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First-contact problem resolution

Establish a one-contact resolution for customer issues

Ensure that customers must contact the company only once to get their problems resolved

Frank, L., Poll, R., Röglinger, M., & Lea, R. (2020). Design heuristics for customer-centric business processes. Business Process Management Journal, 26(6)

Description

Companies should ensure that all information needed to solve customer issues are collected at the first encounter in the business process. This reduces the interaction effort on both sides and supports the fast and comprehensive identification of solutions.

Real-World Example

At Allianz, call center agents are instructed to serve customers in minimum time by prohibiting repeated calls, by permitting only one forwarding per call and by assigning the most appropriate agent available. This way, customers do not need to describe their problem or needs several times and get support as soon as possible.

Implementation

This heuristic can be realized by reducing the number of loops in business processes and by proactively assigning the most suitable employee or IT-based touchpoint (e.g. chatbots).

Performance considerations

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Automate activities

Consider automating activities

Eliminate activities

Eliminate unnecessary activities

Buffer information

Buffer external information and subscribe to updates

Minimize numerical involvement

Too many cooks spoil the broth

Use eco-friendly resources

Replace underlying resources with eco-friendly alternatives

Offer temporal flexibility

Let customers interact with your organization whenever they want to.

Tailored privacy settings

Offer customers the possibility to choose among privacy settings

Generalize your process

Explore whether a process can easily be used for additional products or services

Task delegation

Reassign tasks along the organisational hierarchy

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Connected to

Empower resources

Empower workers for more decision-making authority

Reduce touchpoints

Reduce the number of contacts with customers and third parties

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