Definition:
The abandonment rate is defined as the proportion of users who stop having the services of a company, interrupt an action they performed continuously over time or do not finish a planned task. The abandonment rate is inversely related to customer engagement, so companies are interested in reducing them as much as possible.
It is a generic conception that encompasses more than one different concept, since it could be said that there are several abandonment rates. As a general rule, the abandonment rate is calculated as the percentage resulting from dividing the number of customers lost in a period of time and the number of customers you had at the beginning of it.
Types of abandonment rates
- Cancellation rate or churn rate: The churn or cancellation fee is the number of customers or subscribers who decide to cut their ties with a service or company for a certain period of time. It is common in companies whose services are based on temporary subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify) or in the area of email marketing.
- Cart abandonment rate: Within an e-commerce, the number of users who, having added products to the cart, do not finish the purchase process. TA = completed transactions / initiated transactions
- Bounce rate: A type of abandonment rate very common in web analytics, the bounce rate refers to when a visit to a website only goes through one page before leaving the site, rather than continuing to see more pages of it.
Reasons for the abandonment rate
There are many possible reasons why users will abandon the purchase process, being important to recognize these problems and take measures to avoid or solve them. The following are common causes of abandonment:
- The user does not have time to complete the order process. Online users usually have a very short attention span, so it is essential that the payment process is as simple as possible.
- Error messages or technical issues: These are a very easy way to lose a potential customer who lost patience and trust in the payment system. Many buyers take great care in disclosing their credit card information and other personal information, so a reliable payment system is critical to maintaining their trust.
- Despite having initiated the purchase, the customer may regret it for various reasons, so the battle to convince him to buy a product / service does not end when the order is initiated. Throughout the ordering process it is important to maintain the customer’s confidence in their decision to order.
- Other reasons are harder to avoid. For example, many customers prefer to compare different stores and abandon the purchase process due to the price of shipping costs.
How to reduce the abandonment rate
- Improving your website’s content: One of the main symptoms of high bounce rates is the absence of content engaging enough to maintain user engagement. By working hard enough on the contents of the website we ensure that the public browses our site longer and visits more links.
- Re-engage the customer: We can re-engage a customer who has abandoned the cart during the purchase process if we reprint it through remarketing.
- Facilitate the purchase process: A large number of users abandon the purchase process due to difficulties arising during it; the more we facilitate the user the acquisition of our products, the lower the percentage of abandonments.
- Impeccable customer service:Â The treatment that our client receives will be essential for the future decisions he makes in relation to our company so it is vital not to neglect customer service at all.