How to Improve FCR on Email and Live Chat

First Contact Resolution (FCR) is often considered a simple measure of efficiency, but behind every repeat contact lies a more complicated story.

Sometimes customers contact again because their original question wasn’t properly understood. Sometimes their emotional needs weren’t met. In other cases, the process itself is so difficult that another interaction becomes inevitable.

And increasingly, customers don’t just stick to one channel while seeking help – they’ll start with email, move to live chat, and then pick up the phone if neither delivers what they need.

That means improving FCR isn’t simply about asking agents to work harder or faster, it’s about being smarter with the customer journeys you create in the first place.

That’s why we spoke to Leslie O’Flahavan about the tweaks and changes you can make to reduce how many emails and live chats escalate to the phone!

Improving FCR in Email

Here are some of the ways you can start to improve your FCR rates in email:

Help Agents Develop Stronger Analytical Reading Skills

Customers don’t always clearly articulate what they need. Instead, they describe what happened, how they feel, or why they’re frustrated. The agent’s role is to interpret that information and identify the underlying question that needs answering.

“One of the best ways to improve First Contact Resolution in email is for the agent to use analytical reading skills. Namely, the careful reading that helps them think about what the customer is asking – not what the customer is saying.

That’s the big difference! So, a customer might say, ‘You promised me expedited shipping. I paid for expedited shipping, and this package came two days late.’ – but this is where it’s so important to tune into what the customer is asking.

Of course, sometimes they will continue to say, ‘And I’m requesting a refund of the expedited shipping charges,’ but sometimes they don’t. They don’t write that much. They say, ‘I paid for quick shipping. I didn’t get it and I’m really mad.’

And so analytical reading is the careful reading that converts what the customer is saying to what the customer is asking, so that the agent knows the right way to respond. Without this skill, agents risk providing accurate answers to the wrong questions.” – Leslie O’Flahavan, Principal and Owner at E-WRITE

Check Agents Have the Emotional Intelligence to Respond Appropriately to the Customer’s Mood

That being said, understanding the customer’s request is only half the battle. Agents also need the emotional intelligence to respond appropriately to the customer’s mood.

After all, some customers really want a specific and genuine apology, such as “I’m sorry that we didn’t deliver your package as quickly as we had promised.”

Others want empathy, for example, “I understand that this purchase was going to be a gift and that its late arrival meant you couldn’t give that gift.” Sometimes, they want both!

Whatever their needs happen to be, your agents need to tune in and get it right. If not, it’s highly likely the conversation will create additional frustration that lingers long after the original issue has been addressed.

And this drives up your FCR rates, as customers whose emotional needs remain unmet are far more likely to seek another channel where they feel they can gain this acknowledgement.

To get started on developing emotional intelligence in your agents, read our article: 15 Tips for Building Emotional Intelligence in Customer Service

Make Templates Easy to Personalize to Avoid a “One-Size-Fits-All” Approach

Don’t overlook the impact of your templates either. Yes, they can support consistency and efficiency – but only if agents are able to adapt them too.

So make sure your agents are able to quickly customize any templates to address the specifics of a customer’s situation – as a rigid, one-size-fits-all response too often undermines your FCR efforts.

Quite simply, give them room (and permission!) to make the template their own – from paraphrasing the customer’s question or adding that specific and genuine apology, to adding additional supporting information such as their product number, shipping date, order status, or gold account benefits.

A good rule of thumb is to encourage agents to think of templates as a way of providing time-saving structure – without sacrificing authenticity. That’s the ultimate win–win!

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Improving FCR in Live Chat

And there are even more opportunities to improve FCR in live chat…

Encourage Your Agents to Ask Open-Ended Questions

As a synchronous channel, agents don’t have to guess what the customer is trying to say, they can ask! So make sure they do!

Encourage them to ask more open-ended questions to help uncover what customers actually want, as this will allow them to diagnose issues more accurately – before proposing solutions – and help to boost your FCR rates.

However, be mindful that this approach requires you, as a leader, to create the right operating environment for this to happen.

Quite frankly, agents juggling too many simultaneous chats may default to transactional interactions – rather than meaningful conversations that drive resolution. They’re just too busy to tune in and give each conversation their best.

“As a customer, you can often smell the pressure the agent’s under to handle multiple chats – especially when the expectation is for them to handle four or five chats simultaneously – as it makes it very hard for them to ask the open-ended questions that would help them understand what you really need.

I often find that if agents are tasked with a more reasonable number of chats (maybe two at a time!) they have more opportunity to ask the customer questions, diagnose each issue properly, and use the channel more effectively.” – Leslie O’Flahavan, Principal and Owner at E-WRITE

Sometimes you’ve just got to “go slow to go fast”, as the saying goes, as giving your agents more breathing space can help prevent repeat contacts in the long run.

Not sure where to start with open questions? Read our article: Open Questions to Use in Customer Service

Avoid Generic Closing Questions at the End of the Conversation

Also rethink how your agents close off the conversation, as your approach could be doing more harm than good. For example, it’s common for agents to close a live chat with the question, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?” – but this can leave conversations feeling scripted and insincere.

Instead, agents should refer back to the specific issue the customer contacted them about and invite further questions within that context. Doing so demonstrates attention, reinforces that the agent has been listening, and creates opportunities to uncover related concerns before the conversation ends.

This small adjustment can help prevent customers leaving the interaction with unanswered questions that later generate additional contacts.