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ARCHIVED - Using External Service Delivery Key Performance Indicators
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MAF Category: Stewardship
Theme: Service Effectiveness
The call centre industry places high value on First Call Resolution (FCR) as the most important indicator of overall service effectiveness. Many experts in the Phone Channel believe that this measure reflects the skills and training of agents, the structure and content of IVR scripts, answer accuracy, and the overall effectiveness of a specific phone service.
First Call Resolution is the ability of a call centre to completely satisfy the caller's service request on first contact. In its strictest interpretation, this typically involves either successful service for a specific phone number within the IVR script or a successful result while talking to the first agent (i.e. no escalation or call transfer). Other call centres measure FCR after a triage agent has assessed the caller's need and directed the caller to an appropriate agent. A caller can recognize when a specific call centre is measuring FCR by the agent's "wrap-up" talk. If the agent asks, "Have I answered your question completely?" or "Do you have any other questions at this time?" an FCR result is likely being recorded.
FCR in the public sector is more challenging. Many services are anonymous by design and intentionally do not record phone numbers. Other services do not record a call result against a client record as a matter of privacy practice. While some effort has been made to look at repeat callers within a threshold, e.g. the last 24 hours, this measure is not considered to be accurate.
The working group believes that consistent result recording is the basis for accurate FCR calculations. The working group will enhance the definition of Service Effectiveness measures within the Phone Channel, and emphasis will be placed on determining the utility of an FCR‑type measure.
