Getting Started with Measuring First Contact Resolution (FCR)

This guide offers several strategies and approaches for measuring First Contact Resolution (FCR), also known as First Call Resolution.

Overview

FCR refers to the ability to address and resolve a customer's inquiry, issue, or request during the initial interaction, without the need for subsequent contacts. Achieving a high level of FCR is often a key performance indicator for service desks as it indicates efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall effectiveness in handling customer queries or problems on the first attempt.

Where to Start

It’s important to first consider the goals in measuring FCR. If the goal is speedy resolution of requests and customer satisfaction, then ticket age and survey results may be a sufficient approach to measure this goal. If the goal is to understand the number of interactions involved in resolving a request or issue, then FCR is likely a helpful metric to measure.

Accurately measuring FCR can be challenging as it’s not always known at the conclusion of an interaction if a customer’s needs are fully and completely resolved. Technicians and customers often play a role in helping an organization measure FCR.

A technician assisted approach to FCR involves flagging each ticket to indicate whether FCR was met or not. Two common criteria to meet FCR are:

1. The interaction is the first contact by the client for the given request/issue, (i.e., there are no previous interactions related to the same request/issue).
2. The request or issues is reasonably assumed to be resolved during the support interaction.

If both criteria are met at the conclusion of the interaction, the technician then sets either a custom attribute to Yes or a ticket status value of Closed (First Contact Met) to signify that FCR is met. If either criterion is not assumed to be met, then No is set on the custom attribute or eventually a status value of Closed (First Contact Not Met) is selected.

Steps to configure:

• Option 1: Custom Attribute:
  • Create a custom attribute using the Radio Button List or Yes/No Dropdown attribute type.
  • Check the Updatable option on the attribute to have it show on the ticket update form.
  • On the Choices tab for the attribute, add Yes and No choices.
  • Add the attribute to each ticketing form where FCR will be measured.
• Option 2: Custom Status Value:
  • Create two new Ticket Status Values of Closed (First Contact Met) and Closed (First Contact Not Met) and give each value the status class of Completed.
  • While this approach does not require an attribute on each form, it does restrict use of automated ticket closure. Under setting -> Completed Ticket Options, check “Do not automatically update completed tickets.” This will ensure that ticket are not automatically changed from the First Contact status values to some other value.

In practice, technicians will either set the FCR ticket attribute or status value to reflect if FCR is met or not for any given interaction. When a customer reaches out for help related to a previous interaction where FCR was met, the previous ticket may be re-opened or a new ticket may be created. Regardless of the process used, the original ticket should be updated to reflect on the attribute or status value that FCR was in fact not met. If creating a new ticket, FCR should also be marked as not met because this is not the first contact for the request/issue.

Additional approaches to measuring FCR:

• Send a client survey asking if the related request/issue was resolved on the first contact. Customer perception is often just as accurate and valuable as measuring FCR systematically through a ticket attribute or status value as described above.
• FCR may also be measured or approximated by looking at ticket assignment counts where 2 or greater assignments is assumed to not meet FCR, or by looking at detailed assignment data where the responsible group does not equal the initial primary responsible. Looking at ticket assignment counts and data can be accomplished solely via reporting.

Reporting Considerations:

FCR is calculated as a percentage rate as follows:

• If measuring FCR using a custom attribute or status value, then a TDX report can show the number of tickets where FCR is either met or not met. Convert ticket counts from the report into a percentage rate by diving the total of FCR met tickets by the total tickets where FCR was tracked.  
• It is often useful to break out the FCR rate by Ticket Source, Responsible Group, and/or Service.

Gotchas & Pitfalls

• Because agent-assisted FCR tracking is arbitrary and fairly easy to manipulate, think about making FCR a team goal and communicating the advantages of higher customer satisfaction. Pay less attention to the overall goal percentage and more attention to the FCR trends.
• Focusing on self-service will often result in a decreased FCR rate as easier issues are resolved directly by end users without contracting a technician, leaving the more difficult issues to be resolved through direct interaction.
• Ticket auto-closure functionality can not be used with the Status value approach as it will override the status value of Closed (First Contact Met) to Closed or some other value.