An excellent question! I am in client situations every day raising this issue and it is one of those areas where no clear consensus exists.
The question applies to both inbound and outbound environments....are calls abandoned taken as a percentage of gross calls or calls answered OR for outbound....as a percentage of dials as opposed to connects?
From our experience...the industry tends to favour taking it as a percentage of dials (or gross calls in an inbound situation).
My opinion on this is that it "waters" down the number and has little value. By definition calls abandoned should be measuring the number of times you were hung up on. Taking it as a percentage of all calls...including those that you never even made a connection does not make sense and produces a meaningless result.
However, since the industry tends to favour the dials approach, I usually provide the client with both numbers along with an explanation.
Please feel free to contact me at:
info@tcaconsulting.net if there are any other questions in this regard.
Eric Young
President