2010 Contact Centre Industry Directory First Call Resolution–The ...

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Focus on FCR Feature story Utility powers up FCR rates Determining how much first call resolution (FCR) contributed to positive customer satisfaction, Newfoundland Power created a system to track and report on FCR. Here’s what was done and what was accomplished. BY RON GLEN Newfoundland Power was achieving fairly high first call resolution (FCR) rates and fairly good customer satisfaction. But it discovered from its quarterly customer surveys a few years ago that customer satisfaction plummeted when customers had to call back more than twice. So as the main power distributor on the island serving 250,000 customers, Newfoundland Power set out to improve its FCR rates, heighten customer satisfaction and reduce labour costs. In the fall of 2005, a four-member team from the utility’s IT staff took four months to create from scratch a system that closely monitored and analyzed calls. The resulting informative Webbased system calculates and reports FCR percentages for every call type and each agent. It allows for drilling down to individual accounts, both residential and commercial, with multiple contacts to discover and resolve issues, create FCR targets for each call type, and focus on FCR by agent to determine training or performance issues. Karen Hancock, director, customer relations, Newfoundland Power, presented an overview of how this new tracking and reporting system was designed at the Annual Call Centre Exhibition (ACCE) Conference & Expo at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas on October 5-9, 2009. The Newfoundland Power case study will also be showcased at the upcoming ACCE 2010 conference, June 14-17, 2010, New Orleans, LA, A 20-year employee of Newfoundland Power, Hancock started in marketing, moved to communications, then energy management, and eventually customer service in the meter reading and credit sides of the business. In 2004, she was promoted to her current position with more frontline customer responsibilities. Since 1997 Newfoundland Power has conducted quarterly phone surveys of 1200 customers. Some survey questions related to FCR such as whether a customer had called the utility within the quarter and how many times they had to call back. Steep satisfaction slide With just one contact, customer satisfaction with overall service and the contact centre was running at 92 percent. When people had to call twice, contact centre satisfaction dropped to 76 percent and overall service to 70 percent. When they had to call back three or more times, overall service satisfaction fell to 66 percent and contact centre satisfaction to 50 percent. “The data was telling us that overall satisfaction with the utility, as well as with the contact centre, was severely impacted by whether the customer had to call back more than once to resolve an issue,” says Hancock. “But there wasn’t enough data coming back to figure out what to do. We didn’t know anything about what kinds of calls they were, specific calls versus all calls, and which agents were affecting it more than others.” In preparation for the IT work, customer relations researched what other utilities were reporting FCR and the definitions they used, she says. This information helped create the reporting structure Newfoundland Power wanted. Data was also available in the call centre database itself, she says. Among other things, it showed who called, from what account, at what time and which agent took the call. Calls categorized From that, calls were classified into different types for FCR purposes, she says. It was a necessary first step to deciphering the types of calls coming in and which were leading to multiple call backs. Calls were categorized into six main types with some subsets. Account maintenance covered calls that had anything to do with customers’ electricity accounts. This included people relocating residences and opening or closing accounts. Billing was any call that had to do with adjustments in billing and/ or where the charges were received such as automated bank withdrawals “Sometimes there are adjustments that must be made against the bill if you paid late,” explains Hancock. “There is a discount for paying early you may lose if you don’t pay within a certain time. A lot of people are on automatic payment plans through their banks and inquiries related to that particular process would be within the billing type calls.” Energy management encompassed all energy consumption calls and the utility’s energy efficiency programs and the rebates related to them. Outage management was all calls about power outages and street light maintenance. Technical and field referred to all calls concerning new construction, development of power to cottage areas, or anything to do with regional operations. Meter reading calls were related to how the meter is read, when and the estimates. Credit calls treated differently Another major category dealt with credit. These were calls pertaining mainly to people not being able to pay their bills and setting up payment arrangements. “We don’t treat this one the same as the others with regards to FCR because there is an expectation of multiple contacts related to credit,” says Hancock. “We actually encourage that because we need to maintain contact with people who When people had to call twice, contact centre satisfaction dropped to 76 percent and overall service to 70 percent. When they had to call back three or more times, overall service satisfaction fell to 66 percent and contact centre satisfaction to 50 percent. are unable to pay their bills. We are trying to manage their payment schedules and keep their power on.” The tracking and reporting system calculates an FCR percentage for each category along with an average overall FCR percentage, she says. It shows what multiple calls are being placed by account and by agent. It discerns which agents are performing well vis-à-vis their colleagues and which need more training on certain types of calls. Process, procedural changes Newfoundland Power went through each call category and made changes either to processes or the way calls were handled in an attempt to improve FCR percentages. Detailed reviews of every category were undertaken to learn what the calls and issues were about. Then the utility invoked solutions to change the amount of information customers 14 contact management.ca January / February 2010
Focus on FCR were given or how often they had to call to get that information. In account maintenance, the opening and closing of accounts can be an extensive, time consuming process. The utility helped shorten it for landlords. “Landlords were calling multiple times to determine whether their tenants had contacted us for service which would transfer the account and financial responsibility from the landlord’s name into the tenant’s name. So we created an email notification system for landlords so they wouldn’t have to call us. They were automatically sent an email whenever any of their properties changed hands between themselves and their tenants so they knew which accounts were being set up and which were still in their name.” In the technical area, the utility set up an entire work management process for its regional people, she says. With new construction projects customers were asking for electrical service for a new home within a subdivision that still needed poles or wires installed. When other parts of the organization got involved and a lot of construction still needed to be done, there often wasn’t much information readily available to let customers know where their job stood and how long it was going to take to get power. “We created a work management system for the regional people to keep track of where jobs were and how they were progressing. Then we sent notifications to customers at key points during the process. So they got an email notification when the subdivision design was finished, another when the pole contractor was scheduled to install the poles, another when the electrical authorization was complete and another when we were scheduling the crew to go in and hook up their new house.” In the outage management system, Newfoundland Power changed the way it posted notifications, she says. It provided more frequent, detailed information about the outages so people didn’t have to call back for updates. Agent training alterations The utility also changed the way agents were trained, she says. It taught them the different types of calls so they could answer them more completely. Agents got briefings on what to expect and what to do. “We switched from training on process and function to training on call types. So agents received training on say account maintenance calls, how to open, close and move an account. t Karen Hancock of Newfoundland Power, says data clearly showed overall satisfaction with the utility and contact centre was severely impacted by customers having to repeat calls. Then they practiced that in real call settings. Then they went back to training sessions on the next call type “So they learned each type individually and got to go to the call centre in between to take actual calls about that particular call set. Because all the calls are now classed into a particular call type, we were able to give them just those kinds of calls they were being trained on.” All agents get their FCR percentages monthly so they can see how they are doing overall compared WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT by IEX CORPORATION to their peers and also to the entire centre, she says. Team leaders are able to spot people who may need extra training on a particular call type. They send them for more training or peer monitoring to try and improve that particular percentage. FCR percentages are one of the metrics by which agent performances are measured, she says. But it is not the only one. Agents are also judged on how many calls they take and customer see Utility powers... page 18 Improve Planning • Enhance Performance • Streamline Tasks • Integrate Data For over 15 years, Xentrax has been a pioneer in offering innovative turn key Contact Centre Software solutions to the Canadian Marketplace. It is our singular focus and specialized expertise in Workforce Optimization that allows our customers to rapidly leverage the power hidden within their contact centres. As IEX’s certified Canadian partner, Xentrax provides Systems Installation, Product Training and On-going Product Support of the TotalView Workforce Management Suite of Products. To learn how we have powered some of Canada’s more customer focused contact centres, call 888-XENTRAX (888-936-8729) or email us at info@xentrax.com. Innovative Contact Centre Solutions January / February 2010 contact management.ca 15
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