Abandoned calls are where a caller hangs up while waiting on hold for a customer support agent. By evaluating your call abandonment rate, you will gain useful insight into the efficiency of your call center. Call abandonment is a crucial KPI that management, especially when assessing customer behavior, takes seriously.
Usually, these disconnections occur due to complex or unclear interactive voice response (IVR) systems. Additionally, dissatisfaction with a long queue waiting times can be considered as a cause as well. The two reasons could create a negative impression on your company and harm your reputation.
Several solutions are available for these problems. The easiest alternative is to increase personnel numbers to accommodate the number of incoming calls; however, recruiting more agents is not always a realistic choice for your call center.
For instance; you can increase customer satisfaction and minimize your call center’s number of abandoned calls by using the below approaches;
Occupy the time of the client
Play announcements with engagement/music
Provide personal services
Using wallboards and broadcasts from teams
Announce the estimated waiting time
Provide Virtual Queuing
Using media mixture
During off-peak hours - dial abandoned calls back
Overflow calls that have been waiting too long
Digital Knowledge Base
There is a perfect approach to have networks where consumers can answer their questions before even picking up a mobile! For your customers, a knowledge base on your business website is a great resource for finding answers and information about a product, service, or subject. For the most commonly asked questions (FAQ), you can consider a self-served digital library.
Your organization will be appreciated with how your knowledge base is set up. For your customers to navigate through the content easily, it is crucial to keep your tools educational, insightful, detailed, and searchable. Your knowledge base will also free up more time for your agents to devote more time to more challenging customer calls, in addition to reducing call abandonment. It is a win-win for everyone.
Providing a Great Experience For Queuing
You can minimize hold time at some point; however, if they wait for a long time, you have to start thinking about the customer experience.
As we described above, you can decrease your call abandonment rates by engaging with your customers while they wait on hold.
You need to make things fun for the experience. Here are a few approaches to adjust for minimizing your abandoned call metrics;
Keep the clients updated
Modify and improve your welcome message
Add music for the queue
Shift your message frequency for queue
Increase the initial time for the ring
Taking Advantage of Call Center Software
The software for call centers will increase productivity and improve your actions.
An integrated virtual queuing experience with callback capabilities can help customers on channels with which they are familiar. As we said before, a knowledge base will help improve loyalty and retention while reducing the abandonment of calls. Routine preparation of agents, creating a backup plan, or changing the coverage of agents encourages the agents to pay more attention to their clients with positive experiences that positively impact your metrics.
Remind Your Customers of Your Brand In Every Field
Clients use several channels; if your team uses only one or two contact platforms, you have difficulty in delivering outstanding customer service. You can relieve the staff with a multi-channel contact approach from high call volume and tension.
You need to consider your audience to identify the touchpoints that work best for your first-time digital customers. The below platforms are the ones that customers tend to be using the most, when connecting with companies;
-Online chat support
-Mobile apps
-Social media
-Community forums
-Voice-activated personal assistants
-Text messaging