18 Simple Ideas to Reduce Your Abandon Rate

Call abandonment is a persistent challenge for contact centres, often leading to frustrated customers and lost opportunities. High abandonment rates can also damage a company’s reputation, erode customer loyalty, and impact overall business performance.

To help you tackle this issue, our panel of experts have shared their top tips for reducing abandon rates in the contact centre.

How to Reduce Abandoned Calls in Your Contact Centre 

1. Identify Where Calls Are Being Abandoned (and Act!)

Customers can abandon a call at any stage of their journey, not just at the beginning while waiting to be connected. For instance, many callers hang up when placed on hold for extended periods or when navigating overly complicated or unclear IVR options.

The first, and arguably most crucial, step to reducing abandon rates is identifying exactly where these drop-offs occur. Once you’ve pinpointed the “where,” you can delve into understanding the “why.”

By analysing metrics such as Abandoned Calls and Calls Ended on Hold at various stages of the call journey, you can map out patterns and identify the key points where abandonment is most frequent. This insight makes it easier to take targeted action.

2. Experience the Caller Journey for Yourself

A good and often overlooked way to gain insight into how the customer call journey can be improved is to try it for yourself. Experience how it feels to move through these pain points and see for yourself how each step could be improved.

It could be something as simple as the need to improve the on-hold messages, simplify the options on the IVR or even lower the time that callers are kept on hold. Inevitability, though, in most cases, it will come down to having enough agents available at the right times.

3. Consider When Callers Are Willing to Wait Longer

Don’t just look at the call numbers to establish busy or quiet times, have a look at what times of day, on a day-by-day basis, customers are willing to wait or when they talk for longer.

Average abandon times and even average talk time changes throughout the day, and even day to day. If you can identify that callers will abandon a call sooner earlier in the morning, maybe look at having more advisors available in that queue at that time of day.

Contributed by: Colin Gill, Vice President, Akixi

4. Reassess Your IVR Messaging

When a customer calls your company, they usually have a specific purpose in mind, and their willingness to wait is often tied to how well that purpose is addressed.

This makes it essential to tailor your IVR messaging to the needs and expectations of callers in each queue.

For instance, playing a promotional message to a customer who is likely calling to make a complaint could lead to frustration, increasing the chances that they hang up or turn to a competitor. This not only raises abandon rates but also risks damaging customer loyalty.

To optimise your IVR messaging, consider these key questions:

• Are we keeping customers informed about their queue progress?
• Are we setting clear and realistic expectations about wait times?
• Are there specific messages that may be contributing to higher abandonment rates?

Contributed by: Vincent Van den Bossche, on behalf of Wisper

5. Implement Automatic Callbacks

To reduce abandon rates, contact centres should consider implementing a popular feature within an IVR system, which allows a caller to choose an option to be called back rather than wait on hold in the phone queue.

When an advisor does become available, the system will call the customer and connect them to an agent.

Some IVRs also offer the added option of allowing the customer to set an appointment, so they receive the callback at a time which is convenient for them.

Enabling callbacks has a positive impact on the customer experience, as callers are then spared the frustration of waiting on hold in a long call queue.

However, be wary with callbacks if your demand is not spiky. There is no doubt that they can improve customer experience, but if high call volumes are sustained, it can make queues longer. This is because it adds another step in the advisor journey, in having to call the customer back.

So, make sure you think though your callback strategy carefully.

Contributed by: Alex Stenton-Hibbert, Account Director, Business Systems

6. Optimize Forecasting and Scheduling

Lots of quick fixes for reducing abandon rates exist. Some classic examples include:

• Reducing Average Handling Time (AHT) by cutting out cross-selling
• Boosting your headcount by cancelling training
• Moving trainees over to the phones before they are ready

Yet each of these “quick fixes” has its drawbacks. Moreover, they won’t make a sustainable improvement but they will damage other metrics.

A better approach is to find the root cause and fix it.

If you forecast more accurately, peaks won’t catch you unawares. You can also staff-up to peaks – and down to troughs – while actively monitoring adherence.

Cross-skilling will unlock “pooling efficiencies” which positively impact abandonment – and other metrics – without hiring more staff.

Contributed by: Chris Dealy, WFM Evangelist, injixo

7. Get on Top of Call Peaks Early

If your contact centre is abandoning a high percentage of calls, it’s likely a decent chunk of those are customers who have called and abandoned multiple times.

This vicious cycle can quickly escalate and negatively impact calls-offered statistics and demand forecasting, making it look like more agents are required than necessary.

Make a concerted effort with extra staff and technology to answer calls initially, and calls offered will dramatically reduce, up to 25% in some cases. This provides a truer picture of customer demand and offers breathing space before staff are refocused to where they are truly needed.

If volatile call volumes are an issue, callback technologies can keep a customer’s in-queue place or offer callbacks at a time convenient for the customer. This helps smooth out demand, making it easier for contact centres to handle calls.

Contributed by: Craig Farley, Head of Solution Consulting, IP Integration

8. Get Your Staffing Levels Right

A common cause of high abandon rates is inadequate staffing. Companies must ensure that there are enough agents with the proper skills available to attend to enquiries across both digital and voice channels.

Workforce management (WFM) technologies enable organizations to account for multiskill, omnichannel, virtual queues with tight integration between long-range planning and near-term forecasts.

For contact centres with fewer than 50 advisors, where investing in WFM technology may not be so practical, familiarize yourself with forecasting techniques such as triple exponential smoothing and ARIMA. Build lots of models and test them – on old data – to see which works best in your environment.

You can then use these forecasts to create a more effective staffing plan using an Erlang Calculator.

Contributed by: Aviad Abiri at NICE

9. Give Customers an Estimated Wait Time

Clarity is key when managing customer expectations, and providing concrete information about wait times can make a significant difference.

One effective approach is to give customers an estimated wait time, so they know exactly how long they’ll need to stay on hold before speaking with someone.

Another helpful tactic is to inform callers of their position in the queue. Letting them know how far along they are and reassuring them that they will be attended to soon can reduce uncertainty and frustration.

When customers are given clear, realistic updates, they are less likely to abandon the queue, as they feel informed and in control of the process.

10. Improve Your Channel Shift Strategy

Some calls don’t need to be calls at all and can be handled through chat or email.

Solutions like omnichannel software can detect how vital a call is and assign it to a specific queue to be assessed depending on urgency or customer preference, or both.

This is great for customers who’d like their issues assessed immediately but don’t like waiting on the phone. Their complaint can be assessed and addressed via an email or other channel.

Contributed by: Zofia Bobrowicz Cohn 

11. Analyse Failure Demand

If your abandon rates are high because of increased call demand, determining where that extra demand is coming from and addressing that issue should be a big priority.

By using technology such as interaction analytics to uncover the reason behind and frequency of calls from customers, organizations can get to the root cause of any process or routing problems.

Not only does this enable the contact centre to proactively develop resources to satisfy customer needs, while improving and reducing inefficiencies and abandonment, you can use your failure demand analysis to predict and prepare for future call volume spikes.

Contributed by: Frank Sherlock, VP of International, CallMiner

12. Know How Other Metrics Impact Your Abandon Rates

To reduce abandon rates, most contact centres closely track metrics such as the number of interactions, average handle times and number of advisors needed to meet service level.

Why? Because if you know what happens to your abandon rates when service level hits different points, for example, you can use intraday management tactics to steady the ship.

These intraday management tactics may include:

• Adjusting your IVR messaging
• Bringing in staff to work overtime
• Changing your website messaging

Yet a more effective, long-term strategy is to personalize the IVR. Personalizing IVRs streamlines customers’ journeys and avoids pushing them through the same funnel of options.

By qualifying customers and applying rules for certain situations, IVRs shrink wait times and minimize customer effort.

Contributed by: Neil Titcomb, on behalf of Odigo

13. Authenticate Customers as They Wait in the Call Queue

High abandon rates often stem from an imbalance between call volume and available agents, leaving teams overwhelmed. When increasing staffing isn’t feasible, streamlining the customer service process becomes essential.

One effective solution is to authenticate customers while they’re waiting in the call queue. Validating customer information during this time not only demonstrates a proactive approach to addressing their needs but also reduces call durations by eliminating the need for authentication once they connect with an agent.

This streamlined process not only saves time for both the customer and the advisor but also contributes to a smoother, less stressful experience overall.

Contributed by: Nick Hudson, on behalf of Natterbox

14. Automate Repetitive Advisor Tasks

Tasks like after-call work (ACW) and retrieving information from the knowledge base prolong average handling time (AHT), which – in turn – increases abandon rates.

AI tools can now automate tasks like this and lower AHT, providing advisors with a superior experience and allowing them to focus more on the customer and what matters to them.

Another AI-based tool that can help lower abandon rates is a virtual agent, which can help to reduce contact centre demand and therefore call abandons.

These bots can give customers self-service options that feel natural and are powerful, while also generating conversation transcripts that give businesses insight into the topics that are being discussed.

Contributed by: James Mackie, on behalf of Mitel

15. Categorise Customer Contacts

Sort customer contacts into categories. Identify those that can be efficiently handled by automation and self-service, giving your advisors more time to manage customer contacts that need a more personal touch. This should reduce queues and time-to-answer, and hence abandon rates.

Also, identify busy periods and increase staffing during those periods. If you are running a bricks-and-mortar contact centre and it isn’t possible – or efficient – to increase staffing for short periods using office-based personnel, then consider homeworkers operating on flexible working shifts.

This final point is crucial if the busy period is relatively short, and especially if, for example, your peak demand periods are during the key commute to work periods of 7.30–9am and 4.30–6pm.

Contributed by: Andrew Scobie 

16. Replace Your IVR With Conversational AI

To help meet the sudden spike in demand, many organizations have been turning to conversational artificial intelligence (AI) – using virtual assistants and live chat solutions to assist customers in real time.

They can also transition to live advisors to answer more difficult questions, with AI systems sharing important context for online chats that can make conversations go more efficiently.

Contributed by: Brett Beranek, on behalf of Nuance

17. Employ Workforce Management Software

WFM solutions support teams by automatically finding the right-skilled, available people to close service gaps, reschedule agents during the day and so minimize customer wait times.

Team leaders are able to manage last-minute absence requests effectively without impacting service levels, while sophisticated optimizer and intraday adherence tools automatically check staffing levels against metric and service level, all while reducing abandon rates.

Intraday self-scheduling tools help advisors to take control of their new WFM regime, boosting morale and productivity.

Contributed by: Ben Willmott, on behalf of Calabrio

18. Get Proactive With Your Messaging

Proactive outbound customer engagement could help lower inbound contact volumes and thus help lower abandon rates.

Tools such as outbound SMS notifications utilized efficiently and strategically can help lower inbound traffic and minimize wait times, especially when they allow a customer to complete a transaction through self-service and in the same channel.

Proactive outreach strategies can be vital in helping to reduce inbound traffic following events such as a power outage or cancelled flight.

Contributed by: Tyler Hinton, on behalf of Aspect Software

For more on how to measure and reduce call abandonment rate, read our articles:

• How to Measure Call Abandon Rate
• How to Bring Down Your Call-Abandon Rates
• How to Predict Call Abandon Rates Based on Service Level

Author: Guest Author
Reviewed by: Hannah Swankie