(new) 6/22/2009 Greg Levin
I wrote an article pretty recently on the best practices in customer satisfaction measurement. I think you will find answers to most if not all of your questions. Here's the link: http://www.icmi.com/knowledgecenter/details.aspx?id=1106 Good luck!

8/24/2007 Oscar Alban
The customer should be able to provide feedback around three key areas that impact customer perception with your company. These are People, Products and Processes. Too many times I see surveys that only ask questions about the agent when the customer has had major problems with a process and has no opportunity to share their thoughts. This could actually backfire and the customer could become even more upset. There needs to be some intelligence to the flow of the questions based on how the customer responds. -- Oscar Alban, Verint

(new) 6/29/2009 Scott McKinley
To effectively measure successful resolutions made at the service desk, you need to break down your resolution reporting into three distinct measurements as follows: - First Contact Resolution rate: this number should represent the total incidents resolved during the first contact made by the end user. This number should only be measured against those incidents that are resolvable by the service desk. True FCR is a measurement of your efficiency and knowledge of the topic that you should be supporting. Today’s service desks respond to a myriad of requests, incidents and problems, many of which should not be included in your FCR calculations since they are only managed escalations and do not truly reflect your ability to resolve incidents locally. - In Scope Resolution rate: this number represents the total incidents resolved by the service desk versus the total incidents that were “in-scope” or “resolvable” at the service desk. This is similar to the FCR measurement above with the exception that it looks at all resolutions made at the service desk and not just those made on the first contact. A good practice is to break this report down further by displaying the length of time in intervals that it took to resolve the incident reported (FCR, 1-4hrs, 4-8hrs, etc.). - Remote Resolution rate: this number is the total number of incidents resolved by the service desk versus all incidents reported. This measurement is the “value” of the service desk. The ultimate goal of continuous improvement is to increase the amount of issues that you can resolve locally at the service desk, thus increasing your Remote Resolution rate and increasing the number of incidents that are “resolvable”. Effective reporting of the top call drivers coupled with a good feedback mechanism from your resolver groups will assist in finding ways add to the “scope” of what your service desk does, and ultimately drive more value to your organization. Scott McKinley Vice President - Strategic Partnerships

11/17/2008 Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D.
I agree that first-call resolution is an important metric, actually the #l driver of customer satisfaction. So it's most important that you measure it -- what gets measured gets managed. However, there is no standard measurement method. In my opinion, it's imperative that you measure it by your own defintion of what is first-call resolution, and then benchmark against yourself, being consistent in what and when you measure. Furthermore, I'd focus on the second percentage, not the 86% best-practice FCR rate, but the 14% that are repeat calls -- those that cost you in external and internal customers, and that negatively impact your bottom line.

10/20/2008 Scott
It is really interesting reading the different comments and views on FCR. On the one side we see FCR being pushed everywhere as one of the top KPI’s that we should be measuring in the call centres. On the other hand though there doesn’t seem to be a generic methodology of calculating it. Speak to five different people and you will most probably get five different views. Didn’t somebody once say “if you can’t measure it then it can’t be important”? So if FCR is so important (and I agree it is) then we need to know how to measure it correctly. So against one of the previous responses – I do think that the formula for First Call Resolution is complicated – because it is so important. Like many of you I have also reviewed and analysed multiple methods and ways to find the true calculated value of First Call Resolution so that we can use this as a global measure within our company (we were actually looking for First Contact Resolution, but found out that we don’t really know how to calculate First CALL resolution- so we should start there first). Against some of the previous comments in this thread I do not believe that the FCR calculation should be conducted against the total call volume. That “initial” call from the customer will always be there, the customer will always have a first call – even if you resolve it straight away. So including these calls will give you an unclear measure. The biggest hurdle to get over is the definition – and definitions that you’ll need to use to identify a call as resolved first time. Just as important is the period in which you want to measure (this will be different for each organisation). For example our reporting period to define FCR is 7 days. When that “initial” customer call comes in we have no way yet of recognising it as a single call or a repeated call – at this stage it could be both. So the first definition to measuring FCR is to firstly be able to identify and measure REPEAT CALLS. To understand FCR we need to difference between calls that were resolved first time (a) and calls that we not resolved first time (b) because is it only the number of calls not resolved first time that generate repeat calls. To obtain this is down to your reporting capabilities and how you capture your customer data i.e through CLID or through unique entries in your CRM system – no one can tell you what is the right or wrong way to do this. We simply use a repeated CLID in 7 days (yes I know this has flaws as well, but we have seen it provides the most accurate identification). Example - we receive 615 “initial” customer calls on Monday (we don’t yet know if the are single or repeat calls). We then measure Monday + 6 days later and identify that we have 150 repeat calls from this initial customer base based on the CLID. At this stage you need to understand that these 150 repeat calls may be from customers that have called more than once in those 7 days. This is important as I have seen that some centres calculate FCR off the back of a repeat call % i.e in this example 150/615 = 24% repeat call and then they say the remainder of 76% must therefore be FCR – WRONG! Back to definitions – at the moment we have only calculated repeat calls – lets call this (c) in the formula. Based on the CLID we now know the number of unique customers that generated these 150 repeat calls or as mentioned before – the number of calls that were Not Right First Time (b) and say it is 115 customers that generated the 150 repeated calls. (In our company We do not take into account if a customer has called back more than once, but have the view that 1 call back on the same subject is 1 too many and we haven’t done a good job in the initial call) By identifying (c) and (b) we can now calculate (a) - our calls that were Right First Time or the true FCR number. We therefore have: 615 initial calls C = 150 repeat calls B = 115 not right first time calls So 615 minus (b) = (a) which is 500 A= 500 right first time or in other words A=FCR FCR= A/(A+B) and in this example = 81% It is hard getting people to understand this to start with, but we have found that by measuring and understanding both repeat calls AND FCR gives us greater ability to understand and address the issues that are causing our customers to have to call us more than once and helps us in reducing the need for customers to contact us in the first place (which is a totally different subject!!) Regards -- Scott

10/20/2008 maggie klenke
First call resolution should be measured from both the perspective of the call center and from the customer. Post-call customer surveys will reveal whether the caller perceived that all of their issues have been resolved. It is important not to measure that too quickly since the issue may have been something that takes time to ensure is resolved. For example, if an item was charged to the customer in error, the customer won't know for sure that it has been resolved until the next bill comes out. Measuring only from the call center's perspective removes the customer's point of view from the equation and that misses the point in my opinion. -- Maggie Klenke, The Call Center School

12/14/2007 Vinayak Seshadri
FCR can also be improved by the following methods: 1. Identify the major buckets which hit the resolution. i.e OSRI. 2. Identify the bottom agents who are contributing to these buckets. 3. Conduct vitality training, controlled calling, etc. -- Vinayak Seshadri, Wipro Limited - India

10/5/2007 <anonymous>
The calculation of calls answered without a repeat / total call volume does not make sense to me. Shouldn't the math read calls answered without a repeat / total original calls? Your opportunity to resolve an issue the first time is based on the count of first time calls, so wouldn't it be an unfair penalty to measure over the total call population?

5/4/2007 S Ranganathan
I think the approach taken should be to have proactive support to agents while on call to move towards a FCR which is 100%. I think this will bring in better efficiency. -- S. Ranganathan, bk Systems

12/1/2006 David Earl
I'm currently working on a project to measure FCR and was wondering why customer surveys were used as the measurement. I would have thought it more accurate to track and count CLI numbers. -- David Earl, AA

(new) 6/29/2009 Susan Langwell
In ICMI's consulting practice, we are seeing more and more organizations become interested in adding self monitoring and peer monitoring to their Quality Monitoring program. We are advocates of utilizing both of these processes in your Quality program. Why? Both peer and self monitoring can go a long way toward acceptance of the overall Quality process by other agents. Monitoring customer contacts is not a one-person job. More involvement, more contacts monitored, more benefits gained. Some organizations are using these programs are part of a retention strategy. The programs work something like this… Peer Monitoring: Tenured, accomplished agents who have been trained in the process (including coaching), listen to recorded calls of other agents, and provide appropriate feedback. A peer-monitoring program empowers Agents to coach and learn from their colleagues. It’s a great way to recognize tenured agents experience and expertise and, in some cases, can also boost their focus on the customer, which may have lost some of its vitality over the years. Self-Monitoring: This method can have a great impact on agent performance while at the same time promoting a positive perception of quality monitoring. You are providing agents an opportunity to evaluate their own customer interactions, identifying strengths and opportunities for improvement. It is interesting to note that we invariably find that centers using the method as part of their quality program report that agents are in fact harder on themselves than anyone. Even the best agents find things they would like to improve on. Simply provide agents with a sampling of their calls and ask them to identify what went well, as well as opportunities for improvement. This can be done in collaboration with a coach who can provide assistance as well as additional feedback. Scoring is optional. Good luck! Susan Langwell, ICMI