Customer Service Terms

The percentage of inbound calls abandoned by the caller before speaking to an agent is calculated by dividing the number of abandoned calls by the total number of inbound calls.

Utilized in contact centers to assess sound characteristics, including pitch and tone, enhancing audio quality and customer experience.

The amount of time an agent works that coincides with the time they are scheduled to work. It encompasses various activities such as handling calls during on-queue time, completing off-queue work, and participating in meetings and training sessions.

A collection of technologies, including Speech Recognition (SR), Artificial intelligence (AI) and Voice Biometrics, enhance how brands communicate with customers and deliver service.

A process that collects, monitors and scores 100% of customer-agent conversations (call, chat, and video) according to script adherence, acoustic indicators, and emotional features. This enables supervisors to score and maximize agent performance with tangible feedback objectively. Equipped with a hybrid approach, Knovvu AQM improves efficiency by using automation to score performance, and supervisors can manually make manual adjustments.

The tasks that a call center agent is required to complete after an interaction with a customer. Tasks could include sending an email to the customer or internal department to follow up on the call, logging details about the call in a CRM database, and scheduling follow-up actions.

Employees who usually work in customer service or telesales and handle phone calls, emails, chat, text messages, and support tickets initiated by customers are also referred to as customer service representatives (CSRs).

Measures the time an agent expresses anger during customer interactions, crucial for emotion management in contact center scenarios.

Indicates the percentage of an agent's speech marked by anger, offering insights into emotional dynamics for improved service provision.

Quantifies instances where an agent obstructs communication, impacting the efficiency of contact center interactions.

Measures how often an agent's speech has interruptions that make it hard to communicate, pointing out potential problems in conversations with customers

An ongoing process designed to empower agents to learn new skills, receive feedback on work, and help them improve their output. Coaching is a key ingredient for improving agent efficiency and building customer satisfaction.

A process for forwarding a customer interaction to a supervisor in a contact center to assist the customer more effectively.

Tracks how often an agent interrupts, influencing the flow and courtesy of customer conversations in the contact center

An ongoing process designed to empower agents to learn new skills, receive feedback on work, and help them improve their output. Coaching is a key ingredient for improving agent efficiency and building customer satisfaction.

The proportion of time an agent is actively handling customer contacts compared to the total time they could be working is also known as the utilization rate. This measurement may not include time spent on breaks, meetings, or other non-work activities and is usually evaluated for individual agents and teams.

A report that contains information about how a contact center agent is performing against key metrics (KPIs), such as average handle time and first contact resolution.

An agent scorecard is an evaluation system used to measure a contact center agent’s adherence to a company’s customer service processes and procedures.

Reflects the total time an agent spends speaking during customer interactions, impacting overall engagement.

Defines the rate at which an agent communicates, a vital metric for assessing efficiency and service quality in contact centers.

The current working status of an agent, such as available, busy, unavailable (on a break), after-call work, etc.

The ratio of agent productivity to capacity. It measures how effectively agents use their time to handle calls and other tasks.

Biometrics technology offers versatile agent verification regardless of location. Knovvu Biometrics provides real-time authentication independent of language, accent, or content, utilizing over 100 unique voice parameters to securely authorize users in seconds. Agent Verification enhances contact center security by verifying agent identities as part of a multi-factor user authentication system

Identifies the peak likelihood of an agent expressing anger, aiding in emotional intelligence analysis for contact center management.

Agent Experience, also known as employee experience in a broader context, encompasses all the experiences contact center agents encounter as they perform their job tasks. It's a crucial aspect of the contact center industry because it impacts how long agents stay in their roles, how well the call center operates, and ultimately, how satisfied customers are.

A solution that can analyze 100% of customer interaction data at customer service channels and convert it into meaningful information for decision-makers. This provides critical insights to understand customers better and help to improve their experiences. Equipped with advanced quality management tools, Knovvu Analytics enable supervisors to objectively score and maximize agent performance with tangible feedback.

An inbound call that is handled by a contact center agent.

Any software system, tool, or platform used in a contact center manages, routes, and handles customer calls, emails, chats, messages, and tickets.

A set of defined rules that enable different applications to communicate with each other.

Software designed to perform tasks faster and in higher volumes usually done by a human. In the contact center environment, this can be used to complete simple and repetitive tasks to help agents and improve the caller experience.

Agent attrition is the rate at which agents voluntarily or involuntarily leave a support team to join another team or exit the company altogether.

Technology that allows callers to be automatically transferred without human intervention is sometimes referred to as auto attendant. An automated attendant typically offers a menu system the caller can interact with to route their call to the appropriate team or department.

The technology enables systems and applications to understand user commands in spoken language instead of buttons and keystrokes. This helps customers interact with systems to solve issues without the need for live agents. The success of speech recognition projects relies heavily on the Speech Recognition Accuracy Rate, meaning accurately understanding what customers are saying.

Technology is built to perform processes previously performed by humans for increased efficiency and to empower customers to self-serve.

The ratio of time an agent is actively ready to work with customers but not engaged directly with a customer to their total work time. It is sometimes referred to as idle time.

The time when a contact center agent is ready and waiting to take calls, answer emails, and respond to chat messages. Also called idle time.

The percentage of customer calls transferred or routed to another team member, department, or queue to be completed or resolved.

The average duration of an entire customer contact interaction from the time the customer initiates it until that interaction is complete. The calculation sums up the total talk, hold, conference, and wrap time and divides the result by the total customer calls handled.

The average amount of time it takes agents to answer inbound customer interactions once they are in the contact center queue.

The amount of time a contact center agent spends handling customer calls and resolving queries is not to be confused with average handle time, which encompasses various activities beyond interactions.

This is the average time a call remains in the queue until an agent connects to a customer.

The average length of time that a caller waits in a queue before abandoning the call.

The number of customer support tickets that have yet to be addressed or resolved within a given period.

Banking bots help automate simple transactions and improve operational efficiency. Banking bots can execute hundreds of banking transactions for customers. When this is the case, simple tasks are automated by technology while the most valuable asset at call centers, agent time, can be saved to focus more on customers.

A contact center agent who handles incoming and outgoing interactions across multiple contact center channels like voice, web, and digital.

Actions are driven by artificial intelligence that automate some processes to support customers self-serve without the need for live assistance. This technology can also help contact center agents do their jobs more efficiently.

Business Process Outsourcing is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business process to a third-party service provider such as customer service/call center

A type of commercial organization that sells to other enterprises or businesses instead of selling to consumers.

This is a quality management process that allows supervisors/managers to evaluate and score the same call, and then determine how aligned they are on scoring.  This is done to ensure higher objectivity in agent performance evaluations.

The practice of avoiding taking phone calls could involve agents taking their phones off the hook, transferring calls to others, taking excessive breaks, or deliberately taking longer than needed to handle calls.

The practice of dropping in on live calls to speak with the customer and the agent.

The practice of enabling agents to make outgoing calls when inbound calls are slow, which includes delivering both inbound and outbound calls seamlessly to the agent.

This is the set of objectives that are put in place to ultimately help drive improved performance and reduce inefficiencies, and eventually increase the profitability of operations.

A worker is responsible for hiring, training, and supervising call center agents and employees. The manager sets goals, monitors challenges, and works to motivate team members to offer better caller experiences.

Call center productivity is a measure that shows how efficiently the call center uses resources such as time, labor, and technology to assist and serve customers.

Technology that increases the effectiveness and efficiency of a call center with specific focus on improving the interactions between customers and agents. This may include technologies like speech analytics, voice biometrics and conversational AI (bots).

The capture of audio and screen activity associated with customer-agent calls so that they can be stored, retrieved, and evaluated.

A call management feature for contact centers that allows incoming calls to be placed in a queue and then routed to a specific agent/group/unit based on business rules and caller criteria.

A script that clearly lays out what an agent is supposed to say in response to a specific customer issue or problem.

A service that allows an agent to identify the area code, phone number, and location of the person calling before answering the call.

A telecommunications service provider (TSP) that enables the public to call into a contact center by telephone.

Channel, also known as a communication channel, includes phone calls, emails, live chats, social messaging, website reviews, surveys, or even face-to-face conversations.

A digital channel for providing customer service, usually enabled via a website or mobile app.

A chatbot is a computer program that interacts with customers to provide automated assistance and support. With Speech Recognition (SR) and Natural Language Understanding (NLU) technologies, SESTEK Chatbot understands customer intent and responds without needing live agents. SESTEK’s market-leading speech recognition accuracy rate enables its Knovvu Virtual Agent product to automate simple tasks effectively, help increase self-service rates, and decrease costs for customer service operations.

A measure of the percentage of customers who stop using a product or service or the percentage of employees who leave their jobs within a specific period.

This is a contact center whose operational tools and systems for handling customer communications are hosted on remote servers instead of on-premises.

A software platform hosted remotely, or in the cloud, that supports omnichannel communication between customers and contact center agents with features that optimize the customer experience and the agent experience.

Outbound calls are placed by contact center agents to prospective customers, usually for the purpose of making a sale or introducing a product.

Built on Speech Recognition (SR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, Collection Bot contacts customers with outstanding debts through a natural dialogue interface using a voice IVR channel. The natural language interface allows for collaborative decision-making, resulting in personalized payment arrangements for customers. Moreover, by automating these interactions, call centers free their expert agents from addressing routine queries and enable them to focus on more complex customer issues.

The percentage of time that an agent works compared to the total scheduled time.

Technology that links computer systems with telephone systems to control how agent calls are made and received.

A contact center agent is a customer service or sales professional who handles customers’ needs, requests, and issues through a variety of communication channels. Their job is ultimately to enable an exceptional customer experience.

A cloud-based service that enables companies to use only the technology they need to operate a contact center, charging with a pay-as-you-go approach, thereby reducing costs.

A software application that contains information about customers, such as contact info, call history, tickets and much more. This information is used to better serve customers through more personalized interactions.

This includes the processes and methods organizations use to manage the daily operations of a contact center workforce (agents, supervisors, managers) to present better customer journeys to callers.

A process that helps ensure customer interactions are aligned with the preset goals. To achieve this effectively, call centers use technologies to collect, monitor and score 100% of customer-agent conversations (call, chat, and video) according to script adherence, acoustic indicators, and emotional features. Knovvu AQM product helps supervisors to score and maximize agent performance with tangible feedback objectively. Equipped with a hybrid approach, the product improves efficiency by using automation to score performance, and supervisors can manually make granular adjustments if necessary.

Reports that convert data related to a contact center into actionable metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) based on criteria related to strategic business goals.

The ratio of calls answered by agents within a specific time frame.

Software that provides businesses with the capabilities necessary to operate, monitor and improve performance at a customer contact center, which typically enables queueing and routing, contact and resolution management, integration, and management tools.

The practice of ensuring agents are effectively scheduled, trained, monitored, evaluated, rewarded, and engaged at the optimal levels.

This is the process of aligning strategic and operational elements of a contact center’s workforce with business objectives. This often includes team scheduling, training, and volume forecasting.

The communication channel a customer uses to interact with a business.

Solution that enables human-like interactions with IVR using Natural Language Processing to provide personalized, fast, and effective self-service. With Conversational IVR customers state their inquiries in plain language instead of a touch-tone menu and get a natural and intuitive experience every time they call without being constrained to fixed menus.

A call center metric calculated by dividing the fully loaded cost of your contact center for a given period by the number of total calls handled in the same period.

The average cost per support contact, which can include fixed costs, such as office space and technology expenses, and variable costs, such as scheduled labor and unscheduled overtime.

The amount of money a company spends to get a new customer. This is typically the sum of sales and marketing costs divided by the number of new customers acquired for the same period.

Measures the time a customer expresses anger during contact center interactions, guiding effective customer service strategies.

Represents the percentage of a customer's speech marked by anger, essential for gauging customer sentiment and satisfaction.

A process to authorize customers in real time and help improve the experience significantly. Knovvu Biometrics provide real-time authentication that is language, accent, and content independent. Using more than 100 unique parameters of their voice, customer authentication securely authorizes within seconds.

Quantifies instances where a customer impedes communication, indicating potential dissatisfaction in the contact center environment.

Expresses the proportion of a customer's speech marked by communication blocks, offering insights into conversational barriers in contact center interactions.

Reflects the amount of effort a customer had to exert to use a product or service, find the information they needed, or get an issue resolved.

Customer engagement is the ongoing building of a relationship between the company and the customer that extends beyond the transaction.

Encompasses the overall perceptions and emotions resulting from interactions with a brand's employees, channels, services, or products, both individually and cumulatively.

Customer experience management is the management of customer interactions through each physical and digital touchpoint to deliver personalized experiences that drive brand loyalty and increase revenue.

Information provided by customers about their experience with a product or service, revealing their level of satisfaction. This information helps product, customer service, and marketing teams understand opportunities for improvement.

A feeling of dissatisfaction felt by a customer because of a negative interaction with a company is often triggered by poor products, experiences, or customer service interactions.

The process of gathering and analyzing information derived from customer data, which in turn helps businesses understand motivations, improve the customer journey, and drive growth.

Customer interaction analysis is to collect 100% of customer interaction data at customer service channels and convert it into meaningful information for decision-makers. This is done to provide critical insights to understand customers better and help to improve their experiences. SESTEK’s product Knovvu Analytics helps more than 400 enterprises in 20 countries to understand their customers better than their competition.

Tracks how often a customer interrupts, influencing the balance and effectiveness of the conversation within the contact center.

Customers' entire experience while interacting with a brand from discovery to purchasing to service.

The process of determining what information a customer needs in each phase of their journey of interacting with a brand.

This is a visual representation of the customer journey that tells the story of customers’ experiences with a brand across touchpoints.

The process of connecting and mapping customer interactions across multiple touchpoints in order to direct or improve the experience.

The total worth of a customer to a business over the entire duration of the relationship.

This is the combination of practices, strategies and technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. The goal is to improve customer service relationships and assist with customer retention and drive sales growth.

Customer retention rate is the percentage of customers who are retained, opposite of churn.

A key performance indicator that tracks how satisfied customers are with organization’s products and/or services.

The support a business offers customers before and after they buy products or services, which helps them have a beneficial experience.

Agents within a business who interact with customers to handle complaints, process orders, and provide information about products and services.

Indicates the percentage of the conversation where the customer dominates the interaction, shaping the overall customer experience in the contact center.

Measures the total time a customer actively contributes to the conversation, influencing the overall communication dynamics in the contact center.

A method of collecting customer feedback that helps companies assess customer satisfaction, measure customer engagement, perform market research, and gauge expectations.

A reporting tool that displays call center metrics and KPIs to allow managers and teams to monitor and optimize performance.

A repository for the collection, measurement, and reporting of performance metrics within a contact center, often housing call data and agent performance.

An inbound customer call that remains in a queue waiting for an agent to become free to respond.

Digital channels are communication channels customers use to reach a business such as email, chat, text messages, and social media.

Digital communication is the use of online tools like email, social media messaging and texting to reach other individuals or a specific audience in order to share a message.

A customer service center that provides support through email, chat, text messages, social media, and other digital channels.

Refers to how individuals interact with digital platforms, such as making online purchases, receiving notifications from mobile applications, or utilizing business software.

An e-commerce helpdesk is a customer support system specifically designed to address inquiries, issues, and requests related to e-commerce operations. SESTEK's e-commerce helpdesk solution, Virtual Helpdesk, automates tasks like providing order status information, assisting with return & refund processes, updating order information, and much more without the need for live assistance. Automation of these tasks enables efficient peak-hour management and ease of seasonality adaptation without increasing operational costs.

The involvement and enthusiasm of employees in their work and workplace.

An agent’s collective perceptions about their journey through all the touchpoints at a particular company, starting with their candidacy and proceeding through their exit.

Enterprise relationship management (ERM) refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies used by organizations to manage and strengthen their relationships with key stakeholders, including customers, suppliers, partners, and employees, across various touchpoints and interactions.

Mathematical calculations to derive the number of staff needed for a given number of calls to meet a given service level.

The process of forwarding a customer’s issue to a supervisor or more proficient agent.

An estimate of how long a customer will have to wait in a queue before being connected with an agent, based on incoming volume, handling time, and staffing levels.

A case in which a caller’s question is answered or problem is solved during the initial call so that no follow-up contacts are necessary.

A case in which a customer’s question is answered or problem is solved during the initial interaction so that no follow-up contacts are necessary.

The degree to which a predicted volume of calls or contacts reflects the reality of support volume for a given period.

Forecasted call/contact center volume is the estimation the volume of interactions that a center will receive in each period of time.

A prediction of contact center workload and staffing requirements, based on historical data.

FTE is a unit to measure employed person in a way that makes them comparable although they may work different number of hours per week.

A strategy that drives motivation and creates a culture where agents continuously work to achieve the business objectives and, in turn, get rewarded and recognized.

A case in which a customer’s question is answered or problem is solved during the initial interaction so that no follow-up contacts are necessary.

A call that is answered by an agent instead of being blocked or abandoned.

For voice channels, the combination of talk time and after-call work time.

Historical data is data collected about past events and circumstances pertaining to a particular subject such as contact volumes, handle time, and adherence. This information is typically used to identify patterns in the past to make better predictions for the future.

Refers to the duration during which a caller is placed on hold by an agent during a phone call

A communications solution hosted at a service provider’s physical location or in the cloud instead of on a company’s premises.

Time spent by a contact center agent ready and waiting to take customer interactions.

A contact center that receives incoming requests from customers, often staffed by teams who are equipped to provide customer service and support.

Technology that captures and places incoming customer calls into a queue and then routes each one to the appropriate group or agent.

The direct touchpoints a customer has with a business.

Interaction Analytics, in near real time, reveals simply what is working and what is not at a contact center. This solution monitors 100% of customer interactions (voice and text), presenting insights about vital issues such as increase in non-FCR calls, customer complaint trends, or agent performance changes. With the ability to monitor performances with granular detail, decision-makers can intervene effectively.

Any actions a contact center agent takes to avoid or delay engaging with customers via chat, email, social media, text, or phone call.

IVR (Interactive Voice Response) is a technology that enables automated interactions between callers and computer systems via voice and keypad inputs, typically used for tasks such as routing calls or retrieving information.

A defined period of time, (5-30 minutes) used to break up and define the workday, enabling close analysis of productivity, forecasting, scheduling, and other contact center performance metrics.

The process of monitoring the current day’s volumes and trends and making corresponding changes to workforce schedules.

A business activity that allows a contact center to re-evaluate workforce management needs based on trending volume, average handle time, and service levels.

A data visualization that shows employees where they stand compared to their peers or other teams on key performance indicators.

A technology for the administration, documentation, tracking, reporting, automation, and delivery of educational courses, training programs, or learning and development programs.

A point in the customer service process where companies can collect and analyze direct inputs and feedback from customers to confirm or disprove assumptions.

A communication channel that allows customers to communicate with a contact center agent in real time, typically via mobile app or website accessed through a browser.

Records of detailed activities within a computer system, each one typically including a time stamp.

Any actions a coLong-term forecasting is a method of predicting future events, trends, or conditions over a period of six months to five years.ntact center agent takes to avoid or delay engaging with customers via chat, email, social media, text, or phone call.

The agent who has been without a customer call or post-call assignment for the longest period of time.

A single, distilled measure of a company’s health and indicator of whether the organization is delivering on its brand promise.

Identifies the maximum duration of simultaneous speech by both parties in the contact center, offering insights into collaborative or conflicting moments.

Measures the longest period of no communication in the contact center, crucial for understanding pauses and breaks in customer-agent dialogue.

A feature of contact center software and IVR systems that allows users to easily navigate and select from a range of actions or options.

The practice of evaluating an agent’s interactions to assess quality with which those interactions are handled.

Describes the degree to which speech follows a consistent tone or pattern, influencing the overall flow and engagement of contact center conversations.

A contact center that allows agents to interact with customers over several communication channels, including voice, text, social media, and the web.

The ability of a computer program to understand human language as it is spoken and written by people.

A technology that allows people to interact with computers using conventional conversation.

The percentage of logged-in and available time that an agent spends in active contact handling versus in an idle or available state.

A contact center that allows customers to seamlessly move across channels when seeking support or service from a business.

The experience a customer has when they engage with a business across individual touchpoints over a variety of channels that all seamlessly connect, allowing them to pick up where they left off on one channel and continue the interaction on another.

Customer interactions with a business over multiple touchpoints before, during, and after the point at which they become a customer.

Service provided to a customer across multiple channels by integrating them within a single system so the customer’s experience is comprehensive and seamless.

A method of intelligently directing customer requests across a range of service channels.

Call center’s operational efficiency refers to how well it manages its resources to provide quality service. This is one of the most important KPIs that measure efficiency through cost, productivity, and customer satisfaction metrics.

A business operation that makes outgoing calls to customers and prospects for purposes related to telesales, collections, surveys, research, fundraising, and notifications.

The process of contracting with an outside company to handle some or all contacts with customers.

Quantifies the specific time duration of simultaneous speech by both parties in the contact center, helping identify collaborative or conflicting moments.

Refers to the period of time during the day when there is the highest volume of incoming calls or customer contacts.

Performance Dashboards are central dashboards that serve as a single source of the truth to display all performance related metrics.

Technology for tracking the performance of employees consistently and measurably. It is also typically used to  evaluate, improve, and reward employee performance at work.

A system that automatically dials phone numbers from a list and connects answered calls to available agents. It dials numbers one at a time, giving agents more control over the calling process.

A system that uses algorithms to automatically dial multiple phone numbers simultaneously and predicts when agents will become available to handle the next connected call. It aims to maximize agent productivity by minimizing idle time between calls and ensuring consistent engagement.

PBX is a general term used to describe a business telephone system that offers multiple inbound and outbound lines, call routing, voicemail, and call management features.

An automated dialing technique that presents contact information to a contact center agent prior to dialing the phone number.

The process for monitoring customer-agent interactions to ensure they are being handled by agents in a pre-planned process flow. This is also known as quality management.

This is a tool for tracking, evaluating, and monitoring agent performance. A contact center agent scorecard acts as a basis for companies to improve their customer experience by identifying areas for agent improvement and providing actionable insights into agent productivity and competency.

A quality management activity in which a supervisor or member of the QA team scores an agent interaction based on predefined criteria.

Knovvu AQM can collects, monitors and scores 100% of customer-agent conversations (call, chat, and video) according to script adherence, acoustic indicators, and emotional features. This enables supervisors to score and maximize agent performance with tangible feedback objectively. Equipped with a hybrid approach, the product improves efficiency by using automation to score performance, and supervisors can manually make manual adjustments.

A quality management activity that ensures evaluators (managers, supervisors) are aligned in how they are evaluating agent interactions.

A quality management process that allows agents to contest a score they’ve received on a quality evaluation and explain the basis of their disagreement. To minimize this, call centers should implement Automated Quality Management tools for objectivity and tangible feedback.

A set of questions and criteria used by evaluators (supervisors and managers) to assess agent performance during interactions and identify opportunities for improvement.

A metric that compares an agent’s current status against scheduled work activities.

A feature to monitor customer interactions, analyzes data to detect issues, and provides immediate notification and guidance to improve the process. This flow enables supervisors to intervene in real time to provide support to agents-in-need. Knovvu Real-Time Guidance is designed to support agents and supervisors at call centers.

The process of proactively managing agent contacts and queues in real time to ensure contact center service levels and business targets are being executed as planned.

An agent physically located outside company premises, typically connected to the center on an as-needed or scheduled basis to supply additional answering capability.

The amount of time needed to answer a caller. This KPI is one of the most important KPIs at contact centers, showing how accessible the contact center is to customers and the number of agents required to maximize its efficiency.

Return on investment or return on costs is a ratio between net income and investment. It is a performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency or profitability of an investment or compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. This will provide the time frame to understand when the invested solution will pay for itself.

A roster schedules agents based on the specific set of skills and shift templates associated with their profile.

Rostering is the process of creating and managing work schedules for call center employees. It provides managers, team leaders and staff the ability to view their schedules anywhere, at any time.

Schedule adherence measures how well employees stick to their assigned work hours, including start times, end times, and break times.

Schedule conformance measures how well employees follow the tasks and activities outlined in their schedules throughout their shifts. It assesses their adherence to specific work activities such as handling customer interactions, attending meetings, or completing assigned tasks.

The measurement of how closely scheduled resources match the forecasted number of resources needed.

A management activity in which agent schedules are created based on expected contact volume, as well as agent availability and skillset.

Software functionality that enables a customer information screen to automatically pop onto an agent’s computer screen at the same time the agent answers a call from that customer. This is used for assisting the agent in real time.

Software that records what is displayed on an agent’s computer monitor, detailing the visual interaction between the agent and customer.

The words and logic to be followed in the handling of a customer call to assist agents in focusing on the most important aspects of the call, sometimes referred to as a call script.

Script adherence can be defined as the degree to which an agent sticks to a predetermined conversation script when interacting with a customer, meeting essential checklist components. This is one of the most important criteria at call centers, and requires constant monitoring. Call centers should benefit from speech analytics solutions with script adherence features to monitor script adherence automatically.

A software application that enables the user to access and use its features to address their unique needs or issues without help from live agents.

A metric that describes how often customers resolve their own issues or complete their own transaction instead of interacting with a live agent.

A software application that enables the user to access and use its features to address their unique needs or issues without help from live agents.

A memory-laden computer device that provides services to users, such as access to software applications.

Service Level is a performance metric that measures the quality and efficiency of a call center's customer service. It refers to the percentage of calls answered within a specified time frame, usually expressed as "X% of calls answered within Y seconds”.

A contact center’s commitment to maintain a certain level of service, typically involving a specified percentage of handled contacts within a period of time.

A signaling protocol used for initiating, maintaining, and terminating real-time voice, video, or messaging sessions in a software application.

Shift swap is the action of swapping one agent’s scheduled shift with another agent, that must be approved by supervisor.

The percentage of paid time that contact center agents are not available to handle calls, emails, chats, and other customer interactions after accounting for breaks, meetings, training time, off-phone activities, paid leave, and other activities.

Measures the duration of silence at the start of communication in the contact center, providing insights into initial engagement dynamics.

Quantifies the duration of silence at the conclusion of communication in the contact center, influencing the the sense of conclusion.

Expresses the proportion of speech marked by silence, aiding in the analysis of pauses and breaks in communication within the contact center.

Short Messaging Service is a text messaging service component of most telephone, internet and mobile device systems.

A software application delivered to customers over the internet and typically billed on a monthly or yearly basis.

Staffing requirement is the amount of staffed people that are needed in order to meet the workload demand within a preset time frame.

An employee whose role is to communicate organizational needs, oversee agent performance, provide guidance, support, and manage the relationship between team members.

Channels where communication occurs in real-time, involving immediate interaction between participants. Examples include phone/voice calls, live chat, and real-time messaging platforms.

Represents the cumulative time without any communication in the contact center, offering a comprehensive view of periods lacking verbal exchange.

A customer touchpoint is any time a consumer interacts with the brand, whether that’s through an employee, call center, website, advert or app. And the experiences consumers have with those touchpoints can shape how they view the brand.

The integration of CRM system with multichannel communication, including phone, email, social, chat, and mobile on to a single agent interface.

The practice of selling a comparable, higher-end or more expensive product than the one in question to an existing customer.

The percentage of customer calls or chats transferred to another team member in order to be completed or resolved.

A virtual agent, sometimes called an intelligent virtual agent (IVA), virtual rep or chatbot, is a software program that uses scripted rules and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide automated service or guidance to customers. Virtual agents are vital for contact centers to boost self-service rates, increase automation and assist agents.

A contact center supported by cloud-based software and servers, enabling agents to work remotely or from home.

An e-commerce site where third-party sellers can make products available to consumers and fulfill orders.

The Virtual Translator is a technology used in call centers to facilitate multilingual interactions. It utilizes advanced Speech Recognition (SR) technology to identify the language spoken by callers in real-time. Once the language is detected, the Virtual Translator converts the spoken words into text, translates them into the desired language for response, and generates synthesized speech output. This enables call centers to efficiently serve customers who speak different languages.

The Voice of the Customer (VoC) is the capture of what customers are saying about a business, product, or service. This is a term that describes customers feedback about their experiences with and expectations for brand’s products or services. This represents vital information for decision-makers to improve customer engagements.

A method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over the internet.

A measure of how many inbound contacts are coming into a contact center within a given period of time, typically represented in increments of a quarter-hour, hour, or day.

A visual communication tool that displays real-time information related to contact center performance indicators.

This is the process to determine how many agents are needed for a specific type of work at various times throughout the day.

A workforce management (WFM) solution is a software solution that helps organizations streamline and automate the processes that manage agents’ time, organize and deploy their labor force efficiently.

WhatsApp Customer Service is a communication channel used by businesses to interact with customers via the WhatsApp messaging platform. It enables businesses to provide instant replies and deploy chatbots to address customer inquiries promptly. This channel extends customer service availability beyond regular working hours, facilitating continuous engagement with customers throughout the day.

A series of steps that a process or project goes through from start to finish, often involving multiple tasks performed by different individuals or systems.

The orchestration of tasks that make up the work an organization does. When managed effectively, workflows make organizations more efficient, productive, and cost-effective.

Workforce capacity planning helps determine how many full-time employees are needed to handle the future workload of a contact center, based on forecasts for call volume, Average Handle Time (AHT), and shrinkage.

A business concept that describes the level of enthusiasm and dedication employees have toward their jobs. In call centers, agents need to be brand ambassadors, which means remaining positive about the organization even in the face of customer issues.

Workforce engagement management is an approach for increasing customer service agent engagement. Engaged agents are committed to their employer, which includes helping the organization meet its business objectives.

Workforce management is a process that maximizes performance levels and competency for an organization. The process includes all the activities needed to maintain a productive workforce, such as field service management, human resource management, performance and training management, data collection, recruiting, budgeting, forecasting, scheduling and analytics.

Workforce metrics are data to measure the productivity and effectiveness of staff. Those metrics may include average abandonment rate, percentage of interactions blocked, average time in queue, service level, average speed of answer, average handle time, average after call work time, first contact resolutions, and others.

A business strategy that integrates contact center technologies for customer experience to promote operational efficiency.

Workforce Planning is the process of analyzing and forecasting the workforce needs of a business, identifying any gaps, and implementing strategies to ensure the right people with the right skills are available when and where they're needed.

Workload is a stream or queue of work that is created using rules and it is delivered to the appropriate staff to create more efficiency.

The process of efficiently distributing and managing work across a team of agents with similar or complementary skills.

A Workstream represents the lifecycle of an individual customer conversation, from initiation through to final resolution. It encapsulates all of the engagements, along with all agent and related work activities that are involved in the resolution. It is identified and categorized based on the initial customer contact.