
If there’s been one-too-many ‘backwards’ and forwards” between the Customer Service Advisor and the customer via email or social media, it may be one of those times. If the customer responds by letting you know that they’d prefer to stick to email/social, no problem. Generally, though, most customers will be thankful for the option of instant communication with someone who can help.
Think you need some help achieving FCR? Just get in touch to find out what we can do for your business
