Abandonment Rate is one of the most misunderstood metrics in Contact Center Management. This article explores what it tells us — and what it doesn’t.
This article is part of our Contact Center Management Series — a collection of articles that bring together practical guidance and insights to help Contact Centers run better and deliver stronger results.
It is also part of our Team Leader Resource Series — a collection of practical articles to help Team Leaders grow their skills, shift their mindset, and elevate the way they lead.
The Benchmarking Report
A Contact Center benchmarking report once made the rounds, suggesting that the industry average Abandonment Rate was 12%.
Whether the figure was 2%, 12%, or even 22% wasn’t what interested me most.
By itself, the number didn’t tell us much.
What caught my attention was the reaction.
Some questioned the sample size or the methodology. Others dismissed the findings outright. A few reacted as though the industry was facing a major crisis.
The discussion highlighted a bigger issue.
Many people have strong opinions about Abandonment Rate, but far fewer agree on what the metric actually tells us — or how much attention it deserves.
If Your Contact Center Generates Revenue, You Can Stop Reading Now
Well, almost.
If your Contact Center generates revenue directly, Abandonment Rate matters — a lot.
One of our hospitality clients calculated that every 1% increase in Abandonment Rate represented approximately US$1 million in potential lost hotel bookings worldwide.
If you’re taking restaurant orders, booking travel, or accepting reservations, every abandoned call may represent lost revenue.
In environments like these, Abandonment Rate deserves very close attention.
But if you’re running Technical Support, Customer Care, or another non-revenue-generating Contact Center, its place on the operational dashboard is very different.
The Best Measure of Your Customers’ Wait Time Experience? Service Level
Managing interval-based Service Level performance is where your control lies.
The principles of forecasting, scheduling, and managing frontline resources to deliver a consistent wait time experience are well understood and well documented.
Whether your target is 90/10, 80/30, or 70/160, the objective remains the same: having the right number of people, with the right skills, in the right place at the right time.
That’s how organizations balance labor costs while delivering a consistent wait time experience for their Customers.
Intervals Matter
Most medium to large Contact Centers forecast, schedule, and manage performance in hourly, half-hourly, or even 15-minute intervals.
If Service Level falls during any interval — say between 10:00 and 10:30 in the example shown here — Customer wait times increase.
And as Customer wait times increase, Abandonment Rate for that interval is also likely to increase.
It makes sense, doesn’t it?
If you don’t achieve your Service Level objective, Customers wait longer, and Abandonment Rate will often increase as a result.
In that situation, you don’t have an Abandonment Rate problem.
You have a Service Level problem.
When Your Service Level Life Is Good
Operations professionals understand that consistently achieving interval-based Service Level objectives has positive effects across Quality, Employee Engagement, and the Customer Experience.
When Service Level objectives are being achieved — consistently — my inner operations guru reminds me that Abandonment Rate will be what it will be.
That’s because Abandonment Rate reflects a combination of your Service Level performance — which is within your control — and Customer behaviour, which is not.
One point is worth making very clearly.
Any meaningful discussion about Abandonment Rate — whether your own or someone else’s — should begin by confirming that interval-based Service Level objectives are consistently being met.
If they aren’t, then you’re having the wrong conversation.
That’s one reason I’m cautious about industry benchmarking studies. They rarely make that prerequisite clear.
Which limits how useful their findings really are.
Back to Revenue-Generating Contact Centers
If your Contact Center generates revenue directly, Abandonment Rate deserves close attention. Every abandoned contact may represent lost revenue.
That’s why high-performing revenue-generating Contact Centers typically set very high Service Level objectives.
Then they work hard to achieve them — interval after interval.
Targets such as 95/5, 90/10, and even 100/15 are common in revenue-generating environments, as well as in Contact Centers supporting life-critical or mission-critical services.
Achieving these Service Levels requires additional staffing, and thus higher labor costs.
That decision is usually supported by incremental revenue analysis, where the additional labor cost is weighed against the additional revenue expected from answering more Customers before they abandon.
Customers and Abandonment Rate
For non-revenue-generating Contact Centers, it’s worth asking a different question.
Why do Customers abandon in the first place?
Some of the most common reasons include:
- Importance — How important is it for me to resolve this right now?
- Time available — Am I calling from work where my time is limited, or from home where I can wait a little longer?
- Alternative channels — Can I accomplish what I need through the website or mobile app? Have you offered another option in your delay announcement?
- State of mind — Am I relaxed, impatient, calm, or anxious?
- Expectations — Am I calling a VIP line? Do I expect priority service?
When I teach Contact Center Management, I often ask participants a simple question: “Is Abandonment Rate a mathematical behaviour, or a human behaviour?”
The answer is always the same.
Abandonment Rate is a human behaviour.
It reflects what Customers want or need at that moment, how much time they have available, the alternatives you’ve provided, and the expectations they bring to the interaction.
What I can control is how well I forecast, schedule, and manage resources to consistently achieve my Service Level objectives.
What I can’t control is a Customer’s priorities, emotions, expectations, or the decision they make while waiting.
But You Do Have a Choice
If you’re still unhappy with your Abandonment Rate, you have another option.
Raise your Service Level objective.
Move from 80/30 to 90/20, for example.
Analyse your delay profile alongside your abandonment patterns to estimate how many additional Customers you could answer before they abandon.
I’ve even seen Contact Centers increase their Service Level objectives for selected intervals during the day when demand or the value of the interaction justified it.
Like every management decision, however, this involves a trade-off. Will the additional cost of staffing be justified by the reduction in Abandonment Rate?
Or, more simply: Does the benefit outweigh the cost?
It’s not always an easy question to answer.
But it’s exactly the right question to ask.
Let’s Get Formal About It
Contact Centers use many different metrics, and one of the most useful ways to understand them is by looking at how they relate to one another.
Formally, Abandonment Rate is best classified as a secondary measure of wait time.
Wait time because, alongside Service Level, Average Speed of Answer, Longest Wait Time, and Response Time, it reflects the Customer’s waiting experience.
Secondary because some metrics are drivers, while others are outcomes.
Service Level is the primary driver. Abandonment Rate is one of the outcomes.
That’s why you can’t actively manage both Service Level and Abandonment Rate as independent objectives at the same time.
Improve Service Level, and Abandonment Rate will often improve as a result.
Set targets for both, and sometimes they’ll align.
When they do, it’s because the Service Level objective naturally produces the desired Abandonment Rate — not because the two metrics are being managed independently.
What Interests Me More
The most mature Customer Care and Technical Support organizations tend to view Abandonment Rate differently.
They don’t manage to it.
They study it.
Their conversations sound more like this:
- We don’t target Abandonment Rate — we analyse it.
- We look for patterns. Which intervals consistently experience higher or lower abandonment while still achieving our Service Level objectives?
- We study not just the overall percentage, but the distribution. Do most Customers abandon within the first 15 seconds? How many remain on hold for several minutes before deciding to leave?
- We experiment with delay announcements and messaging to understand whether they influence abandonment — and whether that influence is helpful or not.
- We compare abandonment patterns across days, weeks, campaigns, and operational changes to better understand Customer behaviour.
That’s the kind of discussion that helps Contact Centers make better operational decisions.
Agents and Abandonment Rate
No, your Agents don’t control Abandonment Rate.
Once you’ve used accepted Workforce Management practices to forecast demand, calculate staffing requirements, and schedule enough Agents to achieve your Service Level objective, your frontline team contributes to Service Level performance.
They don’t decide whether individual Customers continue to wait or choose to abandon.
Some years ago, I worked with a Contact Center that managed its operation primarily through Abandonment Rate rather than Service Level.
Focus groups with managers and frontline teams revealed an environment of constant pressure and stress.
The reason was simple.
You can’t forecast, schedule, or staff to Abandonment Rate because it is driven, in part, by Customer behaviour — and Customer behaviour changes from interval to interval and day to day.
The operation became a constant firefighting exercise, chasing spikes in abandoned contacts instead of managing the underlying drivers.
That’s an exhausting way to run a Contact Center.
More importantly, it isn’t the best way to deliver a consistently good Customer Experience.
In Closing
One of the fundamental principles of Customer Experience is consistency.
In the Contact Center, Service Level and Response Time are the primary measures of delivering a consistent wait time experience.
Experienced operations professionals understand that the best way to improve outcomes is to manage the drivers.
Abandonment Rate is a secondary measure of wait time. It is one of the outcomes of Service Level performance.
When you’re consistently achieving your Service Level objectives, the abandoned contacts you do receive are largely reflections of Customer behaviour.
That behaviour changes from interval to interval, day to day, month to month, and year to year.
If you’re not satisfied with your Abandonment Rate, you have options.
You can raise your Service Level objective across the entire operation or during the specific intervals where abandonment is highest.
And not every abandoned contact represents failure.
If a Customer chooses to use one of your digital or self-service channels instead, that may reflect success in your digital adoption strategy.
The important point is that Customers should choose those channels because they meet their needs — not because you’ve unintentionally driven them away through poor wait times.
Finally, the frontline role is challenging enough without asking Agents to achieve an Abandonment Rate target they cannot directly influence.
From both an operational and a leadership perspective, that’s simply the wrong metric to place in their hands.
The most effective Contact Centers don’t chase outcomes. They manage the drivers that produce them.
Thank You for Reading
I regularly share stories, strategies, and insights from our work across Contact Centers, Customer Service, and Customer Experience. If this article resonated with you, I’d be pleased to stay connected.
Feel free to get in touch anytime, or explore more of our work below.
Daniel Ord
[email protected]
www.omnitouchinternational.com
*Banner image by Tasha Kostyuk on Unsplash