Abandonment Rate
Percentage of customers who exit a contact queue before being connected to an agent
What is Abandonment Rate?
Abandonment rate is the percentage of contacts, such as calls or chats, that customers give up on before reaching an agent. It shows how many customers leave without help.
Abandoned contacts are lost service opportunities and often lead to repeat contacts and frustration.
How this KPI is measured
- Function
- Customer Success & Service
- Sub-function
- Service Delivery
- Industry
- All Industries
- Type
- Lagging
- Impact
- Operational
- Unit
- %
- Measurement frequency
- Daily / Weekly
- Formula
- (Abandoned contacts / Total contacts offered) × 100
How to calculate it
Divide abandoned contacts by total contacts offered, and multiply by 100.
For example, if 1,000 calls were offered and 60 were abandoned, the rate is 6%.
Set a short threshold, such as a few seconds, below which abandonment is ignored, since it may be accidental, and look at the time customers wait before giving up.
Where it is used
Staffing contact centres
Match agents to demand.
Improving customer experience
Reduce lost contacts.
Finding peak-time problems
See when customers give up.
How to improve it
Tips and common mistakes
- Read with average speed to answer.
- Callback options can reduce abandonment.
- Count only contacts offered to agents.
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