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37 articles on terms from the CallCenterAdvisor library.
37 articles
Terms
Abandoned calls are calls that were answered by the phone system (such as the ACD) but never reached a call center agent because the caller either hung up (usually due to a long wait), the caller was interrupted, or the caller realized he/she misdialed and arrived at the wrong number. A high number of abandoned calls can…
Terms
The term “abandonment rate” relates to how many outbound autodialed or predictive dial calls are abandoned in relation to the number of calls that are answered by customers. The abandonment rate is the rate at which calls are abandoned in relation to the number of calls that are answered by customers. For example, if a…
Terms
The term “adherence” or “adherence to schedule” is a contact center term that refers to how well agents adhere to their schedules. Adherence as a metric can include both how much time contact center agents were available to take calls during their shifts, including the time spent handling calls and the time spent waiting for…
Terms
The term “After Call Work Time” (aka “ACW”) is the amount of time taken by a call center agent after hanging up a call. The After Call Work Time is the time it takes the agent to complete the record of that call. After call work time may be used to update a customer record,…
Terms
The term “ANI” refers to “automatic number identification”, a feature of telephone networks which allows the origination phone number to be identified on toll calls. ANI’s are traditionally used for billing purposes (to tally up the amount of minutes of usage a particular phone number should be billed for in a given period of time).…
Terms
An automatic telephone dialing system (or “ATDS”) is a special type of dialing system that has been highly regulated by the TCPA. To qualify as an “automatic telephone dialing system,” a device must have the capacity either to store a telephone number using a random or sequential generator or to produce a telephone number using…
Terms
An avatar autodialer is a special type of autodialer that uses special soundboard technology where voice snippets are manipulated by a human operator to create realistic sounding dialog. Avatar autodialers are often used when the human operator has an accent or is not fluent in the language of the person called. A U.S. court described this technology…
Terms
The Average Call Value (or “ACV”) is determined by the total revenue divided by the total number of calls. Average Call Value is particularly relevant in sales call centers where the result of a successful call is a sale of some product or service having a known value. In a BPO or call center for hire,…
Terms
The Average Handle Time (or “AHT”) refers to the average amount of time that a call lasts. Typically measured from the time a call arrives at a phone switch (such as an automated call distributor) to the time that the call is dispositioned by the call center agent. For outbound calls, the AHT is generally measured from…
Terms
The term “average speed of answer” (also known as “ASA”) refers to the average time it takes to answer an inbound call. The formula for average speed of answer is the total delay divided by the total number of calls. The total delay is typically measured from the time the inbound call hits (or arrives…
Terms
Call origination is a telecommunications term and generally refers to an inbound call or to the party making a call (the “call originator”). Call origination is the opposite side of call termination, and includes the activities related to the call set-up, switching and connection. It is important for a call center to understand the meaning…
Terms
Call pacing is an algorithm that determines how fast (or at what “pace”) a predictive dialer makes outbound calls. A predictive pacing algorithm generally tries to predict how many customers to call. The number of customers to call is based on variables such as how many agents are available, how long calls take (to allow…
Terms
A call pop (also known as a “screen pop”) is a way for a call center to present information about a call to an agent in conjunction with the arrival of an inbound call. A call pop can also be used to present a script or a CRM record to the call center agent. Call…
Terms
Call quality has a subjective component (how did the call quality seem to the agent or to the customer?) as well as an objective component (how well did the measured call attributes score?) The objective aspect of call quality is typically measured using the mean opinion score (“MOS” score). MOS scores have been used to…
Terms
Call termination is a telecommunications term and generally refers to an outbound call or to the party receiving a call (the “call terminator”). Call termination is the opposite side of call origination, and includes the activities related to the call set-up, switching and connection. It is important for a call center to understand the meaning…
Terms
CCaaS means “contact center as a service” or “call center as a service”. CCaaS platforms are cloud-hosted contact center platforms which can be delivered to contact centers over the Internet (as a service). CCaaS implementations allow call centers to quickly stand up and manage highly sophisticated customer service and sales call centers without the expense…
Terms
A CRM (or “customer relationship management”) is a software application that holds the points of data on an organization’s customers, sales, leads and past transactions. CRM’s are often integrated with other systems to improve efficiency. CRMs can be used by different departments within the organization. For example, sales teams use it to identify new leads…
Terms
A “data dip” is a database lookup that is performed when an inbound phone call arrives at an ACD. Contact centers use data dips to look up information associated with the caller in order to better handle the call. Data dips generally use information associated with the phone number of the caller (the DNIS of…
Terms
Disposition codes (sometimes called “dispo codes“) are short codes or names that are used by call center agents (or call center software) to “disposition” a call. Put more simply — dispo codes are used as shorthand to keep track of what happened on a call. Think about it — many call centers receive or make…
Terms
DNIS is an acronym for “Dialed Number Identification Service”. A DNIS is a service offered by telcos which allows the identification of the phone number that a caller dialed. For example, if you are calling a customer service call center from your home phone, the DNIS service allows the call center to see which number…
Terms
Everyone hates spam calls. The telephone network providers have banded together to create the “do not originate list“, which is essentially a blacklist that blocks some phone numbers from being used as outbound calls. Why is the do not originate list needed? Have you ever received a phone call where the caller ID claims the…
Terms
eGain is an award-winning, customer-focused contact center solutions provider that helps contact professionals and call centers deliver exceptional customer service that results in a competitive edge. The company offers the industry’s all-inclusive suite of contact center solutions, including customer self-service applications, interactive voice response systems, unified communications (UC) and multichannel messaging solutions, call center CRMs,…
Terms
Erlang is a unit that is used in telephony to measure “load” (or the volume of calls or chats) on a system (such as a call center ACD). Erlang is also a programming language developed by the telephone services provider Ericsson. For the purposes of our definition of Erlang, we will be referring to the…
Terms
First call resolution (also known as “FCR“) is an important call center metric that refers to how well the call center is doing in resolving customer issues on the first call. The same metric is used for other types of interactions that contact centers may handle (such as email interactions, chat interactions, etc.). The bottom…
Terms
Think of a gold collar worker as someone that has a job that requires specific qualifications, such as education and skills. A “gold collar worker” is not a person who works with jewelry made out of gold – although I’m sure there are a few of those out there – rather, it’s a term used…
Terms
Least cost routing is a term that is used to describe how phone calls are routed by phone networks or carriers to get the lowest cost for that specific phone call. Why use least cost routing? The telephone networks are made up of thousands of different routes, carriers and rate centers. A phone call’s path…
Terms
A “MOS” score refers to a “Mean Opinion Score”, and is a call center term that refers to a scoring system that is used to measure the quality of a voice communication (such as a phone call between a call center agent and a customer). Simple Explanation of MOS Scores In simple terms, a high…
Terms
The call center term “occupancy” is the percentage of time call center agents spend handling incoming calls or completing other work associated with those calls, compared to the total logged-in time. “Occupancy” may also be used to refer to other “productive” time, such as handling chats, emails, etc. Occupancy is a measure of the utilization…
Terms
The U.S. Federal Communication Commission (FCC) launched the reassigned numbers database (RND) in November 2021. The purpose of the database is to reduce the number of spam calls that a consumer receives that were intended for a prior holder of a phone number. Introduction to the reassigned number database Assume you just got a new…
Terms
Everyone hates spam calls – even the telephone industry. The CTIA (an organization representing the U.S. wireless telephone industry) has established a service called “Registered Caller” to combat spam calls. What is “registered caller”? Registered Caller is a centralized phone number database and registry that lets legitimate callers register their phone numbers to help them…
Terms
The call center term “service level” generally refers to a percentage of time that contacts are answered within a certain period of time. For example, if the service level objective is 30 seconds, then the 30-second “service level” will be the percentage of calls that were answered within 30 seconds. The service level time is…
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In the U.S., the Telemarketing Sales Rule (TSR) Safe Harbor establishes a 3% Call Abandonment Rate as a safe harbor for telemarketers. Under the TSR, it is illegal for telemarketers to “abandon” any outbound call initiated using an autodialer. Per the rule, an “abandoned call” is one that does not connect the consumer to a sales representative…
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The U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is the primary federal law governing the regulation of telephone solicitations. The TCPA regulates telephone solicitations. Therefore, any person, business, or entity that conducts telephone solicitations should comply with the TCPA. The TCPA covers voice calls, faxes, VoIP calls, and text messages. The text of the law itself…
Terms
Text-to-speech processing is a form of speech processing that is used to convert words into spoken language. TTS is used in a wide variety of applications including assistive processing for the blind as well as many call center applications. Text to speech processing is commonly built into many modern call center ACDs. Text to speech…
Terms
UCaaS is an acronym for “unified communications as a service”. UCaaS platforms are cloud delivered communications platforms that allow users (such as small, medium or large businesses) to subscribe to communications services rather than purchase or otherwise procure on premise, dedicated services. UCaaS is different than CCaaS in that UCaaS refers to “unified” communications –…
Terms
For call center professionals (especially those involved in outbound dialing campaigns), it’s important to understand the different terms and features associated with caller ID. We’ll explore the differences between the terms “unknown caller” and “no caller ID,” as well as their implications for both callers and recipients of calls. Introduction Caller ID is a feature…
Terms
WFH refers to “work from home”. WFH call centers were the exception rather than the rule prior to 2019. When COVID arrived, contact center professionals were forced to quickly move their call center agents to a work from home model. Luckily, the move to WFH was made easier by the prevalence of CCaaS platforms. These…