Ways to Reduce Abandoned Calls in the Contact Center

Well-answer-for-you

Hold time is one of the key factors that is largely responsible for abandoned calls in the contact center. Even I have abandoned calls when faced with an excessively long hold time. The more calls you get, the more successful your contact center becomes and the more likely you are to face greater hold times resulting in increased abandoned rate.

Abandoned calls are very important to minimize as they are directly related to customer dissatisfaction and impact customer loyalty. As we all know, keeping existing customers happy is less expensive than chasing new prospects.
Here are some ways to reduce abandoned calls:
1. Thorough Trend Analysis: Call detail reports can provide insight into your calls and can tell you about all the scenarios and situations in which calls were abandoned or did not get answered. By doing an analysis of who abandoned the call, for how long did they wait before disconnecting, you can make decisions on how to resolve the situation. Adjust agent schedules to match peak calling windows than hiring new ones.
2. Inform the Customers: Honesty is always appreciated by customers, even if they don’t like the message. You can consider preparing customers by placing pre-recorded messages via IVR, informing them of the estimated waiting time or a high volume period. Callers can also be driven to Call-Back option. Over the long term, this approach can really reduce abandon rates.
3. Call-Back Solution: By deploying a robust contact center solution, you can improve the overall customer experience by scheduling a call back at non-peak hours. This makes customers feel special and creates an impression that the company cares for them. As this solution does not require any additional agents and regulates call volumes, it proves to reduce the cost-per-call. As the customers are told that they will be called back, the abandonment rate comes down dramatically.
Relationship between the contact centers and their customers is very important. Every interaction the business has with their customers is going to leave an impression, big or small. So companies must constantly keep thinking of new ways to ensure better customer service at all times for increased customer loyalty and happy customers.