abandon rate

Percentage of the calls made by an automatic dialing device to prospective customers or by customers to a telemarketer that are not intercepted by a live operator before the prospect/customer disconnects. High abandon rates indicate that the telemarketer is not properly managing resources such as personnel and phone lines. Most telemarketers strive to maintain an abandon rate of less than 2%. See also automatic dialer; call blockage; no-op; predictive dialer.