Customer Service Skills Training, Customer Service Experts

Online Newsletter for Call Center Personnel
Rosanne D'Ausilio, Ph.D. Editor and Publisher
Volume XXII, Issue 7

A typical customer will not call back. Not only does this keep costs high, but it decreases customer loyalty and increases turnover. In addition, SQM Group suggests there is a 20% point drop in customer satisfaction for each additional call required to resolve the customer call. (SQP Group, FCR 2008, p. 3) Additionally, customers who did not get their call resolved are 5 times more likely to defect than those who had their call resolved (p. 5).

An Ascent Group Study in 2009 and 2010 reported the Top 5 Ways to Achieve FCR. You can see how the numbers have escalated in one year.

Top 5 Ways to Achieve FCR

2009 2010

1. Focused FCR Training 28% 41%

2. Incorporating FCR into Monitory/

Coaching 30 59

3. Root Cause Analysis 33 61

4. Improving FCR Communication/

Agent Awareness 49 65

5. Process Improvement 52 71

If we add Focused FCR Training and Improving FCR Communication and Agent Awareness (which I believe fall into the training arena) there was a 44% increase from the 2009 to 2010 study.

In a study by ICMI (International Customer Management Institute) it was reported that 65% of all repeat calls are the result of agent errors. An example is if the employee:

Harvard Business Review's article Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers 2011 noted: 45% of repeat calls in a study stemmed from emotional disconnects between customers and reps, i.e., situation in which the customer didn't trust the rep's information, didn't like the answer given, and had the impression the rep was hiding behind general company policy. Further, this study reported that 57% of inbound calls came from customers who went to the website first.

We love to hear from you. Please email me rosanne@human-technologies.com your comments, feedback, questions, your own experiences, or topics you’d like to see covered in future newsletters.