Why Does the Call Center Abandonment Rate Matter?
Measuring call center abandonment rate is one of the most popular KPIs (key performance indicators) for a successful call center. Keep in mind that one of your call center’s main objectives should be to reinforce the bonds you’ve established with both current and possible future consumers.
How much of a call is abandoned?
Call abandonment occurs when a caller abruptly hangs up, either before a representative can respond to their query or concern or while the representative is attempting to assist them. You can gauge how well call centers are doing at providing excellent customer service and experiences by looking at the rate of call abandonment.
In general, the industry considers a call center abandonment rate of 5% to 8% to be typical. The rate is considered “high” when it reaches 10%. Although studies have shown that call center abandonment rates can reach as high as 20%, the mobile world that we now live in has undoubtedly complicated things to some extent.
Monitoring the Abandonment Rate in Your Call Center
Call center desertion is a crucial KPI that needs to be regularly tracked. When attempting to measure it accurately, there are a lot of potential hazards. Sometimes the tale is not fully revealed by the numbers alone. To properly understand what is happening in your center, you need to understand the context behind those data.
Therefore, there are a few crucial points you’ll want to keep in mind if you want to avoid many of the usual issues related to tracking call center abandonment rates and have reliable call center statistics.
How Do I Determine the Rate of Call Abandonment?
Use the following equation to determine your call center’s abandon rate:
(Number of inbound calls – Calls dropped in the first five seconds or fewer – Calls handled satisfactorily) / (Number of inbound calls – number of calls abandoned in five seconds or less) x 100
Your call center abandonment rate is represented by the number that remains.
The calculation would be as follows if you had 100 calls in your call center queues in a single day, 25 of which were dropped after five seconds or less but 70 of which were successfully handled:
(100 – 25 – 70) / (100 – 25) x 100
The call center abandonment rate in the aforementioned situation would be 6.66%.
It should be noted that the remaining five calls that were not either abandoned or successfully handled could have been caused by straightforward disconnections, an inability to reach a live agent, or a variety of other circumstances.
Why are calls to call centers dropped?
Calls from call centers are dropped for a variety of reasons, including but not limited to those listed below:
- The caller thought it was taking too long to obtain an answer, so they opted to look for assistance elsewhere.
- The caller resolved their issue or found the answer to their query on their own.
- The caller came to the conclusion that the contact center wouldn’t be able to assist them, so they decided to hang up.
- Regardless matter the cause, the caller lost patience and hung up.
- Before a live representative could answer, the call was cut off by the customer at any time.
What can call centers do to lower their call abandonment rate?
Call centers must maximize first-contact resolution, manage scheduling issues, take notes after calls, and monitor call duration in order to reduce call abandonment rates. Through your call center software, you ought to have access to all of these metrics.
Improve response time
There should be no more than 30 seconds between the time someone indicates they want to speak to a live agent by picking up the phone and dialing you and the moment they get someone on the line. However, research have revealed that certain businesses take an average of a minute or longer. Among other strategies, predictive behavioral routing could be used to combat this.
Control Scheduling Challenges
There may be instances where consumers are forced to wait on hold for an excessive amount of time if a call center is understaffed to handle the volume of calls. The usual explanation for this is a failure to predict demand given a timeframe.
Take notes after calls
This refers to all of the additional tasks that an agent must complete in addition to just taking calls. Everything they do “after the call” diverts their attention from the phone lines, which might once more cause scheduling conflicts and hold up resolutions.
Tracking call duration
It goes without saying that certain problems are harder to resolve than others. However, failure to effectively anticipate for the volume of complicated issues you encounter might result in agents spending longer durations on the phone, prolonging the real time it takes to address their problem and lowering their level of satisfaction. Long call times by the agents can also result in longer hold times for incoming callers, which can result in more abandoned calls.
Boost first-call success rate
Additionally, it’s crucial to remember that call abandonment rates are higher when a caller doesn’t get the intended outcome on the initial call. To put it another way, if someone is calling about the same issue or query a second, third, or even fourth time, they are far more likely to become frustrated and hang up the phone quickly. Among other things, this could be attributable to a lack of call center agent ability.
The “low” call abandonment rate you have overall does not necessarily indicate you are in the clear when it comes to customer happiness, which is perhaps the most crucial indicator of all. As mentioned above, even though all five calls were officially “handled” as soon as possible, someone isn’t necessarily going to be satisfied if they had to phone five times about the same problems. Setting the bar too low in this regard is a mistake that far too many customers make. Beyond “customers are content as long as they’re not complaining,” you must be able to delve further. That isn’t always the case, though.
Similarly, there are good reasons why calls can be being dropped. Customers can find solutions while on hold if your company offers some sort of self-service or self-help portal, such as a Knowledge Base. They might have used several different channels to get assistance, and while they were waiting, they might have used online forums or chatbots instead of live chat to reach the same conclusion. In that scenario, your abandonment rate would still be high, but it wouldn’t necessarily imply that someone was dissatisfied with the engagement. However, far too many contact centers are lacking the tools necessary to comprehend the situation’s surrounding context to this level of specificity.
Finally, be aware that the problems you’re currently encountering with a high desertion rate are probably not being caused by any one of these problems. Long call wait times rarely provide a complete explanation. In truth, a number of them have probably worked together throughout time to directly contribute to the current state of affairs.
Fortunately, there are numerous call center technologies available to help you not only tackle high abandonment rates but also gain further cooperation and communication advantages in the future.
Best Call Center Software Programs
Because they need to be both people- and data-driven at the same time, call centers frequently find themselves in an unusual scenario. This is another justification for the significance of emotionally intelligent customer support representatives. Yes, you should always make sure there are enough polite, helpful employees answering the phone to handle the amount of calls you’re going to get. However, they won’t be able to assist you nearly as much as you’d like unless you also provide them access to the kinds of tools that enable them to produce, save, preserve, and exchange crucial data related to every client engagement.
To measure important performance metrics like those listed above, call center leaders likewise require access to the same technologies. This can enable them gain a level of knowledge into both what is working and, more importantly, what isn’t that is nearly unprecedented. By doing so, they are able to address problems head-on rather than “throwing everything and the kitchen sink” at them in the hopes that something would eventually work.
These analytical tools can help you achieve important objectives like the following in addition to determining the allowable abandon rate at your specific call center:
- lowering agent absences
- assisting in managing staffing levels in light of volume projections.
- increasing agent involvement.
- reducing the attrition of experienced agents.
High valued agents, for instance, are more motivated to work when they feel they have the resources needed to do their tasks. This not only increases the likelihood that crucial client calls will be answered successfully, but it also reduces the likelihood that the customer will defect to one of your rivals.
In the same way, by just being able to predict volume forecasts accurately, you can guarantee that you’ll always have enough agents available to meet those requests, regardless of peaks and other brief swings. Customers will therefore spend less time on the phone and more time taking advantage of the goods and services they have already invested a significant amount of their hard-earned cash in.
Additionally, they aid in achieving the most crucial objective of all: raising general consumer happiness.
Help Desk at HubSpot
Without mentioning HubSpot’s Help Desk software, no list of the best call center software options would be complete. It is constructed on top of HubSpot’s market-leading customer relationship management technology and is intended to foster unprecedented collaboration between all organizational units.
The HubSpot Help Desk serves as a central repository for all pertinent information related to the client lifecycle, which is the key advantage here. This implies that every agent, regardless of who a customer calls and talks to, has access to all the data they need to respond to inquiries and solve issues more quickly than ever. Additionally, it has a wide range of self-service tools as well as strong analytical and reporting features that provide organizational leaders with knowledge.
TalkDesk
Time to resolution is one of the most prevalent problems that many businesses have, and TalkDesk is a solution made to help your call center handle it. It’s a product designed with large teams in mind and includes a variety of industry-specific features that lean into the way you want to work rather than changing the way your team members conduct themselves to compensate for the shortcomings of the solution.
It also comes with effective reporting capabilities and even enables you to automate many of the tedious procedures, like data collection, that typically limit an agent’s capacity to stay on the phone and provide service to more customers.
Predictive dialer software, alerts when up-sell chances arise, and a ton more are included in this robust workforce management suite as additional features. Get more information on Talkdesk’s pricing and plans.
Zendesk Chat
In that it is built on top of the existing sturdy base of a potent customer relationship management tool, Zendesk Talk is remarkably comparable to HubSpot’s solution. This implies that every front-line employee in your company, regardless of who they speak with, will have access to the information and understanding they require to always make the best decisions. Additionally, following a call, that information may be quickly transferred to another department (like sales or marketing, for example) in order to maintain your contact with someone through a different channel.
Powerful dashboards are also included with Zendesk Talk, putting crucial statistics like answered calls, abandoned calls, call tracking, and even your abandonment rate front and center on a single, simple-to-access interface.
CloudTalk
Another type of call center software that has gained popularity recently is CloudTalk. This is understandable, since it integrates a number of distinctive technologies into a platform that is equally effective and adaptable.
The useful call routing features of CloudTalk are one of the key aspects that set it apart from other solutions. Inbound calls are automatically routed to the agents who are most equipped to handle them once the initial configuration and setup procedures are finished. So, rather of receiving a “one size fits all” experience, a customer receives the individualized service they require to ensure increased satisfaction levels are an inevitability. Additionally, by doing this, call transfers between departments are eliminated, which can assist even the most irate consumers feel more at peace before they have an opportunity to speak with the live person they’re looking for.
Dixa
Dixa is a piece of call center software that doesn’t require you to install anything on your local workstations, which is one of its main advantages. It may be used (and the data it contains accessed) from any device on Earth with an active Internet connection because it is totally contained within a compatible web browser.
Agents can be just as effective at home as they can in the center itself, which is wonderful in a time when more individuals than ever before work remotely. Beyond that, however, Dixa also includes a number of capabilities, including sophisticated call distribution algorithms that facilitate routing, caller recognition to aid agents in retrieving data more quickly, and more.
Contact center from Avaya
Finally, but certainly not least, we reach Avaya Contact Center, a service that, according to Avaya’s website, is utilized by over 90% of Fortune 100 firms.
Avaya Contact Center also leverages artificial intelligence and machine learning to improve and automate the customer service experience as much as possible, in addition to a potent agent desktop that puts all the useful information an agent could need at their fingertips. To provide a more fruitful interaction, for instance, AI systems automatically match consumers with the appropriate agents. Additionally, Avaya is a product built to help you survive in the “digital or die” era, enabling your agents to interact with clients via voice, web chat, SMS text messaging, email, and even social media networks.
Customers today want to talk to your brand, but they want to do so on their terms. With that, Avaya has given you the chance to assist these clients in their pursuit of the fulfilling engagement they both desire and deserve.
Call Centers Must Be More Productive Together
Regardless of the contact center software option you select, you must realize that you’re attempting to accomplish more than simply select a new productivity tool. You must integrate your customer support operations not simply across your whole call center, but also across a variety of channels. Giving your agents the flexibility to work “smarter, not harder” will enable them to spend as much time as possible assisting the customers a business has committed itself to serving.
All of this contributes to what is likely the most significant benefit of all: delivering a superior customer and call center experience all at once.
The Secret to Reducing Abandonment Rate Is Improving Customer Experience
Finally, it’s crucial that you comprehend that your call center abandonment rate is more than just a numerical value. The purpose of your call center is to operate as one of the main pillars of the experience you are working hard to establish across your customer base, which is more than just responding to inquiries and resolving issues. When you most need it, customer experience management can provide you a competitive edge.
It’s one thing to realize that your abandonment rate is excessively high. Understanding WHY is one thing; knowing WHAT to do about it is quite another. Choosing tools that cooperate with one another to assist one another is a necessary step in building a strong enterprise VoIP system.