Abandoned Calls

[Ian W]

I manage an inbound Call Centre booking Taxi orders. Over the last two years 42% of our abandoned calls have occured in less than five seconds. I am at a loss as to why this is happening and would like to know if anyone else has a similar issue.

[JoeB]

Hello Ian,

The reasons for high abandonment rates shortly after entering the queue can be attributed to two reasons. One simple explanation is that the caller reached the wrong number.

A more important reason is that the caller believes that the hold time will be unacceptable. This may be based on prior experience dealing with your company or the competition. Because in your business callers expect immediate service and presumably there is competition in your area, they will call the competition. So theoretically it appears that you lose a significant amount of business!

Analyzing the pattern of abandonment over a 24 hour period will reveal more about the reason for abandonment.

The situation might warrant a temporary reorganization that allows you to answer the phone immediately. A less expensive option is ACD modifications, but for the short term you may want to increase the number of telephone agents, boosting customer confidence in your service while you are working on a long term solution.

Feel free to email me directly if you have additional questions.

Joe Barkai
DIAGNOSTIC STRATEGIES
www.DiagnosticStrategies.com
jbaraki@DiagnosticStrategies.com
Tel. 781-433-0833

[kelliroy]

Well, dont forget human nature as well.

Are you monitoring heavily? Have you caught these abandon calls? Do they make it to the rep? Have you ran reports on which individuals have the highest percentages of abandoned calls?
KJR

[Ian W]

Thanks for your comments.

I can accept the occasional wrong number, but 80 to 90 per day is very high. Our average speed to answer is three seconds. These calls are being abandoned in less than five seconds (the best our system can report) before reaching an agent. There is nothing in our system to tell the caller which number they have reached until the agent answers.

[eZynes]

Hi Ian,

This could happen for various reasons. The most probable ones have already been pointed out by the other members.

There is a breed of software called 'Simulation and Modelling' software (GPSS belongs to this category) which can be used to study and find out how to minimize the waiting line, waiting time, etc. For this some patterns of incoming calls is required, like the specific time vs frequency of calls, the duration of each call, etc.

With this, it is reasonably possible to right-size the number of seats required, so that costs are minimized (cost of missed calls vs cost of excess capacity creation).

This will NOT tell you why it happens, but will tell you how it can be handled, when it happens.

[JoeB]

Ian,

This is getting interestingÂ…. From your number it appears that you get less than 200 calls per day (42%=90 calls), which, assuming you get the majority of the calls over maybe 18 hours, translates to a small AVERAGE number of calls per hour. However, I suspect that in your business there are significant demand peaks.

Are the numbers you quote (ASA=3 seconds, 42% abandonment, and abandonment time of less than 5 seconds) daily averages reported from the ACD? If so, you must produce service level reports in higher sampler frequency (30 minute intervals or better) and analyze them. I suspect you will find out that during peak times the performance is different.

In addition, I propose you initiate random sampling of your call center response by calling (especially during peak time) to get a sense of the caller’s experience – you may be surprised….

Feel free to contact me directly if you need additional detail.

Joe Barkai
DIAGNOSTIC STRATEGIES
www.DiagnosticStrategies.com
jbarkai@DiagnosticStrategies.com
Tel. 781-433-0833

[iainnz]

Ian
I manage a Taxi Call/Dispatch Centre in Christchurch
New Zealand.
Looking at your statistics I believe the call pattern
of our industry holds a clue. Our call numbers on a busy
night can increase by as much as 700% in a 2-3 hour period
The majority of your abandoned calls will happen at this time.
42% in under 5 seconds is quite high, but suggest you have
a good ASA and the customer culture of our industry is very impatient.

Regards
Iainz

[Ian W]

Hi Iain,

Thanks for your thoughts.

I have just arrived in Brisbane after three years with Auckland Co-Op Taxis. Please contact me some time, we can compare notes.

Ian

[JoeB]

It is always nice when the theory is backed up by actual experience!

This is a perfect example how commonly-used call center metrics that are based on averages and sometimes incorrect sampling frequency often fail to describe the dynamics of the call center and lead to incorrect decisions. The alternative is a more in-depth analysis such as Knowledge Gap Analysis that focuses on identifying gaps in service delivery performance and determines the correct statistical approach based on the issue instead of indiscriminately averaging the data from the ACD.

[Frank A. Engle]

Lots of excellent advice! A few questions and a comment:

What message announcement (MA) plays when the customer does not reach a live operator?

What percentage of your calls go directly to a live operator without a message announcement?

Have you tracked via ANI the callback percent of the abandoned calls?

If you have trained your customers to expect a live operator, they may just be hanging up when they get a MA and hitting the redial button to get to a live rep...therefore they are abandons but not "lost customers". Source of call might help also. For instance, if people are calling from a bar or restaurant that cannot have the business phone tied up for an extended hold time, they may have a number of cab companies in their speed dial to expedite the call.

Just a thought...

[Ian W]

Hi Frank.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Our hold message does not play until 20seconds have elapsed and we do not have any automated announcement prior to a live agent answering (unless they have had to wait more than 20 seconds.

[sweet_candice]

Hi! We are required to submit Job Descriptions for all our agents handling Inbound calls. Our Team hanldes different accounts such as:

- CSA's for a Web Hosting Company in the USA
- CSA's for a Long Distance provider in the USA
- CSA's for Taxi Dispatch

Hope you could provide info's for this. I will appreaciate it very much. THANKS!

[JoeB]

Candice,

You may want to start a new discussion thread with the appropriate subject in order to get more to respond to it...