The caller hangs up before the call is answered. Also known as a Lost Call

Another term for a PBX

The person who handles incoming and outgoing calls. Also commonly known as customer service representative (CSR), telephone sales or service representative (TSR), customer service professional, operator and team member etc.

An outbound call made by an agent.

Telephone transmission or switching that is not digital. Signals are analogous to the original signal.

A recorded Message played to callers.

Those business processes such as finance & accounting, human resources, administration, procurement, payroll, legal accounting, benefits management, information technology, marketing, legal, logistics, payroll and procurement.

The minimum number of agents required to achieve service level and response time objectives for a given period of time. Calculations assume that agents will be in their seat for the entire period of time. Schedules must therefore add in extra people to accommodate breaks, absenteeism and other factors that will keep agents from the phones. It is also known as Seated Agents.

An audible notification that a call is being monitored.

A standardised task to test the capabilities of devices against each other. In quality terms, benchmarking is comparing products, services and processes with those of other organisations, to identify new ideas and improvement opportunities.

A benchmarking term identifying organisations that outperform all others in a specified category.

A general term applied to new technologies such as cable modems that allow fast access to the Internet and other online services.

A system that teams up a new employee with an experienced employee so skills can be passed on over an extended period.

Technology that attempts to close the time gap between accounting statements and market information. BI software systems enable management to pull up the latest data about the company's performance. In the coming era of e-commerce, with hook ups among manufacturers, distributors, retailers and customers, such systems have the potential to offer financial data updated by the hour.

The tasks performed by a department or contracting company to the front office or customer facing team. Backoffice processing typically complete the mundane, repetitive or boring tasks in the moist efficient manner possible. Backoffice processing tasks are suitable for offshore or Nearshore services.

Business Process Utility (BPU) is a more recipient term defined within Gartner reports where the services provided by the backoffice provider are charged on a "pay as you go" basis and typically require less then 15% customisations to deliver the service.

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Combines traditionally separate inbound and outbound agent groups into one group of agents responsible for handling both inbound and outbound contacts. This system is capable of automatically putting agents who are making outbound calls into the inbound mode and vice versa when the incoming call load changes.

A term that generally refers to reservations centres, information lines, help desks or customer service centres, regardless of how they are organised or what types of transactions they handle. The term Contact Centre is becoming more widely used as 'Call Centre' does not accurately depict multi-channel environments.

A customer representative is an individual who represents a community that intends to purchase a product. The term is most often applied to a representative of a company who works closely with a producer or developer to clarify specifications for a product or service

The set of criteria the ACD uses to process calls. This can include routing criteria, overflow parameters, recorded announcements and timing thresholds.

Another term for historical reports.

An ACD feature that automatically delivers calls to agents who are available to take calls. A notification such as a beep occurs to inform them that a call has arrived, agents are not required to press a button to answer calls.

A real-time report that refers to the number of call received by the ACD system but not yet connected to an agent.

An electronic, telephone related device that allows individuals to identify callers before answering the telephone

(Average Talk Time + Average After-Call Work) x call volume. Also referred to as Work Load.

A transaction that allows a user to request callback from the call centre, while exploring a Web page. Requires interconnection of the PBX system and the Internet by means of an Internet Gateway.

A company that provides telecommunications circuits. Carriers include both local telephone companies and long distance providers.

Caboolture Business Enterprise Centre

A transmission path between two points in a network.

The capability of the PBX to route calls based on current conditions. It is based on "if-then" programming statements. For example, "if the number of call in group 1 exceeds 20 and there is at least 2 agents in group two, then route the calls to group two."

An accounting term that refers to a department or function in the enterprise that does not generate profit.

Total costs divided by total calls for a given period of time period.

Computer Telephony Integration.

Software that assists Agents in customer relationship management. Also known as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems

Complex software used by big companies to improve customer experience. Each stage of the customer dealings with a company are logged on the computer system, so all staff are fully informed about each client's accumulated experience.

A CTI application, where the PBX works in sync with the database computer to process calls, based on information in the database. For example, the prioritising of calls based on the customer who is calling.

Preparation of a potential customer list for the purposes on creating a target audience for marketing your product or service.

Recorded announcements that may inform clients to their progress in the queue, services available etc. In some systems, delay announcements are provided through recorded announcements routes

Electronic text mail.

A plan which specifies the actions to be taken when the queue begins to build beyond acceptable levels.

Globalization refers to increasing global connectivity, integration and interdependence in the economic, social, technological, cultural, political, and ecological spheres.

The number of calls received and actually handled by agents or peripheral equipment

The time an agent spends in Talk Time and After-Call Work, handling a transaction. This may also refer to the time it takes for a machine to process a transaction.

Generally refers to a contact centre or call centre that is set up to handle queries about sales, products, installation, usage or customer issues. Often used when referring to Information Technology customer support.

Having the right number of skilled people and resources in place at the right times to handle an accurately forecasted workload within a service level agreement.

A decision by an organization to retain functions internally rather than outsource. The decision is often made after the organization has performed independent benchmarking to determine that its costs and efficiencies are in line or better than those achieved by comparable organizations. The term is also used in cases where services are being brought back in house after a period of outsourcing them.

A group that supports other internal departments, remote agents or groups, e.g. for complex calls. Usually for branch operations and customers.

The time it takes an agent group that supports other internal groups (eg: for complex tasks) to respond to transactions that do not have to be handled when they arrive (eg: correspondence, email). See Response Time and Service Level.

Allow the agent and caller to communicate via a typed conversation from their computers across the Internet.

Technology that enables users of the Internet's World Wide Web to place voice telephone call through the Internet, thus by-passing the long distance network.

Efforts made by a client and service provider to protect the ideas -- intellectual property -- in a product or process owned by the client

Information Technology Infrastructure Library. A British government service management standard/model that documents best practices for support and delivery of IT services.

See VRU

Serve as benchmarks for the assessment of the performance of a Call Centre. KPIs act as barometers in assessing the performance of Call Centres on an individual, team and overall performance basis.

The transfer of business tasks or Information Technology processes to companies in a nearby country. These Nearshore countries often share a common border with your own country. In the US, nearshoring describes work sent to Canada and Mexico. In Australia it identified the South Pacific (Fiji). Nearshoring is a popular model for companies that don’t want to deal with the cultural, language or time zone differences involved in offshoring to remote locations.

A call distribution method that sends calls to the next agent who becomes available. The method seeks to maintain an equal load across skill groups or services. When there is no queue, Next Available Agent reverts to Longest Available Agent.

Also referred to as agent utilisation. The percentage of time agents handle calls versus wait for calls to arrive. For a half-hour, the calculation is: (call volume x average handling time in seconds) / (number of gents x 1800 seconds).

The transfer of business or IT processes to other countries. Dominant offshoring locations include India, China and the Philippines.

The process of engaging another company within your own country for BPO or IT services. (EG. Australian based company would engage another Australia based company)

The process of transferring the operation of business processes to an external service provider, which then becomes accountable for those services.

See PBX

Private Branch eXchange (also called Private Business eXchange) – is a telephone exchange that is owned by a private business, as opposed to one owned by a common carrier or by a telephone company.

A surge of traffic beyond random variation. It is a spike within a short period of time.

The number of calls initiated is greater than the number of agents available, but uses pacing algorithms to predict when agents will become free. Reduces the risk of no agents available to connect. Agents do not see whether the number they have called is engages etc.

An accounting term that refers to a department or function in the organisation that generated profit.

SFA software enables sales people on the road to use their notebook computers to log remotely to a central database. The database contains all information and resources of its sales team, so everyone is better informed.

Performance objectives reached between the service user and the provider, or between an outsourcer and organisation. This includes specific objectives eg: 15% increase sales, answer all calls within 1 minute.

Time agents spend with callers

Refers to either an agent who can handle all types of incoming calls or an agent who can handle both inbound or outbound calls.

A distributed call centre that acts as a single site for call handling and reporting purposes.

Voice over IP refers to the capability to carry normal telephony-style voice over an IP-based Internet with POTS-like functionality, reliability, and voice quality.

Initiated by hitting a 'click to call button' when browsing a web site to link the person to an Agent for more detail.

The caller enters a phone number into a web page and the agent calls the caller back.
(This is the non-automated process)
see Web Based Call

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Software systems that may forecast call load, calculate staff requirements, organise schedules and track real-time performance of individuals and groups.