How Can Technology Improve First Time Resolution?

Many businesses spend vast amounts of time analysing what their customers want and trying to understand where to invest their time, money and resources in order to drive the optimum customer experience.

One of the main obstacles to achieving that is that every organisation is different, with their own distinct set of customers and products, challenges and objectives.

That in itself makes it difficult for businesses to be confident in which elements go together to make up a great customer experience, and also which are the most important to them and should therefore be prioritised.

The latest ContactBabel research, the UK Customer Experience Decision-Makers’ Guide, sponsored by Enghouse Interactive, goes some way towards answering this question.

In a survey of 234 organisations across the UK, 51% of respondents ranked first-time resolution as the most important factor (of those listed) to a customer when contacting their organisation, with a further 36% placing it within the top three most important factors.

Adding to this, short queue / wait time for response was also ranked highly.

In a parallel poll of 1,000 UK consumers, having ‘your question / issue solved first time’ scored highly across every age group when respondents were asked: What are the top three most important factors to you when contacting an organisation by phone or digital channel?

As a society we increasingly want instant gratification and immediate results – which is why we are seeing such a strong focus on the issue of fast resolution of customer issues.

Technology can play a key role in helping to achieve this, so let’s explore a few ideas on how you can use it to improve first time resolution.

Skills-based routing

Create rules for interaction assignment and let skills-based routing deliver the enquiry to the person best suited to resolve your issues.

Time sensitive – add call-back

Businesses, unfortunately, cannot handle all interactions in a timely manner. By adding a simple call-back option, you can give customers the option to receive an automated call-back, eliminating the need for them to wait in queue.

CRM and third-party integration

Make sure you integrate your contact centre systems with your customer relationship management (CRM) software and relevant third-party systems. This ensures that all the relevant history, contact information and notes appear on the agent’s screen so that they are equipped to help achieve first time resolution every time.

Automation and self-service

Customers today prefer to find their own answers and can use self-service solutions such as knowledge bases, mobile IVR, apps etc. to resolve queries they may have without having to speak to an agent. That’s increasingly a given, but as a business, you also need to make sure that you have the capabilities to escalate to an agent as and when required.

Monitor and measure across channels

Make sure you offer channel options to your customers but also measure and monitor across these channels using quality management, screen recording, speech analytics etc. This will help you ensure a consistent approach across each channel and also position you better to add improvements over time to further drive up first-time resolution rates.

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Call Centre Helper is not responsible for the content of these guest blog posts. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect those of Call Centre Helper.

Author: Enghouse Interactive