Glossary

The process of organizing and distributing the flow of incoming and outgoing calls, email's, chats and other interactions, to a set of customer service agents. Call blending can be achieved either manually or automatically through specialized systems that route contacts to agents capable of handling them.

AKA contact center. A call center is a centralized department or operation that incorporates technical, physical and human resources, for the purpose of managing large volumes of calls, emails, chats and other communication platforms, for a company or business, in order to provide services, support, and assistance to customers. Customers are usually handled by brand specialists, customer service agents or representatives (CSR).

Call center attrition AKA"employee turnover"is the rate at which employees or customer service agents leave the workforce at a call center.

Statistical methods and techniques based on data analytics, that precisely forecast or predict contact volume. The expected volume is in turn used to estimate and calculate the number of required customer service agents and optimize operator deployment.

Refers to a strategic business practice of hiring an external company or third party supplier to manage customer contacts. The outsourced call center may be an offshore, onshore or virtual call center, depending on the needs of the hiring company. The benefits of outsourcing includes, cost advantages, increased efficiency, staffing flexibility and improved focus on core business activities.

Refers to accepted levels or standards of service in a call center. The term service levels refer to a measurable number or percentage of calls answered within a given time period or threshold. It simply reveals how quickly, customer calls are answered by support agents. For example, an 80/20 service level refers to a target of 80% of incoming calls being answered within 20 seconds.

The ability to swiftly and politely guide the flow of a customer service call, usually by asking questions.

Refers to the cause or reason for which customers contact customer support services, through voice calls, emails or any of the various chat support channels.

An automatic call distribution (ACD) function that automatically routes calls to a customer service agent who is available and ready to receive customer calls.

AKA call opening, is a salutation to the customer at the start of the call with a customer service agent or representative (CSR). The call opening script may include a welcome message, the company's name, brief information about the company, the agent's name, or other important information.

A carefully designed script or template that customer service agents use as a guide to provide customers with company-approved responses, accurate answers and ensure the call flows naturally.

Usually conveyed as an average, call length is the duration of time it takes to process one customer interaction.

Refers to restricting of the number of incoming callers that are able to get through the switch at one time. This may be applied when there is a surge in incoming calls that exceed the planned forecast. The caller may hear a busy tone during this time.

This is a salutation to the customer at the start of the call with a customer service agent or representative (CSR). The call opening script may include a welcome message, the company's name, brief information about the company, the agent's name, or other important information.

Call recording is an automated interactive voice response (IVR) feature that enables sorting of data, and recording phone interactions, for the purpose of documenting transactions, assessing call quality, facilitating agent training and measuring customer experience, all in an effort to provide an excellent customer service experience.

Usually conducted by call center supervisors or a quality assurance team (QA), call review assessment is done to evaluate individual customer service agents' call managing capabilities and performances.

A strategy or plan that a customer service agent adopts in handling and managing a customer call in order to achieve the desired outcome of the call.

Often described as call duration. Call time simply refers to the amount of time it takes a customer service agent to complete a call. See average handle time.

A telecommunication technique that involves relocating incoming calls to a specific agent or department. Call transfer can be divided into two broad categories - unannounced transfers (cold transfers), and announced transfers (warm transfers).

Refers to an interactive voice response (IVR) feature, that allows customers to choose from a set of self service options, by using the telephone keypad to input a specific digit to navigate a directory.

The caller ID feature allows customer service agents to see the caller's phone number and information, which allows them to identify who is trying to contact them. Caller IDs are usually displayed on the agent's desktop or on a separate screen.

Calling Line Identity (CLI), is fundamentally a caller ID, that displays a caller's information on the agent's desktop or on a separate screen, see automatic number identification.

Refers to a call center metric that determines the number of incoming calls answered from the queue before being dropped.

Refers to the number of incoming calls in queue, that are received by the automatic call distribution (ACD), but not yet transferred to an available customer service agent.

Refers to the number of incoming calls received by a call center. It is an indicator of the number of agents required to manage the call volume.

A metric calculated by dividing the number of calls managed by the total number of agents handling the calls over a specific period of time.

Refers to a business or company that operates a specific telecommunications network, and can include both domestic and international communication service providers.

Case management is a collaborative process that covers all aspects of customer relationship management (CRM), which begins from the initial contact interaction until the last communication is completed and customer satisfaction is achieved.

See centum call seconds.

A central office can refer to either a switching center of a telephone company or a part of telephone switch used in any telephone company. The local central office receives calls from the local area and routes them either locally or through an inter-exchange carrier (IXC). It also receives call requests on the receiving end through IXC.

AKA the hundred call second, it is a telecommunications traffic density unit. 1 hour = 1 Erlang = 60 minutes = 36 CCS.