The term “abandonment rate” relates to how many outbound autodialed or predictive dial calls are abandoned in relation to the number of calls that are answered by customers.
The abandonment rate is the rate at which calls are abandoned in relation to the number of calls that are answered by customers.
For example, if a predictive dialing campaign makes 1000 outbound calls, and 50 of those outbound calls are abandoned (i.e., the dialer connected the call to a customer, but because an agent wasn't available, the call went abandoned), then the abandonment rate (expressed in percentage) for that campaign is equal to (50/1000)*100 or 5%.
While 50 out of every 1000 calls may not seem like a high abandonment rate, it would take that predictive dialing campaign outside of the safe harbor of the Telemarketing Sales Rule (which imposes an abandonment rate limit of 3%).