Containment rate
Containment rate is the share of contacts fully handled by automation without ever being escalated to a human agent.
Containment rate is the percentage of customer contacts that an automated channel, such as a chatbot or voice assistant, resolves on its own without handing off to a human agent. It is calculated conceptually as (contacts resolved by automation) / (total contacts that entered automation) over a period.
A contact is considered contained only when the customer's need is met inside the automated experience. Sessions that end in escalation, transfer, or an abandoned conversation are not counted as contained, which keeps the metric honest about whether automation actually finished the job.
In context
Containment rate is the headline measure of how much load an automated support layer takes off the human team. A higher containment rate means fewer contacts reach agents, which directly affects staffing needs, queue length, and cost per contact.
Teams use containment alongside satisfaction and resolution quality so that automation is not just deflecting contacts but genuinely solving them. A containment rate that climbs while satisfaction falls usually signals that customers are being trapped in automation rather than helped, so the two figures are read together.
How Auralis uses Containment rate
Auralis raises containment by having Autopilot resolve repetitive contacts end to end, with reported deflection of 74% in repetitive categories, while Answer and the Knowledge Center keep the automation grounded so contained contacts are genuinely resolved rather than just held.