5 Essential Ingredients for First Contact Resolution eBook

ESSENTIALINGREDIENTS
FOR FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION
5
HOWTOGETITRIGHTTHEFIRSTTIMEFORYOURPOLICYHOLDERS

In this eBook, Pegasystems’ Eric Deitert explores why
first contact resolution (FCR) is so difficult to achieve
within the insurance sector. It examines how technology
advancements can empower your service organization
to dramatically improve FCR rates.
Eric J. Deitert
Director, Industry Marketing
Insurance Pegasystems

5 ESSENTIAL INGREDIENTS FOR FIRST CONTACT RESOLUTION WWW.PEGA.COM3 SHARE THIS EBOOK:
Contact centers have perfected the art of capturing and tracking customer inquiries
with sophisticated techniques for measuring the performance of customer service
representatives (CSRs) and service centers as a whole. And they have spent a great
deal of money trying to reduce service time and costs through automation, analytics
and outsourcing.
Yet despite these investments, one of the most important measures of a contact center’s
productivity – first contact resolution (FCR) – remains stubbornly difficult to achieve. The
problem lies in the fact that contact center technology focuses only on giving an answer as
fast as possible. But achieving FCR on a consistent basis requires not just an answer – it
requires a resolution that truly solves the customer’s problem.
First Contact Resolution
is More than Just an Answer

FCR is not about the first contact answer – it’s abut fulfilling the issue to the satisfaction
of the customer. Consistently achieving FCR requires the ability to:
1. Know your customer. Provide CSRs with immediate understanding of the customer
and issue before the call even begins.
2. Just do it. Don’t just tell the customer what will happen, empower the CSR to act
and fulfill the request at the time of the call.
3. Use the right channel. Use the channel that ensures the best outcome on the first
contact – and use multiple channels if that is what it takes.
4. Fulfill the request and sell more. The best resolution may involve complimentary
products or services, so combine service fulfillment with relevant offers.
5. Make it a better experience. Learn from past interactions to continuously automate,
refine and improve the experience.
Ingredients for FCR5
First
Contact
Resolution
Improve the
Experience
Know Your
Customer
Just Do ItFulfill &
Sell More
Use the
Right
Channel

Optimizing FCR demands understanding the context of the call so that you can
anticipate the customer’s need and react appropriately. This requires:
`` Leveraging enterprise data during calls. Back-end data serves as potential context,
helping you dynamically identify how you should treat the customer.
`` Applying predictive analytics to the customer and the interaction. By analyzing enterprise
data, you can identify patterns about which resolution is most appropriate.
`` Using adaptive analytics to refine the treatment. Leveraging data obtained during the
interaction – such as the policyholder’s responses – lets you adapt in real time to more
effectively resolve the issue.
`` Improve subsequent interactions. “Self-learning” analytics capture everything that is
learned during an interaction and apply that to the next similar situation to continually
refine the experience.
Know Your Customer
1
Real-Time
Input
Need Help
With ...
Purchase
More
Defect Commit
Fraud
Your customer is going to ...
Predictive & Adaptive
Analytics
Yes/No
Customer
Data
Transaction
Data
Account
Data
3rd Party
Data
........... Data

It’s important not only to know what to do, but also to be able to actually complete the
request. This requires dynamic case management that connects all applicable groups and
systems needed to resolve the issue. Dynamic case management that provides real-time
access to back-end systems and step-by-step assistance ensures each interaction follows
the most optimal process from initial inquiry to resolution.
For example, when a customer applies for a policy on your website, you should be able to
guide them through the application process while accessing the appropriate systems, such
as product and underwriting systems, so that you can help the customer select the best
policy, determine eligibility, and complete approval in real time, delighting the customer with
a single, “one-and-done” interaction.
Just Do It with
Actionable Processes2
CUSTOMER Needs help
with . . .
Purchase
More
Prevent a
Defection
Commit
Fraud
DYNAMIC CASE MANAGEMENT
Customer
Data
Transaction
Data
Account
Data
3rd Party
Data
Real-Time
Integration
RESEARCH
RESPOND
RESOLVERECEIVE
ROUTE
REPORT

When policyholders visit your website, send an email or pick up the phone, they expect
their issues to be resolved regardless of their chosen communication channel. This
demands a “customer engagement hub” that coordinates seamless interactions over
and across multiple channels. By managing communications through an intelligent hub,
you can provide consistent responses and make sure effective resolutions are used over
every channel.
A multi-channel contact hub will also help you understand your actual FCR rates
because it makes customer interactions reportable across channels. With a central
process, you will know that a policyholder who sent an email two days ago and is now
phoning your contact center is still discussing the same issue, revealing an addressable
gap in FCR.
Use the Right Channel
for the Right Process3
MAIL
FACEBOOK
FORUMS
WIKI
TWITTERCHAT
EMAIL
WEB PORTAL
PHONE
COMMON
CUSTOMER
ENGAGEMENT
HUB

Resolving a policyholder’s issue can involve additional products or services. The key
is to recognize situations that are ripe for cross-selling or up-selling and respond
appropriately. By making offers at the moment when the individual is most receptive,
you can drive revenue from service calls, as well as increase policyholder satisfaction
and loyalty.
Predictive and adaptive analytics, business rules, real-time decisioning and guided
processes shine in this situation. These capabilities can automatically recognize a sales
opportunity, align your business objectives with the customer’s intent and guide the CSR
through the delivery of timely and highly relevant offers. The result is an interaction that
supports FCR and enables a profitable outcome.
Resolve the Issue
– And Sell More4

While FCR demands one-and-done resolution, it does not mean each interaction is an
isolated event. The success or failure of an interaction offers insight that can be used to guide
subsequent interactions. You can build on past outcomes in ways that continuously refine
the customer’s experience and help you determine the best action to take the next time a
policyholder contacts you.
This requires intelligent tools that enable business users to simulate and test the potential
impact of customer strategies before putting them into production, combined with the
ability to monitor performance in real-time. A complimentary technique for continuous
improvement is “design-by-doing” case management which allows manual or automatic
ad-hoc additions to a case that can be saved as a new case template. The next time a similar
scenario occurs, the new template can be applied, ensuring processes always reflects the
reality of the work required.
Make It a Better Experience
with Continuous Improvement5

Pega CRM for Insurance provide a broad and deep set of capabilities that can help you
optimize your service operations. With the ability to apply real-time, adaptive processes,
connect your front- and back-office, deliver seamless multi-channel service, automate
Next-Best-Actions and enable business-level modeling, monitoring and control, Pega helps
you empower your CRS, enhancing their proficiency and productivity, increasing customer
satisfaction and dramatically improving FCR.
The Pega Approach to
First Contact Resolution
IMPROVED CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE BY 50%
WHILE CONSOLIDATING MULTIPLE SYSTEMS DOWN TO 1
This life carrier, a Fortune 500 enterprise, is no stranger to change. For over 160 years,
their ability to execute on strategic vision has kept them a leader. When it came time to
revolutionize their entire customer service backbone, this leading life carrier formulated
the right vision to surpass its competition.
To capitalize on their strategic vision, predicated on customer centricity, this carrier
developed a “next generation” Customer Servicing Platform to catapult their growth and
leadership into the 21st century.
In crafting the solution, the insurer was seeking a customer service platform to enable
their associates to deliver interactions that delight the customer at a lower unit cost.
Utilizing Pega, a holistic view of the customer is provided across all product lines. A
unified business process for inquiry and transaction processing is leveraged by the
entire service organization. Furthermore, the system’s rule-driven, customer interaction
manager guides each CSR, assuring the highest quality outcome coupled with an impec-
cable customer experience across every interaction channel.
Their next generation customer service platform puts the customer at the center of their
business. Today customers can interact with them across a variety of channels and the
system assures the most appropriate business outcome is achieved to meet and resolve
their needs quickly.
Due to rules driven processing, inquiry cycle times have improved by fifty percent.
Customer service inquiries are delivered in a more accurate, timely and secure manner
by employing standardized processes across the business.
A single version of truth with intent led processing removes unnecessary guesswork
across customer inquiry lifecycle. In fact, due to work automation rules, employee
training has been reduced from nine weeks down to two, half-day sessions. Furthermore,
by consolidating multiple systems into 1, system maintenance costs have been reduced
while average handle times have been improved; fostering happier customers. In short,
the life carrier's innovative vision has revolutionized the customer inquiry process,
optimizing how customer service is delivered thereby changing the competitive playing
field in the life market.
“One of the key components was to get to a platform where we could develop the types of
products that our agents were looking for, and we were able to do that very successfully.”
Executive
Life Insurance Company
SOLUTION RESULTS
LIFE INSURANCE
COMPANY

© Copyright 2013 Pegasystems Inc. All rights reserved.
All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
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About Pegasystems
Pegasystems, the leader in business process management and
software for customer centricity, helps organizations enhance
customer loyalty, generate new business, and improve productivity.
Our patented Build for Change®
technology speeds the delivery of
critical business solutions by directly capturing business objectives
and eliminating manual programming. Pegasystems enables
clients to quickly adapt to changing business conditions in order to
outperform the competition.
For more information, please visit us at www.pega.com/insurance.
About the Author
Eric Deitert is Director of Insurance Industry Marketing, at
Pegasystems Inc. For the greater part of Eric's career, he has
worked for prominent software development companies that provide
technology for process improvement. He has held a variety of roles
in which he has been responsible for technology product marketing,
product management, and strategic market analysis within the
BPM and business rule engine (BRE) sectors. Prior to joining
Pegasystems, Eric was a Research Director at Gartner, covering BPM
and business rule technology.
Contact him at Eric.Deitert@pega.com

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5 Essential Ingredients for First Contact Resolution eBook