Abandonment rate

Example

How to calculate it

A queue received 2,000 calls in a week and 140 callers hung up before an answer. Abandonment rate is 140 / 2,000 × 100% = 7%.

Some callers hang up in the first seconds: a wrong number or a change of mind. Many teams leave these short abandons out. If 40 of the 140 abandoned calls lasted under 5 seconds, the rate is (140 − 40) / (2,000 − 40) × 100% = 5.1%. State in the report which method you used, or you cannot compare periods. Use the same method for service level, where abandoned calls are also in the denominator.

Details

Why callers hang up

Sometimes a caller hears the answer in the IVR and hangs up before reaching the queue. That is not an abandoned call, and it is not counted in the rate. Calls outside business hours do not reach the queue either – they count as missed, although the customer is lost just the same.

• The wait is too long
• No idea how much longer to wait: no queue position or estimated time
• A long IVR menu before the queue
• Calling a competitor is easier than waiting

Metrics

What values are normal

For an inbound service line, the usual target is 2-5%. Above 10% most often means you are short of agents at peak hours. Look at the rate per half-hour interval and per queue: the day may show 4% while a single peak hour shows 15%.

Practice

How to reduce abandonment

• Work out ahead of time how many agents peak hours need, with the Erlang C formula or a workforce management module
• Tell callers their queue position and estimated wait
• Offer a callback when the wait gets long, for example over 30-60 seconds
• Call back everyone who gave up, automatically
• Shorten the IVR and hand simple questions to an AI voice agent or a chatbot

In CONTACT.WORK

How it works in CONTACT.WORK

The platform adds the numbers of callers who gave up to a callback list and dials them as soon as an agent is free. When the wait gets long, the IVR offers callers a callback instead of holding – when their turn comes or at a time they choose. Reports show how many calls were missed and how many were won back, by queue, hour, and agent. In predictive mode of the auto dialer, you set a cap on the abandonment rate, so the system never dials more numbers than agents can take (US telemarketing rules also limit abandoned calls, so set the cap to match the rules that apply to you). The missed call cost calculator shows what missed calls cost you over a year.