The most expensive call is the one you have twice

A resident calls to update their address. The line is a bit crackly, the spelling is quick, and the number is read once. The agent does their best, enters what they heard, and the call ends. Two days later, the letter is returned, the resident calls back, and the same update is taken again—this time slowly, after a short wait in a longer queue.

No one did anything wrong. The process did.

A single misheard detail—an address, a name, a reference number—can trigger a second or third call. What looks like a one‑off correction is, at scale, a multiplier. Each repeat call adds handle time, increases queue length, and forces teams to re‑work what should have been completed once. The original call isn’t just unresolved; it quietly creates new demand.

That’s why repeat calls are more than a customer behaviour problem. They’re a signal of resolution failure. When leaders see rising contact volumes, it’s tempting to attribute the pressure to “more demand.” But the demand may be self‑inflicted, driven by small capture errors that ripple through the system. Every follow‑up call competes with new callers for attention, which in turn raises wait times and reduces first call resolution—creating a feedback loop.

Voice‑only processes assume perfect clarity and infinite patience. In practice, phone lines drop, accents vary, background noise interferes, and people are often calling from stressful environments. Even with skilled agents, the process places a heavy burden on memory and precise listening. When the smallest detail is wrong, the rest of the workflow inherits the error.

This is why repeat calls should be treated as an operational design issue, not a frontline performance issue. The question is not “Why did they call again?” but “What about our process made a second call necessary?” When you view repeat contact as a system signal, you uncover the real levers: confirmation steps, structured data capture, clear verification points, and workflows designed to prevent silent errors from spreading.

For operations leaders, the opportunity is to redesign around resolution, not just responsiveness. A system that captures and confirms correctly the first time protects service workload, improves first call resolution, and reduces the hidden tax of repeat calls.

The most expensive call is the one you have twice—because it’s the cost you don’t see until it compounds.