Metric of the Month

Each month, MetricNet highlights one benchmarking metric.  We explain the metric in detail, provide recent benchmarking data for the metric, and discuss key correlations and cause/effect relationships for the metric. The purpose is to familiarize you with the benchmarking metrics that really matter, and provide advice on how to improve your call center performance for the particular metric.

This Month’s Metric: First Call Resolution

First Call Resolution (FCR) applies only to live (telephone) contacts. It is the percentage of contacts that are resolved on the first interaction with the customer. Calls that require a customer callback, that are transferred to another source of support, or are escalated to a manager or other support group do not qualify for first contact resolution. 

FCR is typically measured in one of two ways: 1) the call center agent checks a box at the conclusion of the call to indicate if the call was successfully concluded, or 2) callers are asked in follow-up surveys whether their call was resolved and concluded on the initial contact.  Neither method of measuring FCR is perfect, but it is a critical measure to track and trend because it is closely tied to customer satisfaction.

Why It’s Important

First Call Resolution is perhaps the single biggest driver of customer satisfaction.  A high FCR is almost always associated with high levels of customer satisfaction.  Call centers that emphasize training (i.e., lots of training hours for new and veteran agents) generally enjoy a higher than average FCR. 

First Call Resolution is considered to be one of the five most important operational metrics in the call center (see MetricNet’s whitepaper on Call Center KPI’s for a more detailed discussion of operational metrics).  It is a measure of how effectively your contact center conducts its business, and is a function of many factors, including the complexity and types of transactions handled, the experience of your agents, the quality of agent training, and the tools your call center agents use (e.g., knowledge bases).

In general, a high FCR is a good thing.  But like any benchmark metric, FCR must be interpreted in context with other metrics before any definitive conclusions can be drawn about the overall efficiency and effectiveness of your call center.

Figure 1 below shows the relationship between FCR and Customer Satisfaction for a group of typical call centers.  As you can see, higher FCR’s generally produce higher levels of customer satisfaction.  This conclusion should be obvious based on one’s personal experience – we all want closure on the first contact with any call center…don’t we?

Figure 1

Figure 2 below shows some typical ranges on First Call Resolution for different types of call centers.  Please use caution when comparing your own FCR to these figures.  As mentioned above, FCR should not be interpreted by itself, but rather in the context of other call center performance metrics.

Figure 2

Key Correlations

First Call Resolution is strongly correlated with the following metrics:

1. Customer Satisfaction
2. Cost per Call
3. Call handle time
4. Agent Training Hours
5. Calls Handled per Agent-Month

Understanding these correlations is important because any time you have a performance gap in FCR, the correlating metrics are the first place to look for a diagnosis.  For example, a low FCR could be the result of lower than average agent training hours.  Likewise, a high FCR can lead to longer handle times and higher than average cost per call (not necessarily a bad thing!).
Figure 3 below shows the relationship between cost per call and FCR.  As you can see, cost per call generally increases as FCR increases.  This is because call complexity, and hence handle time increases along with FCR.  Likewise, the cost per call goes up as handle time increases.  This makes perfect sense since labor is the single biggest expense in the call center, and as call handle times increase, labor costs increase accordingly.

Figure 3

As always, please feel free to contact MetricNet if you have any questions or comments about the Metric of the Month.

Stay tuned for next month’s Metric of the Month: Average Speed of Answer (ASA).