Glossary
ABANDONED CALLS Calls answered by equipment but never reaching a telephone
specialist because the caller hung up (usually due to a long wait), caller
interruption, or recognition of a misdialed call.
AFTER CALL WORK (ACW) TIME Time required by a telephone specialist after
a call to complete the record of that call and to arrange for fulfillment
implementation. This work might be completing an order form or complaint
form and sending it to the appropriate department.
AGENT A general term for someone who handles telephone calls in a call
center. Other common names for the same job include, but are not limited
to: operator, attendant, representative, customer service representative,
customer support representative, telephone sales representative, technical
support representative, telephone salesperson, and telemarketer.
AUTOMATIC CALL DISTRIBUTION (ACD) Incorporates both functional and informational
advantages for contact center managers, such as automatic and equitable
distribution of incoming calls, and queuing of calls. It also provides
real time management information to determine the operational efficiency
and effectiveness and to determine the number of specialists and network
service lines necessary for the center to achieve efficiency and effectiveness
objectives.
AUTOMATIC NUMBER IDENTIFICATION (ANI) A term used in the United States
and Canada. The digits that arrive at the same time as a telephone call
that tell the telephone number of the person calling. In general, ANI is
the service provided by a long distance service.
ANI has big benefits for call centers. By gathering the digits sent, and
doing a database lookup, agents can receive a screen of information on
the caller along with the voice call. Centers report this saves them up
to 20 seconds per call, since the agent doesn't have to ask for and enter
a name or account number, then wait for the database to respond during
the call. Those 30 seconds per call have a significant impact on staffing
needs and telephone service charges. ANI can also serve as a security ID
for various applications.
AVAILABILITY The amount of time an agent or agent group is available to
receive calls. The amount of time they are logged-in, at their desks, but
not on a call. A statistic tracked by some call center management software
programs. A similar term is also used for computers or telephone systems
for the time they are turned on and available for processing calls or transactions.
AVERAGE CALL DURATION The amount of time the average call lasts. Calculated
by dividing the total number of minutes of conversation by the number of
conversations.
AVERAGE HANDLE TIME (AHT) An Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) statistic
that tells how long, on average, an agent spends on each call. ACDs calculate
this differently. Some include after call work time, some don't.
AVERAGE TALK TIME (ATT) An Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) statistic.
The average amount of time the agent spends talking to the caller. Usually
timed from when the call arrives at the agent station to the time it is
released by the agent.
AVERAGE WAIT TIME The length of time a caller must spend on hold before
an ACD can find an available agent to take the call. Most ACDs will keep
track of this statistic. Obviously, the shorter the time the better, especially
if your company is paying for the call (such as an 800 or 888 call). Minute
reductions in the average wait time can add up to huge savings in toll-free
service usage when multiplied by thousands of calls.
BLOCKED CALLS Calls that are not completed because a customer receives
a busy signal. Go to: BLOCKING.
BLOCKING When a telephone call cannot be completed it is said that the
call is "blocked." Blocked calls are different from calls that
are not completed because the called number is busy. This is because numbers
that are busy are not the fault of the telephone switching and transmission
network.
BROADCAST FAX A feature of many fax machines and fax boards that lets the
user send the text of a single fax to a large number of recipients using
a master list of names and numbers. It is useful for marketing, public
relations, and for distributing information to salespeople in the field.
Some fax service companies let subscribers keep lists on file or upload
them, and the fax text, via modem.
BUSY In use. "Off-hook." There are slow busies and fast busies.
Slow busies are when the phone at the other end is busy or off-hook. You
hear the buzz 60 times a minute. Fast busies (120 times a minute) occur
when the network is congested with too many calls.
BUSY HOUR The hour of the day during which a call center handles the most
call traffic. Knowing when a center's busy hour occurs (and what the call
volume is when it occurs) is vital for staff scheduling, traffic engineering,
and equipment purchases.
The idea is if you create enough capacity to carry that "busy hour" traffic,
you will be able to carry all other traffic. In actuality, one never designs
capacity sufficient to carry 100% of the busy hour traffic. That would
be too expensive. So, the argument then comes down to, "What percentage
of my peak busy or busy hour calls am I prepared to block?" This percentage
might be as low as half of one percent or as high as 10%. Typically, it's
between 2% and 5%, depending on the business and the cost to that business
- in lost sales, etc. - of blocking calls.
CALL A connection providing for a communications between two or more simultaneously
present users for the purpose of exchanging information.
CALL ABANDONS Also called ABANDONED CALLS. Call Abandons are calls that
are dropped by the calling party before their intended transaction is completed.
The call may be dropped at various points in the process (i.e., while on
hold, while dialing, etc.). The point in the call at which the call is
abandoned will have varying impacts on a telephone system. Many callers
will hang up as soon as they realize they've reached an automated system
and not a person. For systems that expend significant energy in setting
up to answer a call, a large percentage of call abandons can negatively
impact the call capacity of the system.
CALL ACCOUNTING SYSTEM An automated system for recording information about
telephone calls, organizing that information and upon being asked, preparing
reports - printed or to disk. The physical system itself consists of a
computer, a data storage medium, software, and some mechanical method of
attaching itself to a telephone system.
The information which it records (or “captures”) about telephone
calls typically includes the extension from which the call is coming; which
number it is calling (local or long distance); which circuit is used for
the call (AT&T, WATS, MCI, etc.); when the call started; how long the
call lasted; and for what purpose the call was made (which client? which
project?).
A call accounting system might also include information on incoming calls;
which trunk was used; where the call came from (if ANI or interactive voice
response was used); which extension took the call; if it was transferred
(and to where) and how long it took.
There are nine basic uses for call accounting systems in the call center:
- Controlling Telephone Abuse.
- Controlling Telephone Misuse.
- Allocating telephone calling
costs among departments and divisions.
- Sharing and resale of long
distance and local phone calls, as in a hotel/motel, hospital, shared condominium,
etc.
- Personnel evaluation and motivation.
- Network optimization. Two
fancy words for figuring which is the best combination of a PTT, MCI, AT&T,
Sprint (etc.) lines. And which is the best combination of all the various
services each offer.
- Phone system diagnostics.
Is the phone system working as well as it should? Are all the lines working?
- Long distance bill verification.
- Tracing calls.
CALL CENTER A place where calls are placed or received in high volume for
the purpose of communicating with customers, vendors, or employees. Typical
business processes supported include sales, marketing, customer service,
telemarketing, technical support, or other specialized business activity.
One early definition described a call center as a place of doing business
by phone that combined a centralized database with an automatic call distribution
system. That's close, but it's more than that, it is the integration of
automation and telephony into business processes to both optimize business
processes and provide better service to customers.
CALL DATA Call data refers to any information about a phone call that is
passed by a switch to an attached computer system. Call data is usually
used by the computer telephony application to process the call more intelligently.
Call data almost always includes what number dialed the call (ANI) and/or
what number was called. More complex call data links used for "PBX
integration" may also indicate why the call was presented (such as
forwarded-on-busy-busy), or tell what trunk the call is coming in on.
CALL MANAGEMENT Process of selecting, based on detailed information of
telephone activity and costs, the optimum mix of terminal equipment, network
services, and staffing to achieve maximum productivity and service from
a call center.
CALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS) This is the AT&T name for their inbound
call distribution management reporting package.
CALL PRIORITY A term for the value assigned to an incoming call, from highest
priority to lowest.
CALL PROCESSING The movement of a call to its intended point, through all
its automated twists and turns. Call processing is the set of instructions
that are used to deal with a call, and the act of dealing with the call.
You more often hear of a call processing system (read: switch, plus its
software) than the "process" itself. The act of call processing
is roughly equivalent to switching, except that call processing implies
that the connection is switched according to those pre-set instructions.
CALL RECORD Information about a call (extension or position, length, time
of-day, number dialed) recorded by a PBX or ACD. These records are the
basis of call center management software and telecommunications management
software systems.
CALL REPORTING In an outbound environment, detailed accounting of telemarketing
activity measured by agent, group of agents, campaign, region, or other
key factors. Similar reports are also important for keeping tabs on inbound
marketing. Good reporting capabilities are a critical feature for both
dialers and ACDs.
CALL ROUTING Literally, the list of choices a user sets up within an ACD
for where to send the incoming calls. You might define a path for calls
that last a certain amount of time, or define options - if a caller presses "O," send
the call to an operator, if a caller presses "1" send the caller
to technical support. The routing table will reflect the different campaigns
that are ongoing, enabling the ACD to send calls to the right agent groups
or departments. Within the ACD, you can use more sophisticated criteria
to direct the call, like skills calls that originate from a particular
country are sent to agents with certain language abilities. Parsing incoming
ANI or DNIS data for routing is increasingly important.
CALL VOLUME The number of calls that come into a call center in a given
period.
CALLER ID On an incoming phone call, the information you get that lets
you know where the call is coming from before you answer it - that is,
the telephone number of the person calling you. Caller ID is the consumer "brand
name" for the local phone company variety of this service. The calling
party's phone number is passed to your phone between the first and second
ring signaling an incoming call. The simplest Caller ID devices show you
the originating phone number of the incoming call. If you have the appropriate
software, though, you can match that phone number with a caller's name
(and other information straight from your database).
In fact, the more important variety of Caller ID (to call centers) is provided
by the long distance carriers in the form of ANI - automatic number identification,
chiefly on 800 calls. It delivers the calling party's telephone number,
which can then be looked up in your company's database.
CALLING NUMBER DISPLAY The screen on your phone (or attached peripheral
device) that shows you ANI or Caller ID data on incoming phone calls -
the phone number, or the name of who's calling.
CAPACITY The information carrying ability of a telecommunications facility.
What the "facility" is determines the measurement. You might
measure a data capacity in bits per second. You might measure a switch's
capacity in the maximum number of calls it can switch in 1 hour, or the
maximum number of calls it can keep in conversation simultaneously. You
might measure a coaxial cable's capacity in bandwidth.
CARRIER A company which provides communications circuits. Carriers are
split into "private" and "common." A private carrier
can refuse you service. A "common" carrier can't. Most of the
carriers in our industry - your local phone company, AT&T, MCI, Sprint,
etc. - are common carriers. Common carriers are regulated. Private carriers
are not.
CENTRAL OFFICE (CO) Telephone company facility where subscribers' lines
are joined to switching equipment for connecting other subscribers to each
other, locally and long distance. The term central office is also referred
to as public exchange.
COMPUTER TELEPHONY A term that describes the process of applying computer
intelligence to telecommunications devices, especially switches and phones.
The term covers many technologies, including computer-telephone integration
through the local area network, interactive voice processing, voice mail,
automated attendant, voice recognition, text-to-speech, fax, simultaneous
voice data, signal processing, video conferencing, predictive dialing,
audiotext, collaborative computing, and traditional telephone call switching.
COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION (CTI) A term for connecting a computer (single
workstation or file server on a local area network) to a telephone switch
and having the computer issue the switch commands to move calls around.
The classic application for CTI is in call centers. Example: A call comes
in. That call carries some form of caller ID or ANI. The switch "hears" the
calling number, strips it off, and sends it to the computer. The computer
does a lookup and sends back the switch instructions on what to do with
the call. It might send the call to a specialized agent or maybe just to
the agent the caller dealt with last time.
CONVERSATION TIME The time spent on a conversation from the time the person
at the other end picks up to the time of hang up. Conversation time plus
dialing, searching, and ringing time equal the time a circuit will be used
during a call.
COST-PER-CALL ANALYSIS A measure of the profitability of a call center,
often expressed in reports generated by ACDs. Cost-per-call takes into
account the cost of labor, phone service, and equipment reflected against
revenue generated. Ibis measure is used more and more as an alternative
to "performance measurement" that accounts more strictly for
the length of time spent on calls.
CUSTOMER SERVICE Provides, usually in response to a customer initiated
call, information such as locations of retail dealer product information,
technical support, complaint handling, order status, service information,
or emergency response.
DATABASE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM A computer program (or programs) that lets you
create, maintain, and access a database. Some popular database management
systems for PCs are dbase III and IV, Paradox, and Foxpro. There are other
database management systems for other types of computers. Don't confuse
the database (the actual information or data on your computer) with the
database management system (the software that controls it). A database
management system is called DBMS for short.
DIRECTORY ASSISTANCE Formerly known as "Information." DA is provided
by the local telephone company. In most states, the local phone company
charges for this service. Most local phone companies will give a caller
the person's address, as well as the person's phone number if the caller
asks for it. A caller can usually only get two numbers per phone call.
Directory assistance is an important resource for updated telephone lists
and skip tracing. (People often move within the same city or town.) Directory
assistance databases are now available online and on CD-ROM through major
list and list processing vendors. Using these products can be less expensive
and less time consuming than calling directory assistance for every two
numbers that need checked.
ELECTRONIC MAIL Process of sending messages electronically from one computer
terminal to another.
ETHERNET A local area network system that operates over twisted wire and
coaxial cable at up to 10 megabits per second.
EXCHANGE The first three digits of a local telephone number. All telephone
numbers with the same exchange are served by the same central office. With
the right software (or a very large list) you can find out a company's
location (city, state, etc.) if you know the area code and exchange.
FAX-ON-DEMAND A fax system that lets a caller select and retrieve documents
using a combination of IVR and fax technologies.
FAX MACHINE A device that sends or receives a copy (a "facsimile")
of printed material to or from a remote machine over standard phone lines.
FAX SERVER A computer with one or more fax boards installed and hooked
up to a local area network whose primary purpose is to act as a fax station
for all the users on the network. It sends faxes from any PC on the net,
as well as receives them and prints them out on a dedicated laser printer.
Many fax servers also include voice boards that add fax-on-demand capability
for people calling from the outside.
FULL-TIME EQUIVALENT (FTE) A way of measuring staff levels, especially
for budgets and scheduling. It simply means the number of staff-hours required
has been divided as though each person is working a full-time schedule.
It tells you what your staffing needs would be if your needs were covered
only by full-time agents.
HEADSET A telephone device that replaces the handset (or receiver). All
headsets consist of an ear piece and a microphone - but these elements
can be arranged in a variety of ways. Now made of plastic, headsets are
light and comfortable.
HOLD To temporarily leave a phone call without disconnecting it. You can
return to the call at any time, sometimes from other extensions. While
the terms on-hold and in queue are in many ways interchangeable, putting
a call on hold infers a passive state. It's already routed and waiting
to be activated again. When a call is in an ACD queue, many things are
happening to route the call to the next available agent. The call is active
and waiting to be routed.
HOLDING TIME The total time beginning from picking up the handset, dialing
a call, waiting for an answer, speaking on the phone, to hanging up and
replacing the handset in its cradle.
HOTLINE Customer service application that allows a customer to call a specified
number to express their concerns or to seek information.
IDLE Not busy. Used to describe a telephone or telephone agent in a call
center.
INQUIRY When a potential customer calls, writes, or comes to your office
and asks for information on your product or service.
INTEGRATED ACD/PBX A phone system with enhanced call routing features that
support the most complex of call center applications. They are particularly
attractive for sites requiring full integration with administrative business
processes or that need to be networked into the corporation’s communications
network. They also offer the opportunity for small centers to expand.
INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE (IVR) There are several ways to think about
interactive voice response. It is a system that is connected to a computer
system that lets you enter information from that system either through
a telephone keypad or the spoken word. It also may allow applications to
be processed in the IVR’s system off loading processing requirements
in the host computer.
LOCAL AREA NETWORK (LAN) A system connecting a set of computers and peripherals
over short distances. It allows users at multiple computers to use the
same files and share printers. A LAN will typically link devices in a single
building, but it can stretch as far as about 10 kilometers. Larger than
a LAN is a MAN (Metropolitan Area Network) and WAN (Wide Area Network),
which have different properties.
METROPOLITAN AREA NETWORK (MAN) A network that connects sites a maximum
of 50 kilometers apart at speeds of 1 to 200 megabits per second.
MULTIMEDIA The ability to use a variety of access methods to the call center,
including voice, Internet, or data and video.
MUSIC-ON-HOLD Background music heard when someone is put on hold, letting
them know they are still connected.
PBX/ACD A PBX with automatic call distributor (ACD) features. This arrangement
can work well for smaller through the largest of call centers. It's also
a great way to try out the idea of an ACD or call center. If your PBX has
this feature, use it. An ACD takes a lot of processing power. If your call
center grows too large (just how large will depend on your PBX and a host
of other things), the ACD feature can bog things down for the whole system.
Make sure that the system has a risk processor and a distributed architecture
to allow unimpaired growth.
PEAK HOUR When used with an automatic call distributor, the peak hour is
when the number of calls coming into your center are at their highest level.
ACDs track and report on calls by hour. Some allow information to be tracked
in either smaller or larger time increments.
PEAK LOAD A higher than average quantity of traffic. Peak load is usually
expressed as a 1-hour period, often the busiest hour of the busiest day
of the year. Go to: BUSY HOUR.
PEAK PERIODS Times when the number of calls coming into a call center is
at its highest level. You can adjust ACDs to respond to peaks by adding
more agents to busy agent groups if you use the MIS reports to track them,
or ACD forecasting software to predict when those peaks might occur.
PERIPHERAL EQUIPMENT Equipment not integral to, but working with, a phone
system. An example might be a printer or television screen on which calling
traffic statistics are displayed or a voice mail system. Lucent Technologies
once called PBX peripheral equipment "applications processors," because
they process specific applications.
PREDICTIVE DIALING A method of making outbound calls that uses advanced
software to estimate the correct number of calls to place, and the number
of agents that will be able to handle those calls.
PRIVATE BRANCH EXCHANGE (PBX) A PBX is an intelligent switching system,
capable of allowing users to dial out without operator assistance and often
to receive calls directly without operator assistance, which brings us
to the call center. When most people think of call centers, they think
of large rooms filled with people tied together by an ACD network and thousands
of lines. That's the popular picture, but it's not the whole picture. Small
call centers outnumber large ones. The fastest, easiest way to start a
call center at your business is to take the people who answer calls, take
orders, call customers, etc., and link them on a data network. Then, add
ACD features to your PBX (Go to: PBX/ACD) using one of many recently developed
software applications, and you can simulate the big-business look and feel
with small-business flexibility. Building call centers out of high performance
PBXs is one of the fastest growing segments of the call center market.
QUALITY OF SERVICE Sometimes used as a telephone-carrier equivalent to
SERVICE LEVEL. To a telephone carrier, it means a measure of the telephone
service quality provided to a subscriber.
QUEUE A holding area for calls waiting to be answered in the order in which
they were received. Calls in a queue may have different priority levels,
in which case, calls with a higher priority are answered first.
QUEUE MANAGEMENT The process by which the switch, or the network, or any
decision-making entity, lines up calls (and other "transactions" like
faxes and IVR requests) and chooses the order in which those transactions
occur. Managing the queue involves a graceful combination of randomness
(you never know what the caller will do), prioritization (some callers
may be more important than others, and with the proper tools in place you
can know who they are), and pre-defined choices (for example, calls for
service can stay in queue longer than call for sales, or vice versa).
ROUTING TABLE
- Incoming Phone
Calls: A routing table is a user-definable list of steps which are instructions
dealing with an incoming call. Ideally, these steps should be addressed
and the call treatment begun before the call is answered. A routing table
should consist of minimum steps that include agent groups, voice response
devices, announcements (delay and informational) music on hold, intraflow
and interflow steps, and route dialing (machine based call forwarding).
A significant issue in the structure of routing tables is "look-back" capability,
where no single previously interrogated resource is abandoned by the system
(i.e., an agent group is ignored, even though an agent is now available,
because the ACD does not consider previous steps in the routing table).
- Outgoing Phone Calls: For
a specific calling site, this table lists the long distance routing choices
for each location to be dialed. There may be only one choice (route) listed
for some or all destinations, or there may be several choices for some
destinations. (It depends on how many outgoing fines and trunk groups you
have.) If there are several choices, then they will be ranked by some criteria
(least cost, best quality, etc.).
- In data communications, a
routing table is a table in a router or some other inter-networking device
that keeps track of routes (and, in some cases, metrics associated with
those routes) to particular network destinations.
SCHEDULING Making the timetable of agent hours and shifts for your call
center. Takes into account vacation days, breaks, training time, lengths
of shifts, and forecasting information. A call center software management
package (also known as workforce management software) helps you do this.
SCHEDULING SOFTWARE Often used to mean the same thing as "call center
management software," scheduling software is actually one function
in a complete call center management software package. Scheduling software
uses historical records of past call traffic to create a staff schedule
for some future day, week, or month. It assumes that similar periods will
have similar needs.
SERVER A server is a shared computer on a local area network that can be
as simple as a regular PC set aside to handle print requests to a single
printer. It may be used as a repository and distributor of data.
SERVICE LEVEL Usually expressed as a percentage of a statistical goal.
For example, if your goal is an average speed of answer of 100 seconds
or less, and 80% of your calls are answered in 100 seconds or less, then
your service level is 80%. Call centers in different industries have vastly
different criteria for measuring successful service. Clearly, a catalog
retailer has a vastly lower stake in the outcome of any one call than a
cruise line does. Each industry builds their own call center metrics to
reflect that.
SUPERVISOR The person responsible for regulating call flow in and out of
a group of agents. On a network, the person whose job it is to keep the
system up and running.
TALK TIME The length of time agents spend placing or answering calls (as
opposed to the time between calls that they spend updating records, sending
out literature, or going to the bathroom). In outbound call environments,
where agents dial out manually, typical talk time is close to 20 minutes
per hour.
TELECOMMUNICATIONS Electronic transmission of audio, video or data information.
TELEWORKER A person who works from home or some place distant from the
company's office. A teleworker may send completed work in, and pick new
work up, via a modem in a PC. A teleworker may also be on the phone at
home answering calls on behalf of the company, and entering the results
of those calls (i.e., reservations on airlines, orders for catalogs) on
a PC connected by phone lines to the company. A teleworker may use one
phone line, like an ISDN BRI line or simply use two analog phone lines
- one for talking on and one for PC's data. Or, a teleworker may simply
use one analog phone line and a protocol such as VoiceView. Call centers
are increasingly relying on Teleworkers (also known as telecommuters or "agents-at-home")
as a way to keep from being overloaded during unforeseen peaks in call
volume.
TOLL FREE NETWORK Inward telephone service allowing callers to call without
charge or operator intervention. The call recipient pays for the call.
TRUNK A communication line between two switching systems. Switching systems
typically include equipment in a central office (the telephone company)
and your customer-based equipment (PBX or ACD). A trunk with 24 channels
is commonly called a T1.
TRUNK CAPACITY Number of outgoing or incoming circuits connecting your
site to the telephone company.
UNINTERRUPTED POWER SUPPLY (UPS) A battery which provides power to your
phone system when the main AC power fails especially during, blackouts
and brownouts. Hospitals, brokerage companies, airlines, and hotel reservation
services must have battery backup because of the integral importance of
their phone systems to their business.
VOICE RESPONSE UNIT (VRU) A term that can refer either to an interactive
voice response unit, an automated attendant, or a simple "play a message
and pass the call on" unit. The term is commonly used in call centers
to mean the automated voice system that greets the caller before the caller
gets to a live agent. In some cases, this is an IVR system that deals with
the entire transaction. In other cases, it is an IVR system that prompts
the caller for an identification number, pulls up a customer record, then
routes the call based on that information, and presents both call and information
to the agent.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT (WFM) Call center workforce management is 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 desired
service level.
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