Call Center Glossary of Terms

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Abandoned Call/Contact. A call or other type of contact that has been offered into a communications network or telephone system, but is terminated by the person originating the contact before any conversation happens. In an outbound calling scenario, aban

Abandoned Call/Contact

ACD (Automatic Call Distributor). A specialized phone system used for handling many incoming calls. The ACD will recognize and answer an incoming call; will look in its database for call routing instructions. It will send the call to a recording or a voic

ACD (Automatic Call Distributor)

ACS (Automatic Call Sequencer). A device for handling incoming calls. Typically it answers an incoming call, gives the caller a message and puts them on hold, signaling agents a call is waiting. It has no internal switching mechanism and does not affect t

ACS (Automatic Call Sequencer)

Activity Codes. Codes entered by agents to indicate the type of contact handled. Also called wrap-up codes, these codes allow reporting by contact type.

Activity Codes

Adherence. The term used to describe how well agents stick to their planned work schedules. May also be referred to as compliance.

Adherence

Advanced 800 Services. A set of toll-free services named initially by AT&T that includes long-distance calls routing into an organization based on time-of-day, point of origin, or percentage allocation of call volume.

Advanced 800 Services

After Call Work (ACW). Work immediately following an inbound call or transaction. If work must be completed before agent can handle next contact, then ACW is factored into average handle time. Work may involve keying activity codes, updating database, fil

After Call Work (ACW)

Agent Group, Split Or Gate. A group of agents handling a specific type or group of calls or contacts.

Agent Group, Split Or Gate

Agent Occupancy. Generally a percent of logged in time that an agent spends in active contact handling states (i.e., on incoming calls, in wrap-up activity, on outbound calls).

Agent Occupancy

Agent Status. The current work mode of the agent, such as Busy on Call, Available, Unavailable, After Call Work, Off-Phone Work, etc.

Agent Status

Agent. The person that handles calls in a contact center. Also referred to as a telephone service representative (TSR) or customer service representative (CSR).

Agent

AHT (Average Handle Time). The amount of time an employee is occupied with an incoming contact. This is the sum of transaction time and wrap-up time.

AHT (Average Handle Time)

All Trunks Busy (ATB). A state in which all trunks in a specific trunk group are busy. May occur when all trunks are actually occupied with calls, or when some portion of trunks are artificially blocked by system user in periods of understaffing to minimi

All Trunks Busy (ATB)

ANI (Automatic Number Identification). A series of digits received from one of two sources: the ANI received from a long distance phone company that may arrive over the D channel of an ISDN PRI circuit or on a dedicated single line before the first ring.

ANI (Automatic Number Identification)

Area Code. A three-digit number identifying geographic areas of the United States and Canada. It permits direct distance dialing on the telephone system. Also known as Numbering Plan Area (NPA). ASA(Average Speed Of Answer ). The average wait in queue exp

Area Code

ATA. American Teleservices Association. (www.ata-connect.org.)

ATA

Automated Attendant. A device that answers callers with a recording, and allows callers to route themselves by dialing digits associated with menu choices.

Automated Attendant

Automated Greetings. The capability of an ACD or add-on system to allow an agent to record a greeting that automatically plays when call is answered. Also called voice-saver system.

Automated Greetings

Automatic Call Back. A feature of a telephone system that permits a caller to hang up and instruct the system to call back as soon as a busy station or trunk is free.

Automatic Call Back

Auxiliary Work State. A work state other than actively handling calls. As an example, agents may go into an auxiliary work state to process paperwork or emails. Agents will not receive calls while in auxiliary work state.

Auxiliary Work State

Available Time. The period of time spent waiting to accept and/or busy on an inbound or outbound contact.

Available Time

Average Delay Of Delayed Callers. Average wait in queue experienced only by those callers who are delayed. Does not include those calls that are answered immediately.

Average Delay Of Delayed Callers

Average Delay To Abandon. Average time callers are held in queue before disconnecting (prior to agent answer).

Average Delay To Abandon

Average Handle Time. The amount of time it takes on average to handle a contact to completion, including talk time plus after-contact work time. To calculate, divide the total seconds of work time by the number of contacts.

Average Handle Time

Base Staff. The minimum number of agents needed to provide service in a given period of time. Also called "bodies in seats". Does not account for non-productive work factors such as breaks, training, meetings, etc.

Base Staff

Beep Tone. A tone heard before a call arrives, also called a zip tone. Beep tones are sometimes used to announce that a call is being monitored.

Beep Tone

Benchmarking. The process of measuring performance against some set standard. Benchmarking in the contact center industry refers to comparing demographics, processes, and service with other organizations to identify strengths, weaknesses, and improvement

Benchmarking

Blocked Call. A call that cannot be completed because of a busy condition.

Blocked Call

Blocking. The inability to complete a connection between two points because of a busy condition in the pathway.

Blocking

Business to Business. A term used in contact centers to represent the type of contact that is primarily to/from other business

Business to Business

Busy Hour. The two consecutive half-hour periods of a day in which the largest number of calls/contacts are offered.

Busy Hour

Call Center. An operation with two or more persons handling incoming or outgoing calls. Call centers may be help desks, customer service centers, catalog sales centers, reservations centers, or telemarketing/collections operations.

Call Center

Call/Contact Blending. The process of combining the flow of inbound/outbound calls and other contacts such as email or web transactions to a set of agents. Contact blending can be accomplished manually or by means of automated systems that route the conta

Call/Contact Blending

Callback Messaging. A feature in which callers on hold can leave an oral message or their telephone numbers using the keys of a touchtone telephone pad for later callback from an agent instead of remaining on hold.

Callback Messaging

Caller ID. A telephone network feature of the local telephone company by which the telephone number of the caller is passed to the called party.

Caller ID

Central Office. A synonym for switching center also referred to as a telephone exchange.

Central Office

Completed Call/Contact. A contact that is handled to completion by an agent, or in an outbound dialing scenario, a contact that has been through maximum recycle attempts.

Completed Call/Contact

Conditional Routing. The capability of the ACD to route calls or contacts on an "if

Conditional Routing

Contact Management. Software applications and systems that keep track of all customer contacts for subsequent contacts and as an audit trail.

Contact Management

CRM. Customer Relationship Management. The strategy of identifying customer needs, improving customer interactions, and customizing contacts, sales approaches, and automation to provide optimum service to each type of customer to maximize the bottom line

CRM

Cross-Selling. The technique used by telephone representatives to sell an additional product or service while engaged in a customer contact.

Cross-Selling

CTI (Computer Telephony Integration). The linking of the computer in the ACD system to the computer which houses the company's database to permit faster and more efficient handling of calls. Screen pop is a function of CTI which can direct the data screen

CTI (Computer Telephony Integration)

Customer Service Representative. A teleservice representative who handles customer calls and contacts including account inquiries, complaints, or support calls.

Customer Service Representative

Data Directed Call Routing. A capability whereby an ACD can automatically process calls based on data provided by a database of information resident in a separate data system. For example, a caller inputs an account number via touch-tone phone. The number

Data Directed Call Routing

Data Mart. A small, single subject warehouse used by individual groups of users.

Data Mart

Data Mining. The automatic detection of trends and associations contained in a set of customer data.

Data Mining

Data Warehouse. Collection of physical data stores designed to present an historical perspective of events or transactions that occur in an enterprise.

Data Warehouse

Database. Collection of data structured and organized in a disciplined fashion for quick and easy access to information of interest.

Database

Day Of Week Routing. The routing of calls to different destinations based on time of day. Generally used to route calls to alternate sites or automated systems on weekend days or holidays when agents may not be available at traditional destination.

Day Of Week Routing

Delay Announcements. Recorded announcements played to holding callers containing information and requesting their patience in waiting for an agent.

Delay Announcements

Delay Or Queue Time. The time callers remain in queue waiting for an agent to become free. May include the time listening to the delay announcements, but does not include the time spent going through an automated attendant menu system selecting choices th

Delay Or Queue Time

Desktop Application. Computer software programs used to accomplish a variety of tasks. Word processors, spreadsheets, database, contact management and graphics programs are all examples of desktop applications

Desktop Application

DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service). DNIS is a feature of 800 and 900 lines that provides the number the caller dialed to the receiving switch. Using DNIS capabilities, one trunk group can be used to serve multiple applications. The DNIS number ca

DNIS (Dialed Number Identification Service)

Double Jack. The act of plugging two headsets into one telephone set or workstation for the purpose of two persons listening to the same contact.

Double Jack

DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi Frequency). A method of signaling a desired telephone number by sending tones on a telephone line. Often referred to as touch-tone.

DTMF (Dual-Tone Multi Frequency)

E-Mail (Electronic Mail). The transmission, electronically, of letters, memos and messages from one computer to another.

E-Mail (Electronic Mail)

Economies Of Scale. The principle of gaining better efficiencies through larger group sizes. For example, twice as many calls does not require twice as many staff or trunks to handle because of inherent efficiencies of larger offered call loads and larger

Economies Of Scale

Erlang Models. A set of traffic engineering techniques utilized to determine numbers of facilities required in various telecommunications scenarios. Developed by Danish mathematician A.K.Erlang in early 1900s. Erlang B is used to determine required facili

Erlang Models

Erlang. A measurement of telecommunication traffic usage. One Erlang equals 3600 seconds of usage in a one hour period of time.

Erlang

Fax / Fax On Demand. Facsimile transmission is the process through which documents are scanned, digitally encoded, transmitted, and decoded for printing on the other end. Fax on demand is a system by which callers can request documents or information thro

Fax / Fax On Demand

FTE (Full-Time Equivalent). Full-time equivalent person, equal to the number of total scheduled person hours divided by the number of hours per week which constitute a full-time person (e.g., 40 hours, or 35 hours). FTE may consist of several part-time in

FTE (Full-Time Equivalent)

Gate. An ACD routing division that allows contacts arriving on specific telephone trunks or certain transaction types to be answered by specific groups of employees. Also referred to as split or group.

Gate

Grade Of Service. The definition of service on telecommunications transmission facilities. Grade of service is typically defined as a "P" factor - the probability of encountering a busy signal on a trunk or group of trunks. For example, a P01 grade of ser

Grade Of Service

Handle Time. The combination of conversation time and after call work time.

Handle Time

Handled Call. A call that is answered by an employee as opposed to being blocked or abandoned.

Handled Call

Help Desk. A call center typically set up to handle calls in support of a product or service. Used most often to describe the customer support operation of computer software or hardware suppliers.

Help Desk

Hit Rate. The number of connected contacts as a percentage of the number of attempts.

Hit Rate

Home Agent. An agent that works from home or someplace else other than the actual contact center location.

Home Agent

Integrated Voice Response (IVR). See Voice Response.

Integrated Voice Response (IVR)

Interflow. Calls that flow out of the ACD to another site, a voice mail system, or telephone number that is not part of the ACD environment. When an ACD group cannot handle all the calls coming in, the call can be manually or automatically inter-flowed to

Interflow

Intraflow/Overflow. Calls that flow between agent groups within an ACD. Typically, it is based in an effort to balance workload and minimize caller delay.

Intraflow/Overflow

Invisible Queue. A situation in which callers are waiting and have no way of knowing how long the waiting line is.

Invisible Queue

IVR (Interactive Voice Response). A device which automates retrieval and processing of information by phone using touch tone signaling or voice recognition to access information residing on a server to give a response. The response may be given by a recor

IVR (Interactive Voice Response)

Key Performance Indicator (KPI). The most critical measures of performance in any organization, typically productivity measures.

Key Performance Indicator (KPI)

Key Telephone System. An arrangement of key telephone sets and associated circuitry located on a customer's premise that permits more than one telephone line to be terminated on one telephone instrument

Key Telephone System

KSA. Knowledge, skills, and attributes. The overall make-up of an employee from an educational/life experience background, specific skills and capabilities, and personality traits and attributes that may indicate potential success in a particular position

KSA

LDQ (Longest Delay In Queue). The longest time a caller waited in queue prior to being handled. Represents the worst case during the measurement period. Longest delay to abandon measures the worst case for a caller who was not handled

LDQ (Longest Delay In Queue)

Load Balancing. The process of balancing contacts between multiple sites, queues, or agent groups.

Load Balancing

Look Ahead Routing/Queuing. The capability of a system to "look ahead" to evaluate the availability/condition of a trunk group or agent group before routing or overflowing a contact there.

Look Ahead Routing/Queuing

Make Busy. The process of setting a trunk or trunk grup to return a busy tnoe to callers or make other communication paths or equipment unavailable. This technique can be used to downsize the number of incoming contacts to understaffed groups.

Make Busy

MBWA (Management By Walking Around). The common practice in contact centers of supervisors/managers physically walking through the center to observe contact handling and overall performance.

MBWA (Management By Walking Around)

Monitoring. The practice of listening to agents' telephone calls to assess the quality with which the call is handled. Also called service observation. May be silent, announced, side-by-side, or recorded for later review.

Monitoring

Next Available Agent. The practice of routing the first contact in queue to the first available agent, maintaining an equitable workload among agents. If no queue exists, contacts are routing the agent idle the longest.

Next Available Agent

Non-Contact. An attempted contact that results in something other than a live answer (busy signal, no answer, automated answer, etc.)

Non-Contact

Nuisance Call. The situation that occurs when a live contact is made with a potential customer, but no live agent is available to match up with the call, resulting in dead air space to the customer.

Nuisance Call

Occupancy. Generally a percent of logged in time that an agent spends in active contact handling (i.e., on incoming calls, in wrap up, on outbound calls).

Occupancy

Off-Peak. Periods of time other than the call center's busiest periods. Off-peak times are used to accomplish non-phone work in most centers. Term also used to refer to discount time periods by telecommunications carriers.

Off-Peak

Offered Call. A call that is received by the ACD. Offered calls are then either answered by a resource (handled) or abandoned.

Offered Call

Outsourcing. Contracting with an outside company to handle some or all contacts with customers.

Outsourcing

Overflow. Contacts that route from one place to another group or site. Intraflow is the term used to describe the routing of contacts to another group within the same ACD, while interflow refers to routing a contact from one ACD to another site.

Overflow

Pacing Algorithm. A set of instructions used by an automated outbound dialer to determine when to initiate a call attempt. System can speed up the dialing speed when too many idle agents are detected, or slow down the pace if too many live answers are una

Pacing Algorithm

PBX. Private branch exchange. A private telephone exchange located on the user's premises and connected to the public network via trunks. (Sometimes called PABX where the A stands for "automatic.")

PBX

Peak Traffic. The highest volume load of traffic offered to a telecommunications system.

Peak Traffic

Percent Allocation. A contact routing strategy used by multi-site call center operations. Contacts in the network are routed to various sites based on user-defined percentages.

Percent Allocation

Predictive Dialer. A device used to automate the method of making outbound calls and directing them to an agent when a live person answers. Predictive dialing screens out other responses such as answering machines, busy signals or operator intercepts and

Predictive Dialer

Predictive Hang-Up. A call attempt initiated at a time when no agent will be available if a call is connected. The call attempt is aborted during the progress and before the customer answers.

Predictive Hang-Up

Preview Dialer. A device that presents the account information and phone number on the screen to allow the agent to "preview" the information before instructing the dialer to dial (or not dial) the call.

Preview Dialer

Progressive Dialer. A device that presents the account information and phone number on the screen after the number is dialed. This dialer is more automated than a preview dialer but less automated than a predictive dialer.

Progressive Dialer

PSN (Public Switched Network). The public telephone network which provides the capability of connecting any two telephones.

PSN (Public Switched Network)

Queue. The "waiting line" for delayed calls. A queue holds the call until an agent is available.

Queue

Random Call Arrivals. The normal way in which calls arrive in a call center. In statistical terms, the Variance to Mean Ration equals 1.

Random Call Arrivals

Real-Time Adherence. Measurement of how closely agents stick to their planned work schedule. Real-time statistics are available from the ACD to show the current state of any agent; these states can be compared to agent's schedule to determine adherence at

Real-Time Adherence

Recorded Announcement. An announcement heard by callers while waiting in queue. May provide general information about products or services, remind callers what information to have ready, or provide estimate of wait time and a better time to call back.

Recorded Announcement

ReDial. The act of dialing a telephone number for a second, third, etc. time after the initial attempt.

ReDial

Remote Agent. An agent physically located outside the contact center. These agents are usually connected to the center on an as-needed or scheduled basis to supply additional answering capability. The agent's equipment is connected to the center using tel

Remote Agent

Response Time. In a data system, the elapsed time between the end of transmission of an inquiry message and the beginning of the receipt of the response message measured at the inquiry originating station.

Response Time

Ring Delay (Delay Before Answer). A setting that can be made on the ACD-PBX that adjusts the number of rings before the system automatically answers the call. When calculating trunk-holding time this delay time must be included for a true total trunk hold

Ring Delay (Delay Before Answer)

Schedule Exception. Any activity not planned in an employee's work schedule, including meetings, training sessions, unscheduled breaks, absenteeism.

Schedule Exception

Schedule. A record that specifies when an employee is supposed be on duty to handle contacts. The complete definition of a schedule is the days of week worked, start time, break times and durations (as well as paid/unpaid status), and stop time.

Schedule

Scheduled Callback. A redial established for a specific time in the future

Scheduled Callback

Screen Monitoring. An automated monitoring system capability that allows a supervisor/manager to simultaneously see an agent's screen activity.

Screen Monitoring

Screen Pop. Any technology, including IVR, ANI, or CTI, that presents corresponding data on the computer screen simultaneously with the incoming call.

Screen Pop

Script. The written words and logic to be followed in the handling of a contact that will assist the agent in maintaining focus on the content of the contact

Script

Service Level. Speed of answer goals that are often expressed as the speed of answer to be attained or as some percentage of calls to be answered within some number of seconds (e.g., 80 percent of call answered within 30 seconds).

Service Level

Service Quality. A measure of how well a call is handled, including such measures as consistency and friendliness of greeting, and ability to handle call to completion.

Service Quality

Silent Monitoring. A process that permits a supervisor to listen to both sides of a conversation including an agent and a caller. Used for determining training needs and performance quality. Neither agent nor caller is aware that the monitoring is taking

Silent Monitoring

Skill Based Routing. A method of routing calls in which the call is routed to the person best able to meet that caller's needs, rather than simply routing to the first available or longest idle agent.

Skill Based Routing

Speech Recognition. The capability of a voice processing system to recognize and translate human voice signals into digital signals a computer system can understand. Includes both speaker dependent and speaker independent systems, and may work through dis

Speech Recognition

Split. An ACD routing division that allows calls arriving on specific trunks or calls of certain transaction types to be answered by specific groups of employees. (Also referred to as gate or group).

Split

Supervisor. Usually, the person who has first-line responsibility for the management of a group of agents. Often has a special telephone or computer terminal for monitoring agents and the system performance.

Supervisor

Talk Time. The elapsed time from when an agent answers a call until the agent disconnects.

Talk Time

Telecommuting. Use of a telephone and/or computer system in the home that allows an employee perform job duties and to communicate with the office without actually traveling to and from work.

Telecommuting

Teleconferencing. A conference between persons remote from one another but linked by a telecommunications system.

Teleconferencing

Toll Free. A service that enables customers to place calls to an organization without incurring a long-distance charge. Numbers include 800 and 888 dialing codes.

Toll Free

Touch Tone. See Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF).

Touch Tone

Traffic Engineering. The art and science of designing facilities and resources to meet user requirements

Traffic Engineering

Traffic Study. A study to determine the levels of traffic that a system is presently handling. It consists of a count of contacts classified by types (incoming, outgoing, local, long distance,). The data obtained is used to forecast future traffic, which,

Traffic Study

Trunk Group. Several trunks provided as a group by the local telephone company or other carrier. Generally, all trunks in the group will be in use before a busy signal is returned to the caller.

Trunk Group

Trunk Hold Time. The total length of time that a trunk is occupied by a particular call, from the moment the ringing is detected by the ACD to the moment the call is disconnected.

Trunk Hold Time

Trunk. A single transmission channel between two points, both of which are either switching centers or nodes, or both.

Trunk

TSF (Telephone Service Factor). The Telephone Service Factor is the percent of calls answered in a defined number of seconds. The calculation for TSF may vary depending on equipment manufacturer. The TSF can be compared to the desired service level to det

TSF (Telephone Service Factor)

UCD (Uniform Call Distributor). A device for distributing many incoming calls uniformly among a group of agents. Generally less intelligent and less costly than an ACD. A UCD will distribute calls following a predetermined logic, for example "top down" or

UCD (Uniform Call Distributor)

Unavailable Time. The amount of time the agent is not ready to accept inbound or place outbound contacts. Unavailable time may include breaks, lunches, auxiliary time for processing administrative work, etc.

Unavailable Time

Universal Agent. An agent that can handle multiple types of contacts.

Universal Agent

Virtual Call Center. The concept of having network and agent resources that are located at multiple physical sites perform as if all resources were located at a single site.

Virtual Call Center

Voice Identification. A technology used to verify the identity of a person accessing a system by comparing spoken passwords with prerecorded computerized voice patterns.

Voice Identification

Voice Processing. The technology that allows computers to speak, store human voices, and react to human speech.

Voice Processing

Voice Recognition System. A telephone system using speech recognition to activate equipment that dials telephone numbers automatically. May be speaker-dependent or independent.

Voice Recognition System

Voice Response Unit. (VRU) Also referred to as IVR (Interactive Voice Response Unit). A device which automates retrieval and processing of information by phone using touch tone signaling or voice recognition to access information residing on a computer t

(VRU) Voice Response Unit

Workforce Management System. A software system that automates the tasks of forecasting calls, determining staff requirements, creating staff schedules, and tracking performance of agents and overall call center.

Workforce Management System

Workforce Management. The art and science of having the right number of agents, at the right times, to answer an accurately forecasted volume of incoming calls at the service level standard set by the call center.

Workforce Management

Workload. For agents, the combination of total conversation (talk) time and after-call work time. For trunks, the combination of ring time, delay time, and conversation time.

Workload

Wrap-Up Time. The time required by an ACD agent after a conversation is ended, to complete work that is directly associated with the calls just completed. Does not include time for any other activities such as meetings, breaks, correspondence, etc.

Wrap-Up Time

Zip Tone. A tone heard before a call arrives, also called a zip tone. Beep tones are sometimes used to announce that a call is being monitored.

Zip Tone