Six Sigma Case Studies : Improving First Call Resolution (FCR)

Industry: Financial services

Background

The client is one of the world’s largest payment services providers serving more than 300 clients worldwide, including more than half of the top 20 international banks. Headquartered in the US with offices spread across the Americas, EMEA, and Asia Pacific, the client supports more than 40% of the VISA and MasterCard consumer-credit accounts in the United States.

The challenge

Due to perceived decline in Quality scores, combined with an influx of agent-related customer complaints, the client mandated a 90-day performance improvement plan.

Solution

One major action step within the 90-day plan was to establish a Six Sigma Greenbelt project focusing on First Call Resolution (FCR) which also impacts both overall Quality performance and Customer Satisfaction. Analysis of data sources revealed common top drivers between customer complaints and the quality audits conducted on the FCR metric.

Focusing on the identified top drivers of customer dissatisfaction, three major actions were executed. The first was an initiative to improve agent call handling skills under the management of the dedicated communication skills training group. The second action was the introduction of a knowledgebase focused on the top drivers, and the third was a series of weekly drills designed to improve agent problem solving and probing skills.

Results

The project exceeded its goal of increasing FCR conformance from a baseline of 60% to 70%, closing at 71%. After the implementation of the control action steps, this figure reached 78%. Moreover, there was a concurrent 5% decrease in the number of escalations to the Tier 2 team.