KPI of the Day – Customer Service: % Call abandon rate
Definition
Measures the percentage of customer calls which are abandoned while in queue, waiting for service, from overall calls.
Purpose
To assess the efficiency in managing resources such as personnel and phone lines.
Recommendations
According to the marketing dictionary, the abandon rate is the percentage of the calls made by an automatic dialing device to prospective customers or by customers to a telemarketer that are not intercepted by a live operator before the prospect (customer) disconnects. Caller tolerance can change day by day, or hour by hour, in baffling ways.
Sometimes, when customers have to remain on hold for longer periods than they are used to, they wait. Other times, when service levels are good, abandonment rates are inexplicably high. An important service level indicator, % Call abandon rate is also influenced by consumer behavior, in which case its relevance for these purposes decreases.
High abandonment rates indicate the customer service center is not managing resources such as personnel and phone lines properly. Most centers strive to maintain an abandon rate of less than 2%.
One solution for silent calls is for organizations to play a recorded message to the consumer explaining why the call was silent and why no agent was available. They also must allow an unanswered call to ring four times or 15 seconds before disconnecting to allow consumers a reasonable time to answer and not be subjected to “dead air” after a few rings.
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