The Best Call Center Software Solutions: 5 Ways To Track Abandoned Calls

Your company has a call center, and it’s time to shop for new call center software. But what features should you be looking for? Abandoned call analytics is something you should be thinking about.

In this video, I cover 5 ways your company should be tracking abandoned calls.

Which contact center software vendors should your company quote? Ask me today.

About Me

Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the top 40 business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike on YouTube, LinkedIn, Reddit and SpiceWorks.

KeyTakeaway

Reducing abandoned calls starts with understanding why they happen. Modern call center software gives you real-time analytics, automated workflows, and proactive follow-up tools that help you recover callers, cut wait times, and significantly improve customer satisfaction. With the right platform, your team can track trends, respond faster, and make sure no customer slips through the cracks.

Table of Contents

• How to Reduce Abandoned Calls with Modern Call Center Software
• What Is an Abandoned Call?
• Why Solving Abandoned Calls Matters
• Tracking Abandoned Call Rates
• Automatically Emailing Abandoned Call Reports
• Correlating Abandoned Calls With Wait Times
• Setting Service Level Agreements Based on Abandonment Trends
• Creating Automated Workflows for Abandoned Calls
• Using Callbacks and CRM Actions
• Leveraging SMS Follow-Up Options

Transcript

How to Reduce Abandoned Calls with Modern Call Center Software

Your company has a call center and you’re in the market for new call center software—or contact center software, as it’s often called today. One of the biggest features you should be looking for is abandoned call analytics and the tools that help you take action on abandoned calls. Running a call center, abandoned calls are this mysterious thing that happens constantly, and companies always want to know why they occur and what can be done about them. That’s why this feature should be at the top of your list. My name is Mike Smith, president of Aerocom, and in this article, I’ll walk you through the smartest tools modern software offers to help you reduce abandoned calls.

What Is an Abandoned Call?

An abandoned call is simply a call your company receives in which the caller hangs up while they are on hold waiting for someone in your organization to answer. Abandoned calls happen for many different reasons, but the result is always the same: someone who wanted help didn’t get it.

Why Solving Abandoned Calls Matters

Solving abandoned calls is one of the fastest and easiest ways to improve customer experience in your contact center. Many customers hang up because wait times feel too long or unclear. When your software helps you reduce that frustration, your customer satisfaction naturally rises. The latest call center platforms offer powerful tools to help identify, track, and act on abandoned calls in ways older systems never could.

Tracking Abandoned Call Rates

The first thing modern software allows you to do is track your abandoned call rate. For example, you might see that 2% of calls are being abandoned—and maybe that number jumps to 5% during peak hours. Tracking these trends is the foundation for fixing the issue. Without the data, you can’t see patterns or breaking points, so the analytics give you a clear picture of what your team is up against.

Automatically Emailing Abandoned Call Reports

You can also have abandoned call reports automatically emailed to supervisors. This may include the abandonment rate over the last 24 hours or week, along with a list of specific calls that were abandoned and what happened to them. Having that information readily available helps supervisors quickly identify issues and respond in real time.

Correlating Abandoned Calls With Wait Times

A powerful next step is correlating your abandonment rate with your wait times. This helps you find the exact breaking point where callers begin to hang up rapidly. For some organizations it might be 30 seconds; for others it might be a minute or a minute and a half. Once you know that number, you have the insight needed to prevent spikes in abandonment.

Setting Service Level Agreements Based on Abandonment Trends

Knowing your breaking point also allows you to set meaningful service level agreements within your call center software. You might decide that 90% of calls should be answered within 30 seconds or a minute. If the system detects you’re slipping below that goal, it can notify a manager instantly so they can take action. That might mean adding agents into the queue or jumping in themselves to help get wait times back under control.

Creating Automated Workflows for Abandoned Calls

After gathering all this data, you can start creating workflows that automatically take action on abandoned calls. This can be done within the contact center software itself or with a combination of your software and your CRM. For example, you may decide that only calls abandoned after 20 seconds should be labeled as true abandoned calls, since callers who hang up earlier may have just dialed the wrong number. Setting that threshold helps you focus on the calls that really matter.

Using Callbacks and CRM Actions

With workflows in place, you can automatically add abandoned callers to a queued callback list. That way, callers don’t lose their place in line. As soon as an agent is available, the system automatically dials the caller. Your agent can then say something like, “I saw that you called in earlier and wanted to make sure there isn’t something I can help you with.” If the caller doesn’t answer or the call goes to voicemail, the system can automatically create an action in your CRM and assign it to a rep to call back later, whether that’s 30 minutes later or the next day.

Leveraging SMS Follow-Up Options

Some systems even allow automated SMS messages to be sent to abandoned callers. The message might include a link where the customer can schedule a callback at their convenience. This is an easy way to keep communication open and improve customer satisfaction, even when wait times were originally too long.

Final Thoughts

There’s a lot you can do with modern call center software to reduce abandoned calls as they happen—and to recover the ones that slip through. If you’re wondering which call center software vendors offer the best tools for this, that’s exactly what I do. Reach out, send me an email or give me a call (714.593.0011). I’m a broker for all the major vendors, and I’ve been doing this for over 20 years at no charge to you. I can tell you which vendors your company should be quoting based on your requirements, set up demos, oversee quotes, and help ensure you get better pricing than you would on your own. Service providers pay me, so you don’t. Join the hundreds of IT professionals who use me to help their companies make better decisions in a fraction of the time. And don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel and check out our website to search for contact center solutions and reviews. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you on the next one.