Is Your Call Is Important to Us? Tips for Reducing Call Abandonment

If you can’t even keep your customers on the line, how can you expect to solve their problems?

What is call abandonment?

At its most basic, call abandonment is when your customers get so fed up with waiting that they quit the interaction before ever speaking with a representative. On a broader scale, call abandonment is a KPI that reflects the efficiency of your service. While it’s by no means the final word on your centre’s performance, call abandonment rates above best practice averages indicate potential areas for improvement.

High call abandonment is the kiss of death for customer retention and brand loyalty, yet according to research on the mobile marketplace done by Marchex, 1 in 5 mobile calls are abandoned before resolution.

Why Does It Happen?

The exact causes of call abandonment are influenced by many factors that include traffic volume, service quality, time of day, and the emotional state of the customer. This makes it notoriously tricky to determine how to address the problem; with so many variables, it’s easy to waste valuable time and resources on ineffective solutions.

Ahead Of the Curve

So what’s the first step of finding a solution to high call abandonment rates?

If you want to enact improvements that will create a noticeable increase in your ROI, you need to have some data to back up your efforts.

The best way to start this process is with a call abandonment curve. This is a graph that plots out call detail information (taken from your CRM systems) and identifies how much time it takes for each customer to call it quits. This data can show you at exactly what point you’re losing the majority of your callers and give you a starting point for your improvement efforts. It also reveals a personalized benchmark for your contact centre to strive for.

But before we can improve these metrics, we must first understand the primary motivating factor behind call abandonment—irritation!

Irritation drives call abandonment more than any other single factor. Long hold times, complicated IVRs, and uninteresting hold messages are all irritation instigators—as such, your goals should be focused on keeping your callers calm and relaxed until an agent can take the wheel.

Don’t Leave Them Hanging

One of the most important steps to reducing caller irritation is to lower their hold times. A consumer survey by Google revealed that nearly 58 percent of respondents were willing to wait up to 5 minutes for service, yet 32 percent of respondents weren’t willing to wait at all. This means that after only 5 minutes on hold, you’re losing 90 percent of your customer base.

A simple way to address call abandonment is to staff your centre appropriately when expecting heavy call volume. If more flexible staffing isn’t an option, call-back technology can give your customers a way to get their problems solved without making them wait in the dreaded call queue.

Cost Per Contact

While reducing call abandonment is a great goal when your callers are dropping like flies, there’s such a thing as call abandonment rates that are too low. Yes, there’s a sweet spot you should be aiming for when assessing call abandonment.

Why is this? Well, in most cases, call abandonment shows an inverse correlation with representative headcount—the more representatives you have, the less call abandonment you’ll see. Makes sense right?

Unfortunately, your representatives aren’t working for free. The more staff you have on deck, the more your average cost of support per contact increases. This means that throwing more staff at the problem isn’t always the best solution. Your goal is to aim for a call abandonment rate that balances your service costs with the customer satisfaction you find from lower abandonment scores. This goal can be achieved with abandonment strategies that don’t require much overhead to implement, including:

• Informational hold messages that provide value while your callers are waiting
• Hold music to keep them occupied and avoid dead silence—research indicates that 71 percent of callers want to hear hold music while on the line
• Information-gathering IVRs that engage callers and allow them to receive more personalized service once they’re finally connected

Keep Them Happy

Lower call abandonment is all about managing the irritation and emotions of your callers. If possible, staff your centre to prevent your queue from getting backed up in the first place. If this isn’t a financially viable option, utilize a call-back feature to get the best of both worlds and get their issue resolved without excessive time spent on hold. Alternatively, leverage a third party contact centre that can handle your call overflow. Calls you cannot answer within a specific time limit can be seamlessly routed and answered by your contact centre partner. If all else fails, optimize your hold messages, music, and IVR systems to keep them occupied and engaged. Your customers want a word—don’t leave them hanging.

Interested in more ways to reduce call abandonment in your contact centre? Check out our free white paper!