An overview of the vocabulary used in the call centre, contact centre, and customer service industries
This contact centre glossary explains the most common terminologies used in call centres. Furthermore, it defines metrics, as well as terms related to customer experience.
There is a comprehensive list of important terminology that every contact centre team needs to understand in order to communicate effectively. It is important to note that the definitions provided in each index provide clarity as to what a particular industry-specific term means.
A
Auto Dialer – An outbound contact centre uses this technology to automate the process of making calls. There are dialers that are capable of offering advanced functionality, scripting, and reporting.
B
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) – Third-party providers are contracted to perform specific operations. Business Process Outsourcing refers to the third-party provider.
C
Call Centre Management – Operations, employee interactions, policies, and procedures that manage call centre employees, operations, and tools.
Cloud Contact Centre – It can handle inbound and outbound customer interactions across multiple means of communication (such as voice, digital, and messaging) thanks to cloud-native software, instead of on-premise hardware.
Contact Centre (What is a) – An operation that allows customers to communicate with agents (or self-service systems) across multiple voice, digital, and chat channels, typically for sales, support, or customer service.
Contact Centre Management – The processes an organization uses to manage its call centre workforce and software to provide consistently exceptional customer service.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – Customer data and interaction information can be accessed by call centre employees to further personalize the customer experience.
Customer Intelligence – In customer intelligence, information about a business’s customers is collected and analyzed in order to determine how to engage them in order to strengthen relationships and increase loyalty.
Customer Service Representative (CSR) – A contact centre employee who is responsible for providing support to customers when interacting with them.
D
Dashboard – An easy way for contact centre employees to view real-time communication, KPI reports, or historical information.
E
F
G
H
Hosted Services – An on-demand contact centre or call centre service that is hosted by a network provider.
I
Interactive Voice Response (IVR) – What is it – Incoming calls can be handled by either responding to the digits entered by the customer or using their speech. As a result, IVR enables customers to access information easily, complete transactions quickly and easily, and leave messages without requiring assistance from an agent by means of an automated menu as well as enabling them to enter a queue, connect with an agent, or to complete a self-service interaction on their own.
J
K
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) – Reports that track and review the performance of contact centres at a high level.
L
Leave Without Pay (LWOP) – refers to a temporary unpaid leave of absence that employees can take from their job for various personal reasons.
Local Area Network (LAN) – A computer network that connects devices within a limited geographical area, such as a home, office, or building, enabling the sharing of resources, data, and communication among connected devices.
M
N
O
Omnichannel Cloud Contact Centre – A cloud-based contact center that handles inbound and outbound interactions seamlessly across multiple, integrated channels, rather than using on-premise hardware. To identify, personalize, and contextualize future interactions with a customer, information from one channel is recorded and shared across channels during a customer interaction.
Outbound Call Centre – A call centre or contact centre is responsible for handling a high volume of outgoing calls. These calls are usually aimed at generating sales, fundraising, or other campaigns suited to the business.
P
PBX (Private Branch Exchange) – A telephone system within an organization that enables internal communication and manages incoming and outgoing calls without relying on a public telecommunications network.
Penalty Rates – in the Australian workplace are higher pay rates granted to employees for working during weekends, public holidays, or outside regular working hours.
Predictive Dialler – A software or device that automatically dials a list of phone numbers and connects answered calls to available agents, optimizing call center efficiency by minimizing idle time and increasing the number of successful connections.
Q
R
S
Softphone – With the use of a high-speed internet connection and a computer, tablet, or mobile device, users are able to perform traditional phone functions.
Speech analytics – As well as being known as interaction analytics, speech analytics is a technology that uses artificial intelligence to understand, process, and analyze human speech by combining it with natural language processing.
T
U
V
W
Workforce Optimisation (WFO) – Through workforce management software, customers and agents can experience improved multichannel or omnichannel experiences. As part of these software tools, you can forecast, schedule, manage quality, manage performance, coach, analyze, or report with AI.
Workforce Management (WFM) – Workforce Management refers to the processes and strategies implemented by organizations to effectively optimize and maximize the productivity, efficiency, and scheduling of their workforce, encompassing activities such as forecasting, scheduling, task assignment, and performance tracking.