Containment rate
The share of customer interactions that stay inside automation without moving to a human agent. A common chatbot KPI that can look healthy while the channel itself weakens.
Containment rate tells you whether an interaction stayed inside automation without moving to a human. It is one of the most common headline metrics for chatbots and virtual agents because it is easy to count and maps neatly to avoided agent minutes.
What it cannot tell you is whether the customer was served well, or whether they will choose automation again. A customer who gives up, abandons the chat, or quietly phones instead may still be counted as "contained".
Reading it responsibly
Containment can look good while the channel gets weaker. Pair it with measures of the next interaction: the return-to-automation rate and repeat-channel economics. Evaluate it inside the session economics of the contact, and remember that sometimes the right move is channel preservation: letting the interaction leave automation early.
Read more in Your chatbot is borrowing from the next interaction.
Related terms
Session economics
The cost and outcome of a single customer contact with an automated channel — what this interaction cost and what it resolved. It is the narrow, current-contact half of AI service ROI.
Return-to-automation rate
The share of customers who choose the automated channel again after an earlier automated interaction — a measure of how today's experience affects tomorrow's automation choice.
Channel preservation
Escalating or declining an automated interaction early, on purpose, to protect the customer's willingness to use the automated channel again — treating escalation as protection, not failure.
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