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Customers are more discerning than ever before. As consumers, we’ve grown used to the instant gratification provided by digital experiences. With a few clicks online, we can buy whatever products or services we want when we want.
But when customers pick up the phone because they need a company’s help, they often face long hold times and prerecorded messages from an automated IVR telling them to go online instead. Customers who are left on hold for too long eventually give up, causing your abandonment rate to increase and negatively impact customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores.
What is call abandonment?
Call abandonment rate is the percentage of tasks that are abandoned by your customer before they can be completed.
This is a snippet from our latest guide. If you’re looking for a framework for assessing the severity of your abandonment problem and a proposed step-by-step approach to solving call abandonment with voice AI download your copy.
How to calculate your call abandonment rate
You can calculate your call abandonment rate by dividing the total number of abandoned calls in a given period by the total number of calls that came in during the same timeframe and then multiplying that total by one hundred.
For instance, if your call center receives 500 calls in a day and 50 of those calls are abandoned before they are answered, the calculation would be 50 divided by 500, which equals 0.1. Multiplying 0.1 by 100 gives you a call abandonment rate of 10%. This percentage reflects the portion of callers who hang up before reaching your agents.
Why your call abandonment rate is important
Your call abandonment rate is important because it directly reflects how well you’re meeting customer expectations and managing your resources.
A high abandonment rate points to inefficiencies like inadequate staffing or long wait times, which directly impact your customer experience.
When customers are kept waiting, it’s difficult not to take it personally, especially in a world where they can just as easily take their business elsewhere instead of deciding to call back. Reducing your call abandonment rate is crucial for avoiding missed revenue opportunities, maintaining strong relationships with your customers, and improving your efficiency metrics.
A CX problem or a call abandonment rate problem?
Most organizations recognize the importance of customer service in building customer loyalty. As such, many contact center and CX leaders are asking themselves, how can we improve the experience of our customer service?
The answer lies a step earlier than many organizations think. Improving customer experience only makes sense if the customer can have the experience. Creating a great experience for the 30% of callers who get to speak to a live agent after only a short wait on hold is likely to be less impactful than offering 100% of callers immediate access to genuinely helpful support.
As a contact center or CX leader, none of this will be news to you. Call wait times are high because there are simply not enough available agents to answer every single incoming call instantly.
How to reduce call abandonment in your contact center with voice AI
Your step-by-step guide
Get your copyIs call abandonment really a staffing problem?
With enough people answering customer phone calls, abandonment is no longer a problem, but looking at abandonment as purely a staffing problem may be preventing organizations from thinking bigger.
Viewing abandonment as a staffing problem leaves organizations with three options:
1. Hire more contact center agents
Great in theory, but this requires excessive budgets and a high degree of management and operational support, all of which are exacerbated by notoriously high agent attrition rates for customer service representatives.
2. Make your existing staff more productive
Using AI technology to streamline calls and automate after-call work means agents can answer more calls. But call center workers are already under extreme pressure to reduce call handle time, and customers know they’re being rushed. It’s not a great experience for your customers or staff who, by the very nature of their work, are flight risks.
3. Outsource to BPOs
Having outsourced vendors handle customer support calls is often a more cost-effective way to provide phone support than in-house staffing, but BPOs come with a whole other set of compromises. Offshoring can be cheap, but rapidly evolving economies leave many companies chasing affordable talent across the globe. And with customer calls happening in a silo, companies lose all-important customer insights and brand control.
How to lower your call abandonment rate
To lower your call abandonment rate, you need to take a holistic view of your contact center. This includes improving the customer experience from the first interaction, understanding your customers at a granular level, and ensuring agents share knowledge and customer information effectively.
1. Provide agents with caller context in advance
Some call transfers are necessary to resolve your customer’s query. If agents have key information before they take a call, like the caller’s name, account number, recent interactions, and preferences, they can offer faster and more effective service. This helps handle inbound calls more efficiently and lowers the chance of customers abandoning their calls.
2. Monitor call data to identify patterns in customer behavior
Your call data and customer insights reveal where there is friction in your contact center processes. By examining this data, you can determine if certain call types are more frequent at specific times, identify FAQs causing long wait times, or spot technical problems like website errors that increase call volume. These issues lead to customers hanging up, and understanding these insights helps you allocate resources better and support customers more effectively.
3. Implement AI-powered voice assistants
By automating simple tasks like call routing, authentication or ID&V, and FAQs through to more complex transactions like payments, account management, reservations, and troubleshooting, AI-powered voice assistants empower companies to optimize staffing, allow agents to have more meaningful interactions with their customers, reduce wait times, and focus on delivering personalized experiences at scale.
How PolyAI’s voice assistant AI can reduce your call abandonment
Reducing dropped calls goes beyond hiring more staff or outsourcing support.
It’s about finding a solution that provides instant assistance, cuts wait times, and empowers customers to resolve issues efficiently.
Efficient call handling and reduced wait times
PolyAI voice assistants free up time and resources for your contact center by proactively addressing multiple customer queries simultaneously and engaging in customer-led conversations to accurately understand customers and route calls. Our voice assistants create a more rewarding and manageable workload for your agents and leave a positive, lasting impression of your brand for your customers.
Do you want to reduce your abandonment rate using the world’s most lifelike voice AI? Discover how PolyAI’s voice assistants can help you answer every call immediately, improve loyalty, resolve over 50% of calls, and deliver effortless CX at scale.
Call abandonment FAQs
Several factors contribute to a high call abandonment rate:
- Long wait times. Customers hang up if they are left on hold for too long.
- Inadequate staffing. Not enough call center agents to handle the volume of calls.
- Inefficiencies in handling calls. Ineffective processes and lack of agent productivity.
- Lack of caller context. Agents lacking key information can prolong call handling time.
- Operational challenges. Issues like high attrition rates, budget constraints, and managing outsourced call centers.
- Customer behavior patterns. Certain call types may spike at specific times, causing longer waits.
A “short-abandoned” call refers to a call that is abandoned by the customer very quickly, typically within a few seconds.
According to conventional wisdom, an abandonment rate of 5% or less is acceptable, and 2% or less is excellent. But, benchmarks and industry standards can vary depending on the type of call center or business you’re in. For example, government and healthcare businesses have historically seen higher than 5% average call abandonment rates.
