Did you know the average customer service agent handles between 30 and 60 calls daily? That’s a ton of work!
When call volumes increase, there’s a greater opportunity for human error and unhappy customers due to long wait times.
High call volumes can also impact your contact center’s operating costs and efficiency, as agents have to spend more time wading through endless calls.
The good news is that there are some effective call reduction strategies you can use to lower your call volume, ultimately boosting customer satisfaction.
In this article, we’ll guide you through eight strategies to reduce call volumes in your call center. We’ll also discuss some mistakes to avoid when call reduction is your goal.
What Is Call Reduction?
Call reduction is the strategic process of minimizing the volume of inbound calls received by a contact center without negatively impacting customer satisfaction or the quality of service provided.
The primary goal is to resolve customer concerns through more efficient, accessible, and often proactive strategies, reducing the need for customers to initiate contact via phone.
Why Is Customer Service Etiquette Important?
Now that you know what call reduction is, let’s look at how it’s beneficial for your contact center:
✅ Improves operational efficiency: Reducing call volumes frees up agents to handle more complex issues, enhances service quality, shortens wait times, and enables efficient scheduling for smoother operations.
✅ Enhances customer satisfaction: Offering self-service options or proactive communication resolves issues without a call, improving convenience. Long wait times frustrate 56% of customers, and 83% expect resolution on the first call. Reducing call volumes allows agents to handle calls efficiently, leading to better outcomes and a smoother customer experience.
✅ Lowers operational costs: Fewer calls reduce the need for a large agent workforce or extensive overtime. Additionally, lower call volumes can decrease the load on call center systems, saving on operational and maintenance expenses.
✅ Supports proactive customer service: Reducing calls means resolving issues upfront or proactively addressing problems. Over 90% of proactive service efforts boost retention, building trust and loyalty by meeting customer needs seamlessly.
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Effective Call Reduction Strategies to Implement in Your Contact Center
There are several strategies you can use in your contact center to reduce the number of calls you receive. These include:
➡️ Identifying emerging issues.
➡️ Providing customers with self-service options.
➡️ Empowering your agents.
➡️ Mapping out the customer journey.
➡️ Focusing on first call resolution.
➡️ Identifying root causes.
➡️ Educating your customers.
➡️ Deploying interactive push notifications.
Let’s unpack each of these solutions in more detail:
1. Identify emerging issues before they become larger problems
Identifying emerging issues as they arise helps ensure operational efficiency, maintain customer satisfaction, and prevent reputational damage. It also fosters a positive customer experience.
💡 How to Identify Emerging Issues
Loris is a conversation intelligence platform that analyzes all your customer interactions in your contact center. In doing this, our platform can help you spot trends and emerging issues before they become more significant problems. This allows managers to proactively address an issue before it leads to a high volume of incoming calls.
For example, let’s say you’re an online retail company, and customers attempting to make payments through credit cards occasionally encounter errors.
While the system is still accepting some transactions, a growing number of customers are contacting your call center to report the issue and inquire about their orders.
This could lead to agents handling a disproportionate amount of inquiries about the same issue, leading to longer wait times. If unresolved, the issue could lead to a further surge in calls, frustrated customers, and potential revenue loss.
If you can identify this emerging issue and work with your IT department to fix the payment system problem, you can resolve it before it results in large call volumes.
2. Provide your customers with self-service, AI, and omnichannel options
Around 74% of customers say they would rather choose an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot over speaking to a human agent when looking for answers to simple questions.
Provide your customers with self-service options like chatbots, a mobile app optimized to include support features, or a customer self-service portal on your website. This means they don’t have to speak to an agent to get help.
According to research, chatbots are expected to save businesses up to 2.5 billion hours of work and reduce customer service costs by as much as 30%. Self-service tools like bots save business leaders an average of $300,000 per year.
You should also consider developing detailed FAQs and how-to guides to publish on your website or portal.
How a low-cost airline reduced its calls
Implementing self-service options enabled a low-cost European airline to reduce its call volume by 28% and increase its customer satisfaction (CSAT) scores to an average of 9.6.
They now use a web-based chatbot, call deflection chat services, and an FAQ bot to serve their customers without them having to call in. This allows the airline’s agents to deal with more complex issues thoroughly.
How Meesho is reducing its call volume
By implementing a multi-language generative AI voice bot, eCommerce company Meesho is reducing its call center costs by 75% and its average call handle time by 50%.
The bot offers human-like assistance and is currently handling about 60,000 calls per day. According to the company, the bot is achieving a 95% resolution rate.
3. Empower your call center agents
You should give your agents the authority to resolve customer issues on the spot to avoid repeated callbacks and escalations.
Additionally, creating an extensive knowledge base for your agents helps them find the answers they need independently to resolve issues quickly.
💡 Loris Can Help You to Respect Your Customer’s Time
Loris enables agents to gauge customer sentiment in real-time. With sentiment analysis, your agents can determine how customers feel and their mood throughout an interaction.
By knowing exactly what to say based on customer sentiment, agents can ensure customers are satisfied on the first call, reducing the need for callbacks.
4. Map out the customer journey
A recent survey found that over 50% of companies have a customer journey map in place. If you’re not one of these businesses, you’re missing out on an opportunity to reduce your call volumes.
This allows you to proactively address the issues customers may encounter, preventing excessive calls.
You need to analyze and map out the entire customer journey with your product or service to identify where they’ll likely need support.
How a beauty company reduced its call volumes
A beauty eCommerce company was experiencing a high repeat call rate, which significantly impacted its contact center performance. They analyzed and mapped out the entire customer journey, identifying areas leading to repeat calls.
By implementing solutions to repeat calls, such as SMS and email triggers at touchpoints where pain points might occur, the company saw a 6% reduction in same-day repeat calls and an 11% decrease in overall repeat calls.
5. Focus on your first-call resolution (FCR) metrics
FCR refers to the ability of a call center agent to resolve a customer’s issue during the first interaction without the need for follow-ups, transfers, or callbacks.
A high FCR rate indicates that your call center effectively addresses customer concerns in a single interaction. A good industry standard for FCR is 70 to 79%.
First-call resolution addresses the root causes of unnecessary repeat calls. When issues are resolved effectively the first time, customers don’t need to contact your call center again.
6. Identify root causes
By knowing why your customers call in, you can resolve these issues before they create more calls.
For example, if a large number of customers call with questions about their billing statements, then it may mean you need to redesign these documents to make them clearer.
💡 How to Identify Root Cause
By analyzing all your interactions, Loris provides data-driven, actionable insights into the root causes of the calls you’re receiving. This enables you to address the issues that cost your contact center money and create high call volumes.
How a telecom company reduced its call volume
A telecom company identified the root cause of many of its calls as the lack of alternative payment methods for its subscribers.
The company reduced its calls about subscriber payments by 45% by addressing the root cause and automating its payment methods.
7. Educate your customers
Consider providing comprehensive onboarding for your customers. For example, if you’re a SaaS provider, you could offer regular onboarding webinars and walkthrough videos. This could reduce the number of calls that come in due to questions about your products or services.
Trengo is a customer engagement platform that provides ongoing onboarding webinars to its customers to detail how they can maximize features. This will likely reduce the number of calls they receive from customers needing guidance on how to use their platform.
8. Deploy interactive mobile notifications
According to a recent report, the number of brands using push notifications to reach customers has increased by 49% year over year.
You can use mobile push notifications to inform your customers about updates, issues, or resolutions to reported problems.
For example, a bank could send out a push notification when a customer’s dispute is resolved so that the customer doesn’t have to call in to check or find out if there’s been progress in their case.
What to Avoid When Aiming to Reduce Call Volumes
You now know how to reduce high call volumes in your contact center. However, there are some mistakes you should avoid when aiming to do this. Let’s unpack these:
❌ Neglecting the customer experience
You should never prioritize call reduction at the expense of the customer experience. Forcing customers to use self-service tools or chatbots that are poorly designed, difficult to navigate, or fail to address their needs can lead to frustration.
Customers may call you anyway, now angrier and less patient, leading to longer calls and increased escalation.
❌ Over-emphasizing call deflection
Avoid relying too heavily on call deflection tactics, such as IVR. IVR is an automated phone technology that allows incoming callers to access information via a voice response system without speaking to an agent.
IVR systems that endlessly loop customers through menus without offering the option to speak to a human can alienate customers.
While deflection can be effective, customers should always have a clear and easy way to reach a live agent when needed.
❌ Implementing ineffective self-service tools
Rolling out self-service tools or chatbots without proper testing and refinement can backfire.
Tools that provide incorrect information, fail to resolve common issues, or lack the capability to escalate complex questions to agents can frustrate customers. It can also lead to high call volume instead of decreasing it.
❌ Failing to address the root causes of calls
One of the most critical mistakes is treating call reduction as a surface-level issue without addressing the underlying causes of customer inquiries and complaints.
If recurring issues—such as billing errors, unclear policies, or unreliable services—are not resolved, call volumes will persist, no matter how many self-service tools you introduce.
You need to analyze your call data and feedback to identify systemic problems driving these customer interactions.
❌ Ignoring employee input
Contact center agents are on the front lines and have valuable insights into why customers call you. Implementing call reduction strategies without consulting your team risks overlooking critical pain points and missing opportunities for improvement.
❌ Failing to monitor and adjust strategies
Even well-planned call reduction strategies can fail if they’re not monitored and adjusted over time. If you “set and forget” solutions, you may find that your tools become outdated or ineffective as customer expectations and needs evolve.
Continuous monitoring is essential to ensure the self-service tools you’ve implemented remain relevant and useful.
For example, regularly updating knowledge base articles on emerging customer questions can help maintain their effectiveness.
❌ Focusing solely on metrics without considering customer needs
Only focusing on reducing call volumes as a key performance indicator (KPI) can lead to shortsighted strategies.
Call volumes will fluctuate depending on various factors. For example, if you get many new customers because your business is successful, a better strategy might be to scale up your operations to meet increased customer expectations.
You might also expect a higher call volume when you launch a new product feature as people familiarize themselves with it.
Reduce Call Volumes the Right Way with Loris
Call reduction is an essential focus for your contact center because it improves operational efficiency, enhances customer satisfaction, and lowers costs.
With Loris, you can identify the root causes of why customers are calling you in the first place, enabling you to be proactive about reducing call volumes.
Our platform also helps you identify emerging issues so that you can address them before they result in endless calls that put pressure on your agents.
Speak to a Loris expert today to learn more about how our platform can help you reduce call volumes, put less pressure on your agents, and satisfy your customers.
