Glossary

Helpful A-Z glossary listing key terms, acronyms and their definitions.

O

Occupancy

A metric that indicates the percentage of time a customer service agent is available to handle incoming calls, emails, chats, SMS or other tasks, and the percentage of time they remain idle, waiting for the next customer interaction. Occupancy is determined by dividing total workload hours by total staff hours.

Offered Call

Refers to the calls received by an automatic call distributor (ACD), and includes both answered and abandoned calls. Offered calls can be calculated in a number of ways, such as by considering incoming calls received at the switch level before the call reaches a recorded message, or by considering incoming calls received after it reaches a recorded message.

Off-Peak

Off-peak represents the time period when a call center is not at its busiest. Companies usually utilize off-peak times for agent training programs, workshops, and team building exercises. Both peak and off-peak times need to be considered in order to maintain the required staffing level.

Omnichannel

Refers to cross-channel or multi-channel strategies that help businesses enhance customer experience, and promote brand loyalty, through the delivery of customer services via multiple communication channels such as telephone, emails, chat, text messages, social media platforms, and more.

Onboarding

Refers to the process of integrating new employees into a company and its culture, by helping employees understand their new position and job requirements, as well as familiarizing them with office facilities and company policies. Onboarding is a series of events designed to help new employees understand how things work in their new work environment, get acquainted with the company culture, and feel welcomed and valued as a part of the team.

Online Review Management

Online review management refers to managing and responding to online reviews and comments posted by customers, in order to protect the company's image and reputation, it can also help potential customers in making the right purchasing decision.

Open Ticket

A customer query that is awaiting completion. The tickets remain open till the issue is resolved.

Outbound

Refers to outgoing calls, emails, or chats, made by customer service agents, in order to contact customers or prospective clients.

Outsourced Call Center

Outsourced call center 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.

Outsourced Contact Center

Outsourced contact center 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.

Outsourcing

Refers to the strategic business practice of contracting some, or all call center operations, to an external third party business or company.

Outsourcing Medical Call Center

Medical call center outsourcing or medical contact center, refers to the strategic business practice of contracting an external health care company to manage client contacts. An outsourced medical contact center may be in-house, external, or virtual, 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.

Overflow

Incoming calls that are routed from one agent group to another, due to a surge in incoming call volume and lack of call handling capacity. This is done in order to help in answering incoming calls without any delay. See interflow and intraflow.