Next issue avoidance: Resolving your customers’ second problem on the first call

An agent walks a customer through an issue, confirms they've resolved the problem, and wraps up the call. At that point, the customer interaction is done. But is it really? That's the question Next Issue Avoidance asks.

Next Issue Avoidance (NIA) involves anticipating—and addressing—downstream problems that could stem from a customer’s current query. For example, let’s say a utility company discovers many of their new customers call back after receiving their first bill because they have questions about an unanticipated set-up fee. The company’s contact center could update their scripts and train their agents to discuss the set-up fee on the first call with new customers to reduce repeat calls about this topic.

Many contact centers are starting to track NIA as a key performance indicator—and for good reason. A 3- to 4-minute customer service call typically costs around $2.70 to $5.60, meaning the operational cost of unnecessary repeat calls quickly adds up. Additionally, research shows that repeat contacts are the top driver of high customer effort—which strongly correlates with disloyalty.

By anticipating common downstream issues, contact centers can reduce repeat contacts (and the associated costs) and provide a better experience for their customers.

Next issue avoidance starts with conversation data

So how do you improve your contact center’s Next Issue Avoidance rate? It starts with analyzing your customer conversation transcripts to identify trends in repeat contacts.

Mining customer conversation data using conversation intelligence software can help you identify relationships between various customer issues. You can use conversation intelligence technology to understand:

• The customer issues or events on first calls that occur most frequently and have the highest repeat contact rates

• The topics that have the most influence on the repeat contact rate (i.e., which conversation topics have a high probability of leading a customer to call back later)

• The next-issue-avoidance steps your contact center can take to reduce the likelihood of a repeat contact when these issues are detected

These valuable insights help agents resolve the customer’s primary issue while anticipating and forward-solving common downstream issues.  

As a contact center leader, it’s up to you to set your agents up for success with Next Issue Avoidance. You may. need to address customer friction points that occur outside the contact center and advocate for a shift in the way your company thinks about and measures issue resolution.

Stop treating calls as one-off issues

Highly effective service organizations don’t think of customer calls as singular issues. Rather, they interpret each customer case as the beginning of an event or series. They examine the initial call as part of a whole, determining common reasons a customer might call back and trying to resolve those issues during the primary go-around.  

Your contact center is poised to predict future customer queries. You already possess tons of data about the actions customers have or haven’t taken and the issues that are likely to arise in the near future. You can bring conversation insights from every channel—calls, chats, emails, cases—into a single conversation intelligence interface to understand all your customer interactions and spot repeat contact trends.  

Don’t push for short handle times at the expense of good service

While many contact centers want to lower their average handle times (AHT) to reduce operational costs, this goal shouldn’t supersede thorough issue resolution.

Encouraging agents to spend a little extra time with customers at the end of a call to ask smart questions could save your contact center several lengthy calls in the future. According to CEB (now Gartner), “Companies practicing next issue avoidance dramatically reduce the likelihood of another 3- to 5-minute phone call (with an upset customer, no less) by taking an extra 15 to 30 seconds to simply forewarn the customer.”

For this to be successful, there needs to be a shift in mindset from “How quickly can I resolve this issue and get off the call?” to “How can I prevent related calls from taking place?” If applied correctly, this will result in decreased customer effort and agents who are less likely to become burned out and jump ship.

Work cross-functionally to address issues at their origin points

When analyzing your customer conversations, you may discover that some of the top drivers of repeat contacts are coming from outside your contact center. Let's go back to our utility company example and say that a customer calls to schedule a service appointment. The agent follows the appropriate steps to schedule the appointment, and the customer ends the conversation thinking they are all set. However, an issue with the scheduling software prevents the service technician from being notified, leading to a missed appointment and another call from the frustrated customer.

After identifying this type of issue, you’ll need to reach out to the appropriate teams or department leaders and work with them to resolve it. If you need to create urgency to get buy-in, consider sharing the estimated cost of repeat contacts related to this issue—putting a dollar amount to the problem can help department leaders understand why addressing it should be a priority.

Next issue avoidance leads to better experiences for agents and customers

Fewer repeat contacts means lower customer effort, which contributes to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty. It also means your agents are fielding fewer calls with customers who are frustrated about having to contact your business multiple times. It’s a win for your customers, agents, and business.

If your agents are struggling to figure out what downstream issues your customers may face, it’s time to get your next-issue-avoidance approach down to a science. Take advantage of the conversation data you already have and start anticipating future issues based on past interactions.  

This article was adapted from a blog post titled “Pre-empt follow-up calls like a next-issue avoidance pro,” written by Ashley Sava in February 2020. It was updated and expanded with new information and research in August 2024.