Abandonment rates can be a crucial indicator of app user experience. It's the percentage of users who leave after initiating an action, whether it's making a call, completing a purchase, or using your mobile app. In this article, we'll dive into the world of abandonment rates, exploring benchmarks for call centers, checkout processes, and mobile apps.

To calculate the abandonment rate, divide the number of incomplete tasks by the total number of tasks, and multiply the result by 100 to get the final percentage. For instance, if a call center receives 1,000 monthly calls from customers and 50 of those calls are dropped by the caller before an agent can answer, the call abandonment rate is 5%. (50 / 1000) x 100 = 5%

Abandonment Rate Benchmarks: Setting Your App User Experience Standard

A healthy abandonment rate will be largely determined by your technical equipment, app user experience, and goals. However, comparing your abandonment rate with industry averages can help you gauge your performance and identify areas for improvement.

Here are some acceptable abandonment rate benchmarks across different industries:

Call Center Abandonment Rate Benchmarks

For call centers, a great abandonment rate is at or below 5%. An average abandonment rate falls between 5-10%, while an abandonment rate of over 10% is considered poor. Within the call center industry, exceptional abandonment rates are typically below 3%.

Checkout Abandonment Rate Benchmarks

In e-commerce, a great checkout abandonment rate is below 40%, with exceptional rates at or below 20%. However, industry averages can fluctuate between 40-80%. Anything over 80% is considered poor.

Mobile App Abandonment Rate Benchmarks

Mobile app abandonment rates are calculated differently than call and checkout rates. They're divided into three categories: user retention rate (higher is better), user churn rate (lower is better), and user abandonment rate (lower is better). According to a 2018 report, the average retention rate for all apps in popular mobile app stores was 43%, 33%, and 29% for one, two, and three months of usage respectively.

In terms of benchmarks, anything lower than average is considered a good user retention rate. For a typical user retention rate benchmark over a period of three months:

  • Below 29%

By understanding abandonment rates and setting industry-standard benchmarks, you can optimize your app user experience to reduce drop-offs and improve customer engagement.