Review any service or support strategic plan from the past five years, and you’ll likely see the same priority repeat from year to year: Issue resolution.
No doubt about it, companies know issue resolution is important—CCC estimates that improving issue resolution can save millions of dollars each year and mitigate customer disloyalty by at least 219%. But recent conversations with several companies suggest that when it comes to identifying first contact resolution (FCR) improvement opportunities, many companies are headed down the wrong path.
This is not due to poor data quality or improper data analysis; rather, many companies are merely scratching the surface when drilling into their FCR data, which is causing insufficient and even incorrect findings. In fact, what typically comes to light as the primary obstacle to issue resolution is a laundry list of process and policy barriers.
CCC has focused substantial research efforts on eliminating policy obstacles and certainly believes these are critical to overcome. But we also know that a substantial number of callbacks stem from emotional and adjacent issues. In fact, up to 46% of callbacks stem from these latter two root causes, which is why CCC recommends a strategy of not FCR, but Next Issue Avoidance, or going an extra step beyond addressing the customer’s stated question and “forward resolving” the next likely issue.
CCC Members, for more detail on CCC’s key issue resolution research findings, please click here.
It’s easy to miss these emotional and adjacent root causes—they are implicit so require some analytical rigor and interpretation—but understanding this nuance is critical to ensuring companies execute against the right improvement opportunities (and not the most obvious ones, as often is the case). In fact, companies that miss these opportunities are substantially limiting their ability to drive issue resolution improvements.
In an effort to help companies invigorate their issue resolution initiatives, we have created a framework to consider when analyzing FCR data to ensure that companies surface and address the right root causes:
1. Examine issue resolution data. If your organization collects surveys that ask FCR-related questions or tracks callbacks, compile a small sample (e.g., 100 contacts) of this data.
2. Match data with recorded calls. Listen to calls associated with surveys and callbacks, inferring and tracking the reasons why the customer did not receive issue resolution.
3. Categorize the root cause of callbacks. Classify root causes of unresolved issues into categories such as policy/process, rep skills, adjacent issues, and emotional issues, providing a brief summary as to what issues occurred that prevented issue resolution.
4. Identify solutions for each root cause. Brainstorm potential recommendations to overcome root cause issues. CCC Members, one approach to consider for forward resolving related issues comes from Bell Canada, which creates related issue maps based on issue complexity and frequency.
5. Prioritize each root cause of callbacks. Consider call volume generated, the difficulty of making changes, and key owners for the change to settle on a top 10 list of recommended changes and initiatives to improve first contact resolution.
Certainly this process takes time and resources, hence why we advise starting small and examining a limited number of issues. But don’t underestimate shortcutting the process by connecting with a group of high performers brainstorming the root causes of callbacks. Chances are you’ll get 80% of the way there…and much faster.
Are there other steps to add to the process or other factors to consider? Would be keen to hear your thoughts.
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