Abandoned Calls the KPI that tracks call abandonment
See how many callers hang up before reaching an agent, and use it to spot where your call center needs more resource or a better queuing experience.
What is call abandonment?
Call abandonment is the point at which an inbound caller disconnects while queued in an automated call management system, without speaking to a representative.
Several factors determine how long a caller will stay on the line in a queuing system. Sales calls tend to see short patience, while customer support and payment queries can run much longer. More essential services, such as utilities and banking, tend to see longer waiting times alongside comparatively lower abandonment rates.
Who is this KPI for?
The volume and percentage of abandoned calls are key indicators of how well a call center or support line processes customer inquiries in a timely manner. Measuring this KPI is the first step toward reducing waiting times. Tracking both the volume and the times of day when abandonment is more likely helps ensure the right resources are in place to handle calls efficiently.
Reducing call abandonment rates
Once you know the volume and frequency of abandonment, there are several ways to help bring the rate down:
- Increase the number of customer service agents during high-volume periods.
- Keep any hold messaging concise and encouraging. Phrases like "we are experiencing unusually high call volumes" tend to irritate callers and increase abandonment rather than reduce it.
- Increase the initial ring time and experiment with how often hold messages play.
- Offer a call-back option so callers don't have to stay in the queue.
How to calculate Abandoned Calls
Abandonment rate is the share of inbound calls that reach the queue but end before an agent picks up: Abandonment Rate (%) = (Abandoned Calls / Calls Offered) x 100. Track the raw count beside it. Each tells you something the other doesn't.
Abandoned Calls is the number of callers who disconnected while queued, without speaking to a representative. Calls Offered is every inbound call that entered the queue in the period, so Calls Offered = Answered Calls + Abandoned Calls. Calls that end inside the IVR menu, before the caller ever joins a queue, sit outside both figures.
Decide once whether calls dropped in the first few seconds count. Those are usually misdials rather than lost customers, and the common convention is to exclude them. Whichever rule you pick, apply it to every period you report. Changing it halfway through the year makes the trend worthless.
A worked example
Say a support line is offered 2,000 calls in a week. Agents answer 1,840 and 160 callers hang up while waiting, so the rate is (160 / 2,000) x 100 = 8%. Respectable enough on paper.
Now split the same week by hour. Monday from 9am to 11am took 400 of those calls and 80 of the abandons, which is (80 / 400) x 100 = 20%. Take that window out and the other 1,600 calls carry the remaining 80 abandons, a rate of 5%.
One two-hour block is producing half the week's abandonment. That isn't a headcount problem, it's a scheduling gap, and no amount of hiring fixes it if the extra people work afternoons. The weekly average was hiding the only thing worth acting on.
How to improve Abandoned Calls
- Schedule to the interval, not the day. Build schedules from arrival patterns in 30-minute buckets. The peaks are predictable, and that's where most abandonment sits.
- Remove the reason for the call. Tag abandons by menu option, find the top call type, and fix it at source: a status page, a clearer invoice, a better email template.
- Tell callers where they stand. An accurate queue position or wait estimate holds people better than an apology. An inaccurate one does the opposite. A call-back option works the same way, by giving the caller something better than waiting.
- Check routing before headcount. One skill group queuing while another sits idle looks like understaffing on the report. It isn't.
- Watch the abandon curve, not just the total. Plot when in the wait people drop. A cliff at 30 seconds and a slow bleed at four minutes need completely different fixes.
What Abandoned Calls does not tell you
- The rate can fall for bad reasons. If callers give up on the phone entirely, abandons drop along with calls offered. Read it next to inbound call volume before celebrating.
- Percentages lie at low volume. Four abandons out of 30 calls reads as 13% and means almost nothing. Keep the count and the rate on the same chart.
- It says nothing about the calls you answered. Answering fast and resolving nothing just moves the failure downstream. Pair it with service level and first call resolution.
- Near-zero isn't automatically a win. A rate that never moves usually means you're staffed for the peak all day. Read it against cost per call.
Frequently asked questions
What is a good abandoned call rate?
There is no official standard. A commonly quoted rule of thumb puts an acceptable rate somewhere between 5% and 8%, often alongside the 80/20 service level convention: 80% of calls answered within 20 seconds. Treat both as working conventions, not laws or measured benchmarks. Your own trend matters more than either.
What counts as an abandoned call?
A call that entered the queue and ended before an agent answered, with no representative spoken to. The common convention is to exclude calls dropped in the first few seconds, since those are usually misdials, and to count calls that end inside the IVR menu separately.
What is the difference between abandoned calls and missed calls?
An abandoned call is ended by the caller while waiting in the queue. A missed call is one your side never picked up, such as a call that rang out or came in after hours. Different causes, different fixes.
How do I track abandoned calls over time?
Pull abandoned calls and calls offered from your phone system for each period, then chart the rate as a trend with an hour-of-day breakdown beneath it. In SimpleKPI it's a calculated KPI with a target, fed by imports, integrations or the API. The 14-day free trial needs no credit card.
Track Abandoned Calls alongside the rest of your call center metrics on SimpleKPI's KPI dashboards, or start from the call center KPI template: one flat price for unlimited users and KPIs.