Contact centre glossary

Agent Desktop – An agent desktop is the unified software application that agents use to manage customer interactions across multiple communication channels.

AHT (Average Handle Time) – Average Handle Time (AHT) is a contact centre metric that measures the total duration of a customer interaction. It includes average talk time, average hold times, and wrap-up time, together forming the complete customer interaction.

AI call centre – An AI call centre uses artificial intelligence to automate, assist, and improve the handling of customer conversations across digital and voice channels.

Blended Agent – A blended agent is a contact centre professional trained to handle both inbound calls and outbound calls across multiple communication channels.

Capacity Planning – Capacity planning is about making sure your team has the right number of people, tools, and systems to handle the work coming their way.

CCaaS – CCaaS, or Contact Centre as a Service, is a cloud-based platform that provides all the tools a modern contact centre needs via a subscription model.

Customer Care – Customer care refers to the support and services provided to customers before, during, and after a purchase.

Customer Communications – Customer communication refers to the exchange of information between a business and its customers. This includes conversations through email, phone calls, live chat, social media, and messaging apps.

Customer engagement – Customer engagement refers to the ongoing interaction between a business and its customers across every channel, at every stage of the customer journey.

Customer Experience Metrics – Customer experience metrics are measurable indicators that evaluate how people perceive and interact with a business.

CX Analytics – CX analytics, short for customer experience analytics, is the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting customer data to understand how people interact with a business across touchpoints.

CX Platform – A CX platform is a centralised system used by businesses to manage and improve the entire customer experience. It integrates various tools for communication, support, automation, and analytics into a single platform.

Digital Customer Experience – Digital customer experience (DCX) refers to how customers interact with a business through digital channels and how those interactions shape their overall perception of the brand.

Digital Customer Service – Digital customer service is how organisations handle customer inquiries and support needs through online channels instead of traditional methods like phone calls or in-person visits.

Escalation – Escalation in a contact centre refers to the process of moving a customer issue to a more experienced or authorised agent when the first point of contact cannot resolve the query.

Example Glossary Item – This is an example glossary item

Feedback management – Feedback management is the structured process of capturing, analysing, and acting on customer, user, or employee feedback.

Guest experience – Guest experience refers to the overall impression a person forms when interacting with a service or environment, especially within hospitality, retail, or public-facing organisations.

Hosted services – Hosted services are contact centre solutions where everything runs on the internet. There’s no need for physical servers in your office.

Inbound call – An inbound call is a phone call made by a customer, client, or other external party to a business.

Journey mapping – Journey mapping is a visual tool that shows the steps a customer takes when dealing with your business.

Knowledge management – Knowledge management refers to the process of systematically capturing, organising, distributing, and using information within an organisation.

Logs – Logs are time-stamped digital records generated by systems, applications, or communication tools.

Menu – A menu in contact handling is a digital feature that allows callers to choose how they wish to proceed when they reach out to a business or service centre.

Natural language processing – Natural language processing refers to the ability of a system to analyse and respond to spoken or written language in a way that is meaningful.

Omni-channel contact centre – An omni-channel contact centre is a cloud-based contact centre solution that allows people to engage with organisations through a variety of channels, such as voice, email, live chat, social media platforms, and mobile apps, while maintaining a seamless customer experience.

Patient engagement – Patient engagement is the active collaboration between individuals and their healthcare providers to manage health decisions, behaviours, and outcomes.

Predictive Dialler – A predictive dialler is a type of automatic dialler that places outbound calls using algorithms to connect agents only when a real person answers.

Queue – A queue in customer service refers to the virtual line where incoming calls or other customer enquiries are placed until a centre agent becomes available.

Response rate – Response rate is a measurement used to understand how many people answered a survey, completed a form, or responded to a communication out of the total number invited.

Test item – A test item is an item that's just there for testing.

Text-to-speech – Text-to-speech, often shortened to TTS, is a type of speech synthesis technology that converts written text into audio output.

Upsell – Upselling is the practice of encouraging a customer to purchase a more advanced or premium version of a product or service than they originally intended.

Virtual agent – A virtual agent is a digital tool that interacts with users through voice or chat to provide information, solve problems, or complete tasks.

Workflow Management – Workflow management refers to the process of defining, organising, and optimising a sequence of tasks within a business to improve consistency, efficiency, and visibility.

Workforce Optimisation – Workforce optimisation (WFO) plays a vital role in improving operational efficiency, employee satisfaction, and service quality across the contact centre.

Workforce planning – Workforce planning is all about making sure you have the right people, with the right skills, in the right roles, both now and in the future.

XML integration – XML integration links contact centre systems like CRMs, IVRs, and dashboards to share structured data in real time.

Yield rate – Yield rate is a measure of how many customer interactions result in successful outcomes compared to the total number of contact attempts.

Zero-call resolution – In today’s service-driven climate, many customers prefer not to call at all. Zero-call resolution is a strategy that aims to resolve customer issues before they reach the contact centre.