UK contact centres may be delivering almost identical inbound performance year-on-year, but customer patience is deteriorating rapidly.
MaxContact warns that this growing “perception gap”, where metrics stay steady, but customer frustration is rising, is already driving customers to switch providers.
In its new 2025–26 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report, based on a survey of 300 UK contact centre leaders, MaxContact has found that core inbound KPIs have remained remarkably stable despite economic pressures and increased agent workloads.
– Inbound call abandonment rate: 4.1%, which is a slight improvement on 4.4% in 2024.
– Average handle time: 7.8 minutes, unchanged year‑on‑year.
– Speed of answer: 17.4 seconds, versus 17.1 seconds last year. Nearly two-fifths (39%) of respondents had it down to between 2 and ten seconds.
– First call resolution: 40.9%, similar to last year’s 41%. But an impressive 27% of respondents had an FCR of between 50% and 79%.
While those steady metrics may indicate strong contact centre performance, they don’t necessarily reflect customers’ growing willingness to walk away if they feel they have had a bad experience.
Speaking of the findings, Ben Booth, CEO of MaxContact, said:
“The research has been eye-opening because it tells us how stable inbound performances have been over the past year. These consistent year-on-year metrics reflect mature, well-run operations. With almost a third of respondents reporting an FCR of between 50-79%, the evidence points to systems and teams performing reliably.”
“But conversely, there is a clear disconnect between what metrics contact centres are measuring, and what customers believe is the case. A year ago, we asked customers directly about their experiences with contact centres, and they told us that 42% had already switched providers due to poor contact centre experiences, with another 38% seriously considering it. This tells us that a steady performance from a contact centre does not always correlate with satisfied customers. There is a growing perception that service levels are not meeting expectations, so we need to find out why.”
MaxContact believes the challenge for contact centres now is to look beyond their own performance metrics to see whether that performance matches customer expectations.
For example,
– A 17-second speed of answer may have been acceptable last year, but customer expectations are now rapidly being shaped by instant messaging and AI-driven self-service. As a result, customers will expect faster access than ever before.
– An AHT of nearly eight minutes can deliver a good first‑call resolution. But customers want an effortless and personalised service that doesn’t require them to repeat themselves across multiple touchpoints.
– Even modest queue times will trigger abandonment as tolerance for waiting drops.
MaxContact’s research underscores that the real risk facing contact centres is complacency.
As Ben adds, “Our UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report has told us that there is more pressure than ever before on margins, and agent workloads have risen. So, while it might be tempting to focus on holding KPIs steady, that won’t be good enough to meet changing customer expectations. I see that this year’s challenge is not just to meet last year’s performance metrics, but to use technology and data to get ahead of those expectations.”
“The good news is that contact centres are preparing for this challenge already. With 60% of contact centres set to increase their investment in AI and automation next year, it appears that the industry is ready to respond and react.”
To Download the 2025–26 UK Contact Centre KPI Benchmarking Insights Report Click Here
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