In general, an average of 25% of inbound calls are a follow-up to a prior interaction. This means that roughly 25% of the calls are happening because the company did not resolve the customer’s issue the first time. Imagine a call center with 5000 inbound calls a month, or 1250 follow up calls. This translates to $4.75 million in direct labor costs (assuming an average salary of $38K year for a 500-seat call center) related to customer follow-ups. A modest 15% improvement in your first call resolution (FCR) would translate to $712,500 in cost savings. (Calculations based off of Cornell University’s research The Global Call Center Report).
A unified agent desktop has the potential to improve FCR by 15% or more while at the same time impacting other key metrics like average handle time and conversion rates.
Last year, we published a research report based on detailed responses from 65 contact center leaders. Not the least bit surprising, the most cited metrics in assessing contact center performance were Average Handle Times (AHT), First Contact Resolution (FCR), and Conversion Rate.
While there are many levers (agent training, campaign variables, etc.) to improving KPIs, the agent desktop can be the greatest inhibitor or catalyst to immediately impacting KPIs. This is the positive customer experience effect that results from agents’ using an intelligent agent desktop.
I’m going to take the top three metrics that contact center leaders use to measure performance and provide examples of how these metrics were improved by consolidating their agents’ desktops.
First Contact Resolution (FCR)
Keep your customers happy by resolving their issues the first time they contact you. Based on empirical research by SQM Group, when there is a 1% gain in FCR it translates into a 1% gain in customer satisfaction.
If you can’t resolve an issue the first time a customer calls, you will increase your chances of losing that customer, and will definitely lose money as you spend more time fixing their problem.
Can a unified agent desktop improve your FCR? Let’s look at the facts: Blue Casa (Telecommunications provider) implemented a unified agent desktop and experienced an increase of 25% in their FCR. Such a definitive, measurable improvement cannot be underestimated. This contact center watched their operation costs decrease as their customer satisfaction increased.
Average Handling Time (AHT)
If you share belief that AHT is an important metric, consider how Service Master took advantage of a unified agent desktop to reduce their centers’ AHT. Their average handling time was reduced by 10%, thus refining a customer service process that was already fairly productive.
Contact center professionals may argue whether or not reducing AHT positively affects the customer experience, but no one can argue that reducing AHT does not positively affect the bottom line and agent productivity.
Conversion Rate
How important is your conversion rate? I know – that’s like asking how important profitability is!
If I could prove to you that the unified agent desktop can improve your conversion rate by a significant percentage, would you be surprised? Maybe you’ve already gathered that if the average handling time and first contact resolution are improved, then your agents have a better chance at making a sale. As it turns out, SQM also found in its research that when a customer call is resolved you increase customer cross sell acceptance rate by 20%.
We checked Service Master’s new conversion rate after implementing our solutions, and their conversion rate had doubled! Bottom line, that’s a lot more profit.
Read our case studies, examine our statistics; I’m excited about the improvements in key metrics that RiverStar has witnessed. If you value your metrics and want to see them improve, talk to us about the unified agent desktop. Justifying the adoption of a unified agent desktop means that there must be bottom line impact, and we would argue that the improvements to the top three metrics in the contact center does just that.
