Most consumers are impatient, especially when they have a question or issue about a product or service. They want an immediate response when they call customer service, and it is a feeling that nearly all customers go through. When they are put on hold for a time, they often hang up and abandon their call. For a company, that is a missed opportunity to provide good customer service. The company could lose customers because they consider call waiting as poor service.
Why a low call abandon rate is important
What is a call abandon rate? It is the percentage of callers hanging up before speaking to a customer service agent. In a call center, they divide the total abandoned calls by the total number of calls to get the abandoned call rate. Understanding the abandoned rate provides insight into the call center's performance. Globally, the accepted abandonment rate is between five and eight percent. Top call center companies aim to maintain the rate below five percent and target a two percent rate.
A high call abandonment rate causes reduced loyalty, poor customer experience, and lower retention. If you want to make your service better, you should use the right tools and software like the tracking software and predictive dialers from Convoso. They can help you improve contact rates, maintain compliance, get performance insights, and increase productivity.
Strategies to reduce call abandonment
You can ensure the success of your call center operations, enhance customer experience, and make your staff more efficient and productive when you implement effective strategies to minimize abandoned calls. Here are some tips.
1. Optimize staffing levels
Ensure that you understand the peaks and valleys of staffing. You know that you have peak times of the day and peak seasons. Therefore, you should scale your workforce according to the demand. When you have the right number of staff during peak hours, you can minimize wait times and decrease the number of abandoned calls.
If hiring more agents is not yet on your agenda, try maximizing employee schedules to correspond to peak call times. Further, you should leverage the right technology to help you implement your staff's most responsive work schedules, allowing for greater flexibility, productivity, and job satisfaction.
2. Utilize a call-back solution
You can also reduce the call abandonment rate by offering a call back to your customers as an acceptable solution to waiting for a customer representative to attend to them. Studies showed that customers prefer a call-back solution. The solution frees the customer from the waiting list, allowing them to do other activities.
3. Provide omnichannel solutions
Another strategy is to provide other channels for customer support. Giving them more choices will effectively reduce abandoned calls. Customers generally like to exercise their freedom of choice. With several channels to reach customer service, you allow them to choose the most convenient way to communicate and reduce your queue times. You can use a help desk, email, live chat, and social media as your alternate channels. Self-serve solutions like online FAQs, chatbots, IVR systems, and AI are the more advanced options.
Remember that the longer customers wait, the more they feel you do not value them and their opinions. Therefore, implementing effective strategies to respond more to customer calls will reduce call abandonment.
