The Gist
Statistical insight. Call center statistics reveal that phone calls remain the top method for customer service interaction. AI uptake. Automation and AI technologies in call centers are projected to significantly increase over the next 5-10 years. Omnichannel expectation. Customers now demand quick, seamless service across all communication platforms.
Call centers are a brand’s hub for customer service issues and are crucial to running a successful company. Utilizing call center statistics is essential for crafting effective customer support strategies.
Yet the word “call” may be a misnomer in our digital world. While most people still prefer the immediacy of a customer service phone call, consumers can now reach brands through a variety of channels (i.e., omnichannel): phone calls, emails, text messages, social media messaging and online chatbots.
Regardless of channel, call center agents, analysts, managers and team leaders remain the gatekeepers for a brand’s relationships with customers. But they work in a space that is evolving rapidly with the rise of new call center performance metrics and AI-based technologies like chatbots and virtual assistants.
Not to mention the $50B conversational AI market, agentic AI and the emerging Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) space.
Keeping abreast of call center research, benchmarks and trends is critical to understanding customer expectations and developing a consistent strategy.
With that said, here’s a rundown of recent call center statistics that are defining customer support.
Table of Contents
What Do the Latest Call Center Statistics Reveal About Customer Expectations?
From rising call volumes to generational divides in support preferences, the numbers tell a deeper story about the state of customer service.
Call Center Usage and Preference Stats
This table summarizes key call center statistics on usage, customer preferences, and volume trends across demographics and industries.
StatisticInsightUS Call Center EmploymentCall centers employ nearly 3 million Americans. (Statista)Average Monthly Call VolumeEach call center handles about 4,400 calls, missing only 48. (Live Agent)Preferred Contact MethodCustomers prefer speaking to a human on the phone, even for non-urgent issues. (First Orion)Post-Pandemic Call Surge61% of leaders report increased call volumes since 2020–2021. (McKinsey)Personalization Expectations71% expect personalized interactions; 76% get frustrated without them. (McKinsey)Generational Self-Service Trends75% of Gen Z prefer self-service vs. 19% of boomers. (Gartner)Gen Z Live Call Perception71% believe live calls are the easiest way to resolve issues. (McKinsey 2025)
Call centers form the backbone of modern customer service operations, serving as vital hubs for communication between businesses and consumers. Let’s take a look at some of the key call center statistics you should know about.
71% of Gen Z respondents believe live calls are the quickest and easiest way to reach customer care and explain their issues. (McKinsey 2025) The global call center market was valued at USD $352.4 billion in 2024, and is expected to grow to USD $500.1 billion by 2030. (Giva 2025) 77% of customers expect to reach someone right away when they contact a company, with 21% wanting immediate ticket resolution. (Fluent Support) 90% of customers say a quick response is critical, with 60% expecting “immediate” to mean within 10 minutes. (Fluent Support)
Related Article: Top Contact Center Trends to Watch in 2025
Which Call Center Metrics Actually Reflect Performance and Customer Experience?
From CSAT to AHT, the most effective contact centers focus on the right performance benchmarks—not just volume.
Customer satisfaction score (CSAT): CSAT measures customer satisfaction with a service or experience through surveys and is considered the most important efficiency metric for call centers. CSAT scores vary by industry, but a good score is typically between 75% and 85%. High-powered industries for customer satisfaction. Banking & financial services achieve 79% customer satisfaction rates, while well-tailored customer service leads to 81% increase in customer retention. (LiveAgent 2025). Net promoter score (NPS): NPS gauges how likely it is for a person to recommend the company to others. A good NPS score is anything above 20%. First Call Resolution. According to a 2025 Talkdesk report, studies show that a good industry standard for first call resolution rate is above 70%. Average handle time (AHT): AHT is the average time it takes for a representative to handle a customer interaction, such as a phone call, email or chat session. The industry average AHT is a little over six minutes. Current AHT is 6 minutes and 10 seconds, with average talk time at 3.35 minutes. (LiveAgent 2025). Occupancy rate: Occupancy rate measures the percentage of time call center agents are directly dealing with customers. The recommended occupancy rate is between 85% and 90%. Average speed of answer (ASA): ASA represents the average time customers wait in the queue before their calls are answered. The target ASA is 28 seconds or less. Abandonment rate: A call abandonment rate indicates the percentage of callers who hang up before their call is answered. An abandonment rate of less than 5% is considered good for call center efficiency. Healthcare call centers achieve only 7% abandonment rates due to appointment scheduling and patient inquiries focus. (LiveAgent 2025). Customer retention rate: Retention rate is the percentage of customers a business retains over a specific period of time. Average retention rates vary by industry, with a good customer retention rate falling between 55% and 84%. The Big Three of customer experience metrics? The three most-used metrics to assess customer experience within the organization, including at call centers, are CSAT, NPS and customer retention rate, according to CMSWire’s State of Digital Customer Experience Report.
Related Article: Customer Service Trends Show What Customers Really Want (It’s Not Just AI)
How Are AI and Automation Reshaping the Future of Call Centers?
With AI-driven tools, voice assistants and omnichannel engagement on the rise, the call center is quickly becoming a tech-powered CX engine.
Currently, 50% of businesses polled said they use call center software or a call center knowledge base. However, that number will increase over the next two years, with 34% of organizations planning to adopt it. (CMSWire State of Digital Customer Experience Report)By 2025, 80% of companies will have adopted or plan to adopt AI-powered chatbots to support their customer service operations. (Gartner via Plivo)78% of organizations are using AI in at least one business function, up from 72% in early 2024, showing rapid AI adoption growth. (McKinsey)Organizations using Gen AI–enabled customer service agents saw a 14% increase in issue resolution per hour and a 9% reduction in time spent handling issues. (McKinsey)According to a July 4 Research and Markets report, the global conversational AI market is expected to grow from $17.05 billion in 2025 to $49.8 billion by 2031. That marks a growth projection of 192% overall from 2025 to 2031. And it has a compound annual growth rate of 24.7% projected through 2029. (Research and Markets, via CMSWire).Call centers are rapidly adopting AI technologies such as chatbots, virtual assistants, speech recognition, interactive voice response (IVR), natural language processing (NLP), predictive analytics and sentiment analysis. (MarketsandMarkets)
Expect an increase in adoption of AI-based voice assistants. More than 8 billion units of voice assistants will be in active use worldwide by 2024, which is double the number of voice assistants that were in use in 2020. (Statista)The speech analytics market is growing at 15.61% CAGR (2024-2029) and could be worth over USD $6 billion by 2029. (Research and Markets via Giva8.4 billion units of voice assistants are in active use worldwide in 2024, enabling businesses to provide efficient self-service options. (Sprinklr)The global contact center outsourcing market was valued at USD 97.31 billion in 2024 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 9.8% from 2025 to 2030. (Grand View Research)Omnichannel customer engagement will be the norm. Customers now expect agents to know their purchase history and handle requests quickly in all communication channels. As such, the omnichannel customer engagement market is forecast to grow 13% a year to reach almost $18 billion in revenue by 2030. (Grand View Research)
Key Call Center Performance Metrics
These benchmarks provide a baseline for evaluating efficiency and effectiveness in customer service operations.
MetricTarget/BenchmarkCustomer Satisfaction Score (CSAT)Good scores range from 75%–85%; banking sector reaches 79%. (LiveAgent)Net Promoter Score (NPS)A score above 20% is considered positive. (CMSWire)First Call Resolution (FCR)70%+ resolution on first contact is the benchmark. (SQM Group)Average Handle Time (AHT)6 minutes 10 seconds is the average. (LiveAgent)Occupancy RateIdeal range is 85%–90%. (CMSWire)Average Speed of Answer (ASA)Target is 28 seconds or less. (Sprinklr)Call Abandonment RateBelow 5% is ideal; healthcare sector reports 7%. (LiveAgent)Customer Retention RateBenchmark ranges between 55% and 84%. (Exploding Topics)
Build a Strategy Based on Call Center Statistics and Trends
While call center statistics and industry trends can be illuminating, they’re only useful if call center leaders can translate them into actionable strategies.
Brad Cleveland, keynote speaker, customer strategy consultant and author of “Leading the Customer Experience: How to Chart a Course and Deliver Outstanding Results” and other books, says an effective strategy should include the following 10 components.
Customers – Who are your customers? Interactions – What kinds of interactions do they have with sales, customer service and/or tech support? Channels – How do customers reach service: phone, chat, text, self-service, in person? Hours – What hours are services available? Service level – How quickly can customers get help? Routing – How do you get the right customer to the right resources? People/technology – What people and what technology resources are required for each interaction? Information – What information will be required? Analysis and improvement – How are you learning from interactions to improve products, services and processes? Guidelines – What are your guidelines for deploying new services?
The strategy components above, combined with the call center statistics cited in this article, should give leaders a roadmap for identifying performance gaps and making adjustments where needed.
“Many organizations lack a clearly-defined call center strategy,” says Cleveland. “They tend to make decisions in a vacuum, which leads to inconsistencies and poor experiences. So when forming a strategy, I encourage teams to think about these 10 components together, and how AI and other developments could positively impact any of the components.”
How Conversational AI Strengthens Customer Service at Scale
AI is empowering conversations in the call center. Conversational AI enables a brand’s artificial intelligence call center to fully or partially automate conversations on messaging channels—creating faster, smarter, and more scalable customer service. AI-powered messaging played a large role in many brand’s pandemic responses, which was simply the acceleration of a trend that had already begun, according to Rob LoCascio, CEO of LivePerson.
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LoCascio said that AI call centers enabled brands with no set infrastructure in place to immediately begin to improve the customer service experience even as more and more lockdowns shuttered businesses.
“The technology not only empowered businesses to communicate with customers as physical locations shuttered but gave them the ability to do so on a mass scale,” LoCascio said. “Decreasing wait times while increasing volume allowed business to foster stronger relationships with an expanded network of customers.”
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated on July 18, 2025 to include new data and information. The original content was authored by Shane O’Neill.