Tools For First Call Resolution--Making Contact Centers More Efficient And ResponsiveTools For First Call Resolution--Making Contact Centers More Efficient And Responsive

This article first appeared in the December 2007 issue of Business Communications Review magazine.

When you call a toll-free number to order clothing, get help with your computer, or book a plane flight, you want the call to be quick and conclusive. You want the operators or agents who handle your call to accept your order, answer your question or make your reservation before you hang up. In the contact center world, that’s known as first call resolution, and the companies that you call want it, too. If a call takes too long or leaves your issue unresolved, the company’s costs go up and it may lose you as a customer.

Nonetheless, first call resolution is a challenge for many contact centers. According to a June 2007 study of U.S. callers by the CFI Group, customer satisfaction with contact centers is crucial to customer loyalty, positive word of mouth and return on investment. Yet almost a fifth of all callers hang up with their issues unresolved. And of those, 68 percent are at risk of defection. What’s a contact center manager to do?

A Diverse Tool Kit

The dream solution is a virtual agent—a piece of software that eavesdrops on calls, understands the dialogue between callers and “real” agents, and retrieves the right information automatically. Using that information, the virtual agent directs the real agent so that the customer’s needs are met quickly and correctly.

Parts of the virtual agent—basic speech recognition, for example—work today. However, “A complete virtual or ‘cyber’ agent is perennially three to five years out,” according to Jon Silverman, chief technical officer at contact center vendor Calabrio Software. “But there are a number of other tools and measures available to help call centers improve their performance.”

This diverse toolkit includes interactive voice response (IVR), knowledge management systems, agent scripting, presence and instant messaging, real-time speech analytics, and training and policy (see Figure below). Contact centers can apply these tools individually or in concert, depending on the type of process improvement that they seek. For example, agent scripting can be used standalone to guide outgoing sales calls, or it can front-end a knowledge management system for improved response to incoming support questions.

Here’s a look at how each of the tools contributes to first call resolution.

* Interactive Voice Response. We’ve all had encounters with IVR. In fact, it’s rare to call a contact center and not encounter IVR. Before you speak with a human operator, a recorded voice collects your account number or ID and asks a series of questions to qualify your issue: “If you want to place a new order, press 1. If you want to change an existing order, press 2.” And so on. It may seem as if IVR was invented just to annoy callers. But done correctly, IVR speeds the issue resolution process.

One alternative to IVR is live agents who ask the qualifying questions and then have a specialist call you back—no chance of first call resolution with that approach. Another alternative is live agents who handle entire calls themselves. But agents are expensive, and each agent can handle only one call at time. When all the agents are busy, additional callers are put on hold—not a good way to start a customer transaction. By front-ending live-agent interactions, IVR technology accelerates issue resolution and reduces contact center operating costs. Well designed IVR doesn’t put you on hold or funnel you through a series of agents until you finally reach one with answers. Instead, it collects your information accurately, just once, and takes you directly to the most appropriate agent—a big step toward first call resolution.

* Knowledge Management Systems. Of course, even the most knowledgeable agents can use help now and then. No one can be expected to know everything about every product that a company sells or supports. Still, customers want quick, accurate resolution of their problems. If they have to sit on hold while a service representative sifts through support documentation, or worse yet, if the agent cannot find the answer at all, the company can lose a customer.

Knowledge management systems organize both structured and unstructured information and then return relevant extracts in response to agents’ questions. Information may be stored as databases, text files, slide presentations and other formats. According to Sarath Jarugula, senior product manager at Knova Software, a provider of “intelligent customer experience applications,” knowledge management systems are not Google-like search engines. They are more like Ask.com—expert systems that analyze questions and return the most likely answers.

Jarugula described a typical knowledge management application: A contact center agent collects information from a caller under the guidance of a customer relationship management (CRM) system. The CRM system passes the information—installing product X; having trouble on step 10, etc.—to the knowledge management system. If the problem statement is specific enough, the knowledge management system returns the one document with the answers. Otherwise, it may return a list of possible answers or may ask questions to further refine the issue. By supplementing agents’ own knowledge, knowledge management systems ensure that callers’ issues are resolved quickly and reliably.

* Agent Scripting. To get the right answers, with or without the help of a knowledge management system, you have to ask the right questions. That’s where agent scripting comes in. Scripting software puts a structure around the agent-customer conversation. The scripting system guides the agent to ask questions and gather information in the proper sequence. Without this guidance, an agent may waste time asking irrelevant questions or exploring blind alleys.

Once the information is gathered, some scripting systems pass it to a knowledge management system or wiki automatically; others require agent intervention. By automating the agent-customer dialogue, scripting ensures that agents follow a correct and thorough path to first call resolution. Agent scripting is particularly popular in outbound environments, where agents are calling customers to promote products or services, followup on previous calls, collect on overdue bills, etc.

* Presence and Instant Messaging. Sometimes even scripting and knowledge management are not enough, and the agent needs help from a subject matter expert (SME). To achieve first call resolution, however, access to the SME has to be swift and seamless.

Ross Daniels, director of solutions marketing at Cisco Systems, described the following negative scenario: A customer calls a bank to apply for a mortgage. The operator who takes the call refers to a printed list of in-house mortgage specialists. The agent then does a “blind” call transfer to a specific specialist or to a group phone number and moves on to the next call. If no one answers the transferred call or if it goes to voice mail, the sales opportunity may be lost—no first call resolution.

Instant messaging (IM) and presence technology offer a solution. “Presence,” said Daniels, “indicates the availability of a resource for a task.” In the mortgage example, presence technology tells the agent which mortgage experts are available before the call is transferred. Or it may represent the availability of resources in the mortgage department without identifying specific individuals. Either way, presence lets the agent do a “warm” handoff, first sending an instant message to alert the target SME and then transferring the call.

In addition to ensuring successful transfers, presence and IM can be used to get quick answers. An agent can locate and “chat” with an SME, a supervisor, or another agent without putting the caller on hold.

* Real-Time Speech Analytics. One of the latest advances in the quest for first call resolution is real-time speech analytics. Speech analytics monitors customer-agent conversations, evaluating factors such as speech energy, inflection or emotion, phonetics, silence and what’s actually being said. It analyzes the content of the conversation to identify inappropriate language, to spot competitors’ names and other key words, and to recognize phrases like “cancel my order” or “talk to your manager.”

Historical or post-call speech analytics lets contact center managers review past calls and use the findings to improve future operations. Realtime speech analytics, however, yields immediate insights about active calls: Is the agent listening to the customer, or are they talking over each other? Is the customer getting agitated? Is the caller inclined to buy more products or services? Is the customer considering a competitor’s product? Is the customer considering cancelling his or her account?

“The contribution of real-time speech analytics to first call resolution depends on how you define ‘real time’,” said Calabrio’s Silverman. “Some vendors talk about finding patterns over multiple calls during the same day. Others refer to generating results within minutes of the call. But speech analytics is the most valuable if it has an immediate impact on the outcome of a call.” Silverman defines “real time,” therefore, as within a few seconds of when the event occurred.

Caught up in the flow of the conversation, an agent may not notice if a call is going awry. But real-time speech analytics can notice a shift in pitch or speech energy and send an alert to the supervisor’s computer or display a standard coaching message to the agent. It can also trigger an alert based on a combination of events—speech energy, key phrases, etc. The supervisor can then monitor the call, join the call, or coach the agent via IM. Real-time speech analytics identifies potential problems as they arise, allowing more issues to be resolved on the first call.

* Training and Policy. To take advantage of real-time speech analytics or any other tools, contact center employees need training. “Front-line staff need the proper skills, tools and knowledge,” said Penny Reynolds, senior partner at The Call Center School. “You have to equip the agents properly. But there’s no such thing as training for first call resolution. I wish it were that easy.”

To achieve first call resolution, Reynolds suggested, contact center management must have the right mindset. They must prioritize first call resolution over efficiency. Many contact centers rate agent performance by average handling time (AHT), because it’s easily quantifiable and can be measured automatically. But grading performance by AHT leads to the desire to finish calls quickly rather than resolving customers’ issues.

It’s harder to relate agent performance to call resolution than to AHT. Someone has to listen to the calls and decide if the customers’ issues were resolved. “It’s very much subjective,” said Reynolds. But many contact centers are stepping up to first call resolution. Managers tell agents to take as long as needed to satisfy customers. And they invest in listening to calls to understand where more information or more training is required.

Conclusion

First call resolution is an important, but elusive goal for many contact centers. With the help of tools like presence, knowledge management and real-time speech analytics—and by making first call resolution a priority—contact centers can make significant improvements in both operating efficiency and customer satisfaction.

Bob Bellman is an independent consultant and technology writer with more than 35 years’ experience in engineering, sales and marketing.