Help Desk Help vol. 3 – First Call Resolution
This blog series highlights 4 Reasons to Use Speech Self-Service in Your Help Desk. The final volume examines ways to identify hidden improvement areas in the Help Desk that can improve caller experiences and reduce workload.
4 Reasons to Use Speech Self-Service in Your Help Desk
The position of help desk agent can be challenging, stressful, and hectic − and that’s on a good day. As they struggle to keep pace with call support queues that never seem to die down, agents must spend valuable time triaging calls and figuring out where they need to go for help should they require a different skill, destination, or service center. Agent time is also often wasted on defusing angry customers that have been on hold for an inordinate amount of time. Combined, these assorted inefficiencies can have a surprisingly large and adverse impact on one of the most crucial key performance Indicators in the help desk − First Call Resolution (FCR).
The problem stems from the competing nature of FCR and another major help desk KPI − Average Handle Time (AHT). These primary metrics are often in direct opposition to each other. When managers stress the importance of keeping AHT low so that calls don’t back up in the support queue, agents can be hurried to complete each call and may not have the time or patience to effectively solve each caller’s concern the first time around, thus lowering FCR.
The two primary efficiencies delivered by speech self service that were outlined in Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 of this series (Call Deflection and Skills-Based Routing) help make AHT less of a concern, which in turn allows agents more time to patiently serve callers with an eye towards FCR. Using conversational AI to deflect calls intended for other destinations or service lines (employee requests, departments, scheduling, other external service lines, etc.) can reduce calls in the support queue − frequently by 30% or more. And skills-based routing, which makes sure that callers coming into the help desk are quickly and easily escorted to the appropriate skill or agent to solve their need, reduces time spent by agents on triaging and transferring calls within the help desk. Together, these efficiencies deliver the freedom agents need in order to deliver excellent service to every caller. Service that isn’t rushed. Service that goes above and beyond. Service that solves their problem on that first call.
