First Call Resolution

For many companies in the utility and other industries, First Contact Resolution (FCR) is a primary measure of not only contact center but overall customer process effectiveness and has proven to be an excellent predictor of customer satisfaction. But as many of our participating utilities have learned, it isn't easy to define, track, and take action on First Contact Resolution performance. In fact, for our industry, there is yet to be a common, shared method or approach to measurement.

In last year’s First Quartile survey, top companies reported over 80-85% First Contact Resolution. However, companies reported varying ways of defining and measuring this statistic—from pure resolution in the contact center to resolution of the issue across all process aspects—office, field, billing etc. It’s clear that one standard approach does not exist, yet companies are seeking at least more standard adoption of measures.

Secondary Research

The proposed secondary research is intended to investigate these key areas:

Overview of FCR across other similar industries having order fulfillment and 2nd or 3rd party issue resolution, comparing these industry needs and actions to those of utilities.
How to define FCR for purposes of internal measurement and reporting
The FCR process, with emphasis on the internal processes, metrics, resources, organizational relationships between functions that rely on each for measurement and reporting
Measurement approaches being taken to capture FCR (e.g. 3rd party, internal, statistical/data capture etc.)
Communication and sharing of results and the resulting actions that companies are taking to improve performance, including what the most successful forms of improvement are.

Primary Research
The primary research will be directed toward participating utilities to understand where they are in the continuum of achieving a robust FCR process with emphasis on how they define, measure, use and apply that FCR process.

Comparison between companies
Definition
Measurement
Communication and Application
Lessons Learned

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