Saturday, June 16, 2007 9:52 PM
Call centre managers love to look at FCR (First Call Resolution). It's the ultimate aim of course - to settle the problem within one call. However there's a far bigger problem brewing underneath.
The type of customer who's going to be dealt with through FCR is typically a query, non-serious complaint, sales call. These customers should have been dealt with in one-call anyway - it's a no-brainer. The more problematic queries nearly always require consultation or investigation which means inevitably a call back - and that's where the real problem starts.
I'm not even talking about the time it takes to investigate, resolve, re-investigate or consult. I'm talking about the dirty word of "I'll call you back". Do you provide a time line for the callback? And more importantly do you call them back when you say you will. Failure to call a customer back is often more irritating to the customer than the original query or complaint. The fatal "you said you'd call me back but you didn't" line is made even worse when that follow up call from the customer leads to yet another callback. What confidence do you think the customer has in receiving that call?
It's essential for any call centre to have a ticketing or case system . It's important that every call regardless of how petty or short is logged and that someone actually monitors the tickets to ensure that everything is not just resolved but is done so in a timely manner. It could simply be an Excel spreadsheet with the customer's name, contact number, issue notes and whether it has been resolved or not - you don't need to spend a fortune on a full-blown CRM or Helpdesk application.
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