Abandoned Rates for Call Centres

Have you noticed that you have really long period of time getting through to call centres?  Nope?  Thats due to Office of Communication (Ofcom) regulations, all call centres have to have a low ABANDON RATE.  What is an abandon rate, I hear you ask?  Have you ever called a call centre, got so fed up of waiting and then put the phone down?  Thats one abandoned call.  It when someone is SO fed up of waiting to speak to someone they just put the phone down.  

So why are abandon rates intersting?  Well they were introduced or reducing wait time for people.  Pretty good eh?  The government recognised that people were fed up waiting and introduced a way of solving it (I am still awaiting a response on this one).  Great eh?  

That is not the end of the story.   Let's be honest, it still happens, doesn't it?  We have all been sat waiting for someone to deal with out case.  So what happens when a call centre has a higher amount?  What can Ofcom do to bring a call centre back back from having such a high abandon rate?  Well, let’s ask them!

SO the first question to look at is HOW many centres have been investigated.  The answer really shocked me!  Here is the last five year investigations broken down year by year:

2011- 25 (of which 3 were formal)

2012 – 16 (of which 0 were formal)

2013 – 72 (of which 1 was formal)

2014 – 47 (of which 4 were formal)

2015 - 98 (of which 3 were formal)

Now the number before the bracket is an informal chat.  Basically an “Informal chat” from Ofcom is a way of them saying “Come on no, tell me what is wrong”.  It is a way of identifying the issues and getting them to change. The fact that the FORMAL chat is SO LOW, shows that it works. It also shows that there has been a MASSIVE drop in how many centres have been investigated. It should be pointed out that this is not a measure of how many complaints have been made.  (How complaints have been received is another FoI request).

Well that is about as interesting as watching the colour beige dry…Think about it.  All of us hate contacting call centres, but there is an organisation that is chasing them up and making sure that they are quick to get to.  Not only that but it shows that it is working; if it wasn't working then why are the investigation so low?

Also it is interesting to think that Ofcom are continually checking to make sure that the rates are so low. Its also interesting to see how a government regulator work and how they can  continually check on someone.  They are making sure that we have a little bit less time listening to “Green Sleeves” on a 1980’s keyboard.