Call centers are still an active and popular source of winning business to business leads and consumers in competitive markets like the United Arab Emirates. However, the business organizations utilizing the call centers can only achieve their targets if they get to convince the consumers or clients. Call abandonment often hinders their goal achievement and increases the rate of their failure.
What is Call Abandonment?
When a customer, consumer, or client abandons the call before getting connected to the agent, or even after getting connected but listening to their point of view, it is called call abandonment. A higher rate denotes the poor performance of the call center agents. It can be calculated by dividing the abandoned number of calls by the total number of calls and multiplying it by 100.
Factors Leading to Call Abandonment
Some common factors that can prompt the clients or consumer to abandon a call include the following factors;
- Longer waiting time
- Bored while waiting
- Lack of contacting options
- Frustration due to the unexpected response
- Poor quality service
Keep scrolling down this article to explore everything you should know about call abandonment.
Top 6 Tips to Reduce Abandonment Rate in Call Centers
Higher call abandonment rates impact the performance of the call center, as well as the popularity of the business organization. It highlights that the call center agents are doing something wrong, which is repelling the potential consumers and customers. Reducing the call abandonment rate is crucial to achieve success and profitability.
Here are the top tips you can utilize to reduce the call abandonment rate in the call centers.
1. Increase Number of Agents
The greatest reason for call abandonment is the long waiting time, which usually stems from the lack of a suitable number of agents. The call center agents are too busy to tend to the incoming calls, and the customers abandon them after getting frustrated. This prompts most organizations to consult call center outsourcing companies in Dubai and let their extensive force deal with the consumers without making them wait too much.
2. Improve Call Answering Speed
The second tip to reduce the call abandonment rate is to improve the call answering speed. In other words, it means that you need to lower the waiting time of the callers and pick up the call earlier. Increasing the number of call center agents is one option. Another option is removing the barriers like passing the calls through three segments to improve the speed and customer satisfaction.
3. Monitor Call Durations
Another important tip to keep the rate lower is to monitor your call durations. You need to check the time period during which you receive the most calls, as well as the time duration of a single call. After noting these details, you can make schedule updates to not miss the calls. You can even include external support to manage the extra load during peak hours.
4. Keep the Caller Informed and Engaged
Most of the callers abandon the call as they get bored listening to beep sound while waiting for an agent to pick it up. You can make arrangements to keep the caller informed and engaged to reduce the abandonment rate. The first thing you can do in this regard is to share the wait time until they will be connected. Secondly, you can provide them information about other services in the meantime.
5. Offer Other Options
At times, the callers abandon the call while they are on the line with the agent. The reason usually, in this case, is that the agent does not offer them a variety of options or solutions. When the callers do not get the solution, they tend to abandon the call. You can reduce the abandonment rate by identifying their concerns and offering them a value-based variety of solution options to satisfy them.
6. Train the Agents
Lastly, training the team to deal with all the calls in a professional manner is the key to reduce the call abandonment rate in your call center. You need to provide professional guidance about handling each and every phase of the call, in addition to handling various types of callers to ensure lower abandonment rates. However, if you lack enough time to provide training, you can hire call center outsourcing companies in Dubai which have trained agents and let them manage your calls while keeping the abandonment rate low.
Follow the tips and reduce your call abandonment rate!
Higher call abandonment rates denote lower customer satisfaction, which will ultimately cause loss to your business. So, you cannot ignore a rising call abandonment rate and need to implement the strategies or follow the tips to keep it controlled. However, if you are still unable to achieve the desire results, it is a sign that you need to hand over the responsibility to professionals. Contact the call centers and let their trained agents take charge of your calls and keep the abandonment rate under control.