Comprehensive Guide to Drop Call Abandonment Rate in Contact Center
The call abandonment rate is a powerful KPI for measuring the effectiveness of a contact center. It can help you in determining the extent of customer engagement since dropped calls are the indicator of frustrated and annoyed customers. Customers don’t like being on long hold when they call the support department and as a consequence, they leave before they get their answer. It can be hard to eliminate abandon calls completely but you can apply different strategies to lower abandon rates and thereby improve customer satisfaction. In this blog, we will discuss key aspects of call abandonment fate along with fruitful strategies for avoiding drop rates.
What is the Call Abandonment Rate?
Call abandonment rate is a contact center metric used for measuring the number of calls dropped while reaching a customer service agent. You can calculate it as the division of abandoned calls with the total number of calls and multiply it by 100 to get the value in percentage. Evaluating this metric can give you a clear idea about the customer experience success. It is the length of time a customer waited while calling in the support system wherein the longer the wait time, the longer will be the abandonment rate. Recognizing the reasons for call drops and formulating strategies to avoid such drops is vital to maintain customer relations and also upholding professionalism from the organization’s point of view.
Monitoring Abandon Rates
Calls can be abandoned for a variety of reasons and high rates can impact your business negatively. Therefore, it is vital to monitor each inflow call to get a detailed insight into why the call got dropped. Measuring or tracking the outcome of each call can make you aware of the key issues faced by customers when they reach you. It can be due to poor resource allocation or workforce management that makes customers wait on a long hold time.
For instance, when you have allocated agents poorly, then service agents will be unable to serve customers as they will be engaged in addressing issues of ongoing customers.
Another reason why calculating the abandonment rate is important is that you can have a track record of potential sales opportunities. Majorly customers drop calls when they are unsatisfied with the answers, the waiting time is too long, agents follow a lengthy or complicated process for entering details and other issues that drive them to abandon the ongoing call. You need to track those issues as they are affecting the reputation of your business and impacting overall customer engagement.
Further, if customer reviews are important for you then you should better not avoid looking for reasons why your inbound calls got dropped. This can be a huge hurdle in improving CSAT scores and FCR rates of call centers. If customers leave you then they will go to your competitors and you can lose potential opportunities of getting sales.
How to Reduce Call Abandonment Rates?
A successful call center management comes up with the identification of tactics to improve the abandonment rates. For that, you have to focus on your KPIs which will impact customer satisfaction by emphasizing the areas of improvement. Here are some tips for reducing abandon rates in the contact center:
-
Hire More Agents to Improve Response Time
Long holds can lead to a high abandonment rate and for that reason you need to hire more agents to reduce the response time. Adjust the schedules of agents based on available time and call volume. Also, agents are needed to be trained in such a way that the call is wrapped in a stipulated time.
-
Learn From the Data
It is advisable to measure the metrics such as average handle time, wait times or FCR to analyze the peak periods or days of low call inflow. When viewed as detailed reports, companies can determine what things can act as trigger points for abandonment calls.
-
Boost First Call Resolution (FCR) Rate
One of the best things for improving the call abandonment rate is to enhance FCR in order to facilitate resolution in the first go. Customers don’t like repeating their issues again and again. So better you should focus on resolving the issue in the first call to avoid customer frustration.
-
Offer Other Channels of Communication
Overcoming the hurdle of a high call abandonment rate requires your business to develop a presence over multiple channels. By this, you can empower customers to contact you from their preferred channels to accelerate ease.
-
Offer Customers A Callback
Long wait times on holds can be irritating, resulting in an increase in call abandonment rate. Offering a call-back option can be treated as an alternative to the long holds which will save time for customers and you as well. You can earn customer loyalty by radically improving customer experience.
Final Comments!
Increased call abandonment rate are an ongoing issue in contact centers that will never stop. But improving the aspect of abandoned calls can help you to enhance customer satisfaction. You have to track each dropped call so that you can apply a proactive approach to deal with such a situation by ensuring that your callers are well-served.
The call abandonment rate is a powerful KPI for measuring the effectiveness of a contact center. It can help you in determining the extent of customer engagement since dropped calls are the indicator of frustrated and annoyed customers. Customers don’t like being on long hold when they call the support department and as a consequence, they leave before they get their answer. It can be hard to eliminate abandon calls completely but you can apply different strategies to lower abandon rates and thereby improve customer satisfaction. In this blog, we will discuss key aspects of call abandonment fate along with fruitful strategies for avoiding drop rates.
What is the Call Abandonment Rate?
Call abandonment rate is a contact center metric used for measuring the number of calls dropped while reaching a customer service agent. You can calculate it as the division of abandoned calls with the total number of calls and multiply it by 100 to get the value in percentage. Evaluating this metric can give you a clear idea about the customer experience success. It is the length of time a customer waited while calling in the support system wherein the longer the wait time, the longer will be the abandonment rate. Recognizing the reasons for call drops and formulating strategies to avoid such drops is vital to maintain customer relations and also upholding professionalism from the organization’s point of view.
Monitoring Abandon Rates
Calls can be abandoned for a variety of reasons and high rates can impact your business negatively. Therefore, it is vital to monitor each inflow call to get a detailed insight into why the call got dropped. Measuring or tracking the outcome of each call can make you aware of the key issues faced by customers when they reach you. It can be due to poor resource allocation or workforce management that makes customers wait on a long hold time.
For instance, when you have allocated agents poorly, then service agents will be unable to serve customers as they will be engaged in addressing issues of ongoing customers.
Another reason why calculating the abandonment rate is important is that you can have a track record of potential sales opportunities. Majorly customers drop calls when they are unsatisfied with the answers, the waiting time is too long, agents follow a lengthy or complicated process for entering details and other issues that drive them to abandon the ongoing call. You need to track those issues as they are affecting the reputation of your business and impacting overall customer engagement.
Further, if customer reviews are important for you then you should better not avoid looking for reasons why your inbound calls got dropped. This can be a huge hurdle in improving CSAT scores and FCR rates of call centers. If customers leave you then they will go to your competitors and you can lose potential opportunities of getting sales.
How to Reduce Call Abandonment Rates?
A successful call center management comes up with the identification of tactics to improve the abandonment rates. For that, you have to focus on your KPIs which will impact customer satisfaction by emphasizing the areas of improvement. Here are some tips for reducing abandon rates in the contact center:
-
Hire More Agents to Improve Response Time
Long holds can lead to a high abandonment rate and for that reason you need to hire more agents to reduce the response time. Adjust the schedules of agents based on available time and call volume. Also, agents are needed to be trained in such a way that the call is wrapped in a stipulated time.
-
Learn From the Data
It is advisable to measure the metrics such as average handle time, wait times or FCR to analyze the peak periods or days of low call inflow. When viewed as detailed reports, companies can determine what things can act as trigger points for abandonment calls.
-
Boost First Call Resolution (FCR) Rate
One of the best things for improving the call abandonment rate is to enhance FCR in order to facilitate resolution in the first go. Customers don’t like repeating their issues again and again. So better you should focus on resolving the issue in the first call to avoid customer frustration.
-
Offer Other Channels of Communication
Overcoming the hurdle of a high call abandonment rate requires your business to develop a presence over multiple channels. By this, you can empower customers to contact you from their preferred channels to accelerate ease.
-
Offer Customers A Callback
Long wait times on holds can be irritating, resulting in an increase in call abandonment rate. Offering a call-back option can be treated as an alternative to the long holds which will save time for customers and you as well. You can earn customer loyalty by radically improving customer experience.
Final Comments!
Increased call abandonment rate are an ongoing issue in contact centers that will never stop. But improving the aspect of abandoned calls can help you to enhance customer satisfaction. You have to track each dropped call so that you can apply a proactive approach to deal with such a situation by ensuring that your callers are well-served.
