{"id":27402,"date":"2022-05-26T13:37:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-26T12:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/?p=27402"},"modified":"2024-11-15T16:21:04","modified_gmt":"2024-11-15T16:21:04","slug":"what-is-first-contact-resolution-fcr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intercom.com\/blog\/what-is-first-contact-resolution-fcr\/","title":{"rendered":"What is first contact resolution (FCR)?"},"content":{"rendered":"

First contact resolution (FCR) is a metric that measures how often your customers\u2019 queries are resolved after their first call, email, text, or chat session with your company\u2019s support team(s)<\/span><\/p>\n

It provides a view on how efficient your company is at responding to your customers\u2019 challenges.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike \u201cfirst call resolution\u201d, a similar metric, first contact resolution examines your success across all channels, not just phone. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is the first contact resolution rate?<\/b><\/h2>\n

You calculate FCR by dividing the number of cases resolved on the first contact by the total number of customer cases:<\/span>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>[Number of customer inquiries resolved on first contact during a given time period] \u00f7 [total number of customer inquiries over same time period] x 100 = [% of first contact resolution] <\/b>
\n<\/span>
\n<\/span>In order to gather the data necessary for this equation, you should ensure you\u2019re recording how often customers\u2019 queries are being responded to on the first contact, and how many queries you\u2019re receiving overall.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

One way of gauging that is by surveying<\/a> customers after they contact customer support to check if their issues were resolved. You could also track how often your first- or second-tier support personnel had to escalate customer issues, or how often the same customers contacted your support team with similar questions.<\/span><\/p>\n

“FCR success looks different for every organization”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Research shows that a 70-75% FCR rate is the baseline for most industries. That number could fluctuate wildly, though, depending on your product or service.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

If you sell a highly customizable product, for instance, where it\u2019s difficult to offer \u201cstandard\u201d customer support resources or self-service tools, your support personnel might deal with a larger volume of incoming requests.<\/span><\/p>\n

If your support staff is dealing with niche issues, it might take more than one interaction on average to resolve a case.<\/span><\/p>\n

FCR success looks different for every organization, but there\u2019s no doubt that higher FCR equates to higher customer satisfaction<\/a> overall. <\/span><\/p>\n

What is a good FCR rate?<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n

The industry standard ranks a good FCR rate between 70-75% meaning 25-30% of your communications with customers can be categorized as repeat calls.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Generally, the higher the FCR rate, the better. Determining how to improve FCR first requires some root cause analysis. You have to figure out exactly why customers aren\u2019t getting a resolution on the first interaction, so that you can address it proactively<\/a> for future interactions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here are some steps you can take:<\/p>\n