The hidden cost of misnavigation in your call center

What is misnavigation?

A call is considered misnavigated if a caller connects to the wrong agent to handle the request. This can be the result of the user misunderstanding the IVR or simply “zeroing-out” for some other reason. In any case, the first agent has to assess the call, inform the caller that he needs a different agent, perform the internal transfer, log the call and then rejoin the queue. These extra steps add significantly to the overall handle time.

The cost

To calculate how much misnavigation is adding to the cost of your call center, you need to get: 1) Your misnavigation rate, 2) Average time it takes for an agent to handle an internal transfer 3) Average cost of agent time. This figure will then help you put it all together:

I go through this calculation with companies all the time and it is part of the Fonolo ROI calculator. If you would like to know more, feel free to contact me

But that’s only half the story

There is another cost to misnavigation: frustrated customers, decreased loyalty, and lower Net Promoter Scores. A study conducted by Kingston Communications, shows the level of frustration with phone menu navigation. Respondents were asked what annoyed them most when calling customer service lines: First place (54%), was “overseas staff”. Second place (22%) was “the need to navigate automated responses”.

Can you afford not to give your callers a better alternative?