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First contact or first call resolution (FCR) is the golden standard of the customer service sphere. Handling customers’ problems the first time they call in and making sure they remain satisfied, loyal customers has to be the core aim of customer care and retention teams. It is therefore crucial that when problems arise, organizations understand how to increase their call center’s first call resolution rate.
Out of the numerous startups which endeavor in conceiving call center technology to enhance customer service metrics and user experience, here is a list of companies which created solutions with FCR in mind.
TechSee: Intelligent Visual Assistance
Techsee’s platform provides intelligent visual support technology. The Augmented Reality-based technology allows support teams to see what their customers see via their smartphone. This enables them to provide better, faster resolutions to the majority of support issues, thereby improving customer satisfaction. See this infographic for a more visual illustration.
By importing recorded visual interactions into its machine learning algorithm, the system continuously learns how customer support reps resolve issues. It uses this data to build a vast knowledge base which serves as the brain of its employee decision support and visual self-service solutions. Opening a visual communication channel in addition to the audio channel transforms the call center support experience into a better, simpler, more intuitive process.
NICE: Real-Time Speech Analytics Solution
NICE provides deep insights into customer interactions through both real-time and historical evaluation of voice communications. Its Phonetic Indexing system converts conversations into phonemes allowing the indexing technology to identify keywords which can trigger next-best-action recommendations for agents and alerts for call center supervisors.
NICE’s Speech-to-Text Transcription system converts calls into standard text to enable data mining and identification of trending customer issues. This solution also features emotion detection to analyze and alert agents to changes in pitch and tone. The insights gained through the system can help identify weak links in a support operation, from underperforming agents to product malfunctions. Armed with this knowledge, call center managers can adjust support scripts, train specific agents in certain areas to improve FCR and flag issues to other departments.
Genesys: Echopass
Genesys provides intelligent call routing by filtering incoming calls on an in-depth level to optimize resources and agent allocation. The technology sorts and redirects calls to the appropriate agents based on various factors, including:
- existing customer data
- business priorities
- projected customer lifetime value
- interaction history
- agent profile
Matching the customer and their issue to the right agent is half the battle. It can make a call center run much more efficiently and provide customers with the best possible experience. If they are connected with the right department to resolve their issue immediately, the chances of their issue being resolved on the first call are that much greater.
Zingtree
Zingtree offers several solutions to improve call center accuracy. Users can easily create an interactive question and answer-based troubleshooter enabling customers to solve issues on their own. However, if the customer cannot achieve a satisfactory resolution, a history of their actions is delivered to a live support agent, eliminating the need for the customer to re-explain the issue.
Additionally, because Zingtree logs every customer action, product and customer experience managers can see the most commonly occurring issues in the decision tree and design better solutions or support documentation to speed up the resolution next time. Self-service is growing in popularity among consumers. Zingtree allows for a smooth and effective transition from self-service to support agents and utilizes the information to improve resolution ability for the future.
MyEureka
A Callminer product, Eureka Coach is a performance management solution that automates feedback for call center agents and managers. This streamlined process promptly delivers personal feedback in a simple, understandable manner, enabling agents to improve their performance and ultimately deliver better service.
The system is gamified to encourage a fun, friendly, competitive environment where employees can access agent ranking data and see how they compare to their co-workers. Agents are on the front line of support. Real-time, effective feedback, the right type of motivation and ongoing training are invaluable when it comes to achieving a better FCR rate and improving agent performance in the call center.
Plantronics
Nothing is more frustrating for a customer than when they can’t hear the support agent because of the distracting background noise which is all too common at call centers. Plantronics cloud-based headset management tool gives IT and management a way to deploy firmware updates as needed. This technology ensures that headsets are up to date, background noise is minimized, and sound quality is crystal clear.
The key to good support is effective communication. When agents and customers can communicate without repeating themselves, issues can be resolved faster to improve both customer and employee satisfaction, while keeping the customer service first call resolution rate high.
Fonolo
This cloud-based SaaS callback system eliminates the need for customers to wait on hold. When a customer calls a company with a problem, waiting on hold is the last thing they want to do. The customer might already be in an agitated state and wasting their time compounds that. Fonolo’s system marks the customer’s place in line and then automatically calls them back when a live agent is ready to assist them.
A customer’s state of mind is critical to the success of the interaction. Eliminating the frustration caused by long hold times can work wonders for first contact resolution rates.
Genii Analytics
Genii’s Performance Dashboard delivers alerts and drilled-down reports to facilitate real-time corrective actions. Dashboards can be created for every level in the company. Management-level dashboards provide drilldowns from a global perspective; team leader dashboards supply actionable information for the team; agent-level dashboards track an individual’s KPIs to evaluate productivity and quality of work.
Dashboards are highly customizable, and the company’s advanced algorithms enable a company to make informed decisions regarding performance, based on a holistic, bird’s eye view of its chosen metrics. By providing real-time feedback to all levels of a customer service operation, employees can respond before the “damage is done,” change course mid-conversation and achieve faster, more effective resolutions.
In Conlusion
There are always ways to increase first call resolution rate in a call center and service delivery processes should be continually refined. By utilizing some or all of these contact center technologies, you’ll be able to tackle issues related to your first contact resolution rate from a variety of different angles
Whether you need to focus on enhancing customer satisfaction through effective support, boosting employee engagement, or improving agent-customer communication, all of your efforts have the same objective: achieving a faster resolution the first time the customer reaches out for your help.
