Glossary

Glossary of Contact Center Terminology.

ACD stands for Automatic Call Distributor or Automatic Call Distribution. It is used mostly for inbound calling. When multiple inbound calls are made to your Contact Center, an ACD ensures that the call of the highest priority is answered by a live agent first. The disposition for distribution priority is selected by the Call Center administrator and could include time call has been in the queue, whether they are a call-back, which project the caller belongs to, or agent skill group selected through an IVR menu.
This is a monitoring feature that shows administrators the activity of their Contact Center agents while they are using the Contact Center software. It shows the duration of their time spent logged into the system, as well as the duration of each status they are in such as away, on a call, finalizing a call, etc.
ANI stands for Automatic Number Identification or an Automatic Number Identifier. It is a technology that detects and displays the phone number of a caller, similar to caller ID.
An application is a computer program designed to help the user perform a specific activity on their computer or mobile device. A software application is specifically used to perform a task for a user, whereas regular software has capabilities that integrate with the computer’s operating system, but do not always directly interact with the user.
Advanced Micro Devices.
Auto-Dialing is when a set list of numbers is uploaded into a dialer system and dialed automatically at a set number of calls (for example, 2 lines at a time). It is similar to predictive dialing, but the way that the dialing process is controlled differs.
AWS stands for Amazon Web Services, a public cloud deployed by Amazon. AWS offers the highest level of security and reliability for cloud-based software services, which is why 3CLogic elected to use it to host our Contact Center solution. 3CLogic is the only Contact Center solution hosted in the AWS cloud.
This is a feature that allows a Contact Center supervisor to join in and interrupt a call between an agent and a customer for the purpose of training the agent and/or enhancing the customer’s experience.
Call Blast is a feature that sends out a pre-recorded message to a database of phone numbers via auto-dialing.
Call disposition is a code that indicates the results of each customer interaction in order to categorize phone interactions and determine what the next course of action should be. If no result code is selected by the agent from the dropdown menu, the software solution will automatically select one. Possible call dispositions could include busy, connect, answering machine, failed, fax, rescheduled, transferred, or other, but a Contact Center administrator can add any call disposition to the 3CLogic system as required by their business needs.
Call parking is a feature of some telephony systems that acts as a holding queue. It will hold the call rather than dropping it even if the line that is being called is busy.
Call Recording is a feature that allows Contact Center supervisors to record calls at will or automatically for quality assurance and agent training purposes. Playback is how supervisors can access the recorded calls.
Call Scripting is the creation and uploading of dialogue scripts for contact center agents to follow when speaking to callers. 3CLogic’s software solution allows for unlimited call scripts to be uploaded the system.
Call spikes occur when a higher than normal volume of calls is either distributed by the Contact Center (outbound) or made to the Contact Center (inbound). Intense call spikes can occur seasonally or in moments of high demand, but only a system with a scalable and redundant infrastructure can handle call spikes without losing functionality or crashing.
Call queuing is used to route inbound calls. When callers dial the Contact Center’s number, their call is placed in a queue for available agents to pick it up.
See Project.
The cloud is a jargon term for technology that was developed without a technical definition because there was no simple way to describe the concept it represents. The cloud is merely an abstraction for virtually outsourced computing, applications, and services that can be distributed over a network. It can be maintained, accessed, and deployed by one or many data centers. In the cloud, a program can be accessed and used by many users from different access points without affecting the way it runs or needing specific physical hardware in each location to run it. Software in the cloud is also referred to as Software as a Service (Saas), cloud-based, or hosted. Clouds can be either private (owned and deployed by the company) or public (leased by the company from a third party source). 3CLogic uses the AWS public cloud to safely and securely host the 3CLogic Contact Center solution.
A contact channel is any channel of media through which a customer can be contacted or can contact you. This includes traditional voice channels such as telephone and voicemail, as well as chat, text, and social media.
CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management, and refers to software suites that are used to help companies keep track of customers. They manage customer relations by organizing and providing easy access to customer contact information (such as Company, address, phone numbers, email, preferred method of contact, title or position, etc) and previous interactions with that customer. Well known CRM software includes Salesforce.com. Infusionsoft, and Microsoft Dynamics, but many CRM software suites are available to customers. 3CLogic is unique as a Contact Center solution due to its ability to perform custom integrations with any CRM software on the market.
CTI stands for Computer Telephony Integration and refers to technology that uses an internet application to place and receive phone calls to telephone lines and other computer application users.
Custom Integration refers to 3CLogic’s unique ability to integrate our software solution with any existing CRM software.
DNC stands for Do Not Call, meaning a compiled list of phone numbers or customers who have stated that they do not wish to be contacted by your Contact Center in the future. As a Contact Center administrator, you have the ability to set up and/or upload multiple DNC lists for the entire Contact Center as well as individual projects.
DNC scrubbing is an automatic function that checks whether numbers that have been uploaded are on the DNC list. It prevents these numbers from being called without anyone in the Contact Center having to manually determine that those numbers are not allowed to be contacted.
This is an automatic caller number detection feature; however it works differently from ANI. If a Contact Center has multiple phone lines, then DNIS can determine which phone line the customer dialed on their inbound call to reach the Contact Center.
Downtime is a measure of the duration of time that a computer, network, or system is unavailable or fails to function and experiences an outage.
See Cloud.
Inbound or Inbound Dialing refers to any calls that are received by agents at your Contact Center. The most common use of an inbound dialing solution is a customer support or customer service hotline.
Infrastructure refers to basic physical and organizational structures needed for the operation of an enterprise, as well as the services and facilities necessary to function. It can be generally defined as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development.
IVR stands for Interactive Voice Response. It refers to a pre-recorded audio menu of options that will play when a customer dials in to your line. They can select options with voice commands in an IVR with voice recognition capabilities, or use the touch-pad or dial-pad on their phone to select the option that will direct their call or inquiry to the correct department or agent. As a Call Center administrator, you can record your own IVR menu and use skills-based routing to ensure that calls will be directed to the agent or group of agents most capable of servicing the call.
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed. 3CLogic uses a JAVA-based server for our technology.
A lead is a contact that a salesperson reaches out to in order to turn them into a potential customer.
Lead management is used to organize sales leads or prospective customers to easily track progress or a project and determine what the next steps are for each lead, depending on their status in the system.
Lead recycling is a function of lead management. It enables calls that do not finalize as a desired disposition to be put back into a project’s list of leads to be dialed.
Listen is a feature which allows a Contact Center supervisor to unobtrusively monitor a call between an agent and a customer. Most Contact Center solutions allow for supervisors to record agent calls and play them back, but 3CLogic’s "Listen" feature enables supervisors to listen to a call as it unfolds in real-time.
Manual dialing is the act of an agent dialing a call themselves. This generally tends to be time-consuming and wasteful of Contact Center efforts when automatic and predictive dialers can be used to greatly speed up the process.
Omnichannel provides customers with multiple, integrated touchpoints – email, SMS, voice, chat – with which to interact with a product or service. This is instead of just one or two distinct methods of interaction, such as via email or over the phone, customers can use a variety of channels to engage with you – and it’s integrated. So, instead of bouncing between siloed channels, there is no need for them to be redirected to another platform or send another email—it’s all right there.
Outbound or Outbound Dialing refers to any calls that your agents make to customers, prospective leads, etc. It also includes calls that are made via Call Blast, or predictive dialer functions. Outbound dialing generally applies to many types of industries and businesses including outreach, promotions, and sales.
PCI-DSS stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard and compliance to that standard means that all organizations must follow certain policies when storing, processing and transmitting their customer's credit card data. Adhering to policies and procedures set out by PCI-DSS is important to protect the security of financial transactions between a customer and your business. To be PCI complaint, companies must use a firewall between wireless network and their cardholder data environment, use the latest security and authentication options, change default settings for wired privacy keys, and use a network intrusion detection system.
A portal is a website that brings together information, resources, and web applications from diverse sources in a uniform way. Our portal offers 3CLogic clients access to self-service resources and can help them find the information and tools they need to smoothly manage their Contact Center including workforce management.
Predictive dialing takes an uploaded list of numbers to be dialed from a data-base and automatically calls them. Unlike an auto-dialer, a predictive dialer can automatically adapt the number of calls placed simultaneously, depending on the ratio of calls that connect and calls that fail to connect. Because of this “smart” technology, predictive dialing enables a list of calls to be dialed more efficiently. Predictive dialers anticipate when the next agent will become available based upon key statistics such as average talk time, wrap up time, number of calls required to contact a live answer, etc. Thus the dialer can be dialing numbers even though all agents are busy on call.
Accessible in-office or at a certain location. Premise-based resources and systems are centralized, as opposed to remote.
Preview dialing enables agents to find contact information in order to prepare for a call before actually placing it.
Progressive dialing is an automatic dialing technique that presents contact information to the Call Center agent prior to dialing the phone number. This is similar to preview dialing, but the agent is only given a specific amount of time to review contact information before the dialer automatically places the call. Progressive dialing is useful when outbound calls need to be managed by the administrator of the Contact Center, not by the agent. The agent is still given sufficient time to review information about the individual being called, but generally does not have control over the call itself.
A project is an uploaded list of numbers to be dialed, used to categorize specific call campaigns. Contact Center supervisors have control over many features to determine how, when, why, and for what purpose calls within each project are to be dialed.
Redundancy refers to the ability of a system to maintain function and availability during crisis with the use of back-up components that do not become active until such a crisis occurs. A fully redundant system has a 1:1 back-up ratio, meaning that there is one inactive back-up component for every component that is typically active.
Remote, in this instance, refers to agents or equipment that are located off-site rather than at the Contact Center building or office. Remote-based agents are connected to the on-premise agents and technology infrastructure through the cloud-based Contact Center solution.
SBC stands for Session Border Controller; a device used in some VoIP networks to exert control over the signaling and media streams.
Scalability refers to the ability of a system to grow and adapt to changes as needed and without limit. Only cloud-based solutions are limitlessly scalable so as to provide extra data storage and system components as needed without the use of a physical infrastructure or hardware.
Skills-based routing refers to a series of algorithms that ensure the options that a customer selects on an IVR menu will route their call to the agent who is most qualified to handle their inquiry or concern.
Technical support is the team of engineers and technicians that a company offers to resolve any technical issues that may arise whether they are client-side or not. 3CLogic’s support team is US-based and available 24/7 to handle service and support issues.
Talk time refers to the amount of time that an agent is actually connected and speaking to a customer or lead. Time spent dialing, or wasted reaching a wrong party or answering machine, negatively affects the talk time of the agent. More talk time means higher productivity for your Contact Center.
Telephony refers to the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. Telephony is commonly referred to as the construction or operation of telephones and communication systems which employ telephone equipment in the transmission of speech or other sound between points, with or without the use of wires. The term is also used for computer hardware, software, and network systems that perform functions traditionally performed by telephone equipment.
Uptime is a measure of availability, stability, and security. It describes the amount of time that a network, computer, or system is available and running, without outages or the need to be rebooted for system-related maintenance. 3CLogic’s Contact Center software solution offers up to 99.999% uptime.
VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and is also called Voice over IP. It refers to the technology used for the delivery of voice and multimedia communication over the internet, rather than a telephone network.
Web Callback can refer to a click-to-call-back client for your website. This is a feature that enables customers to use an internet application or widget to set an appropriate time for an agent to contact them. Or, if a customer’s call is waiting in the queue for a long time, they can choose to be automatically called back when their position in the queue is reached and an agent is available to receive their call.
Whisper is a feature that allows Contact Center supervisors to advise agents while they are on a call with a customer. The supervisor can either send chat messages directly to the agent or verbally advise them. In the case of verbal advise, the agent will hear the supervisor’s voice in their headset, but the customer will not be aware that a third-party is listening in.
A widget is a small software application for the web with limited functionality that can be installed and executed within a web page by an end user.