Contact centre glossary

Adherence in contact centres – Adherence in a contact centre refers to how closely agents follow their scheduled activities and operational routines. It measures whether agents are available when planned, whether they move between tasks on time, and whether their working patterns match forecasted demand. Strong adherence keeps queues stable, protects service levels, and prevents burnout by keeping workload evenly distributed.

After Call Work (ACW) – After-call work refers to the brief period after an interaction when agents finish the behind-the-scenes tasks that keep the workflow moving. It may involve noting key details, updating tools, or triggering follow-up actions. Even though this stage happens after the customer disconnects, it directly affects service accuracy, queue flow, and the overall quality of the contact centre’s operations.

Agent assist – In modern contact centres, agent assist transforms everyday conversations. By blending AI intelligence with human empathy, it helps agents respond faster, personalise interactions, and create more satisfying customer experiences.

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

Agentic automation – Agentic automation transforms how organisations manage digital work by enabling systems to take initiative, respond to change, and coordinate tasks with minimal supervision. It supports complex business processes, adapts in real time, and helps teams work faster, smarter, and with greater accuracy.

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.

AI customer assist – AI customer assist refers to the use of Artificial intelligence to support organisations in delivering structured customer service, customer support, and customer care across channels. It helps support teams reduce Response Time, manage customer queries more accurately, and create consistent customer experiences. As customers expect instant help across social media, messaging, and voice, AI customer assist provides a balance between automation and human agents to manage increasing workloads.

AI Routing – AI routing refers to the process of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to decide the best path for requests, data, or customer interactions. It analyses multiple factors, predicts outcomes, and automatically selects the most efficient route or agent. This intelligent automation improves speed, reduces delays, and enhances customer satisfaction across different channels.

AI Self-Service – AI Self-Service refers to digital support systems powered by Artificial Intelligence that allow customers to resolve issues, ask questions, or complete tasks without depending on human agents. These systems use technologies such as natural language processing, machine learning, conversational AI, predictive analytics, and generative AI to create self-service experiences that feel intuitive, responsive, and personalised. Across industries, AI-driven customer self-service reduces pressure on support teams, improves response time, and supports smart call deflection without harming customer satisfaction.

Asynchronous messaging – Asynchronous messaging allows conversations and tasks to continue even when both parties are not present at the same time. It creates a flexible communication method that supports modern customer service needs by reducing wait times, improving customer experience, and enabling smooth interactions across digital channels without forcing users or agents to stay online continuously.

Auto QA – Auto QA brings automation into quality assurance by evaluating customer interactions at scale. It reviews conversations, checks compliance, and highlights behavioural patterns so organisations can maintain consistent service quality across every channel without depending solely on manual analysis.

Auto summary in contact centres – Auto summarisation refers to AI turning long customer conversations into short, accurate notes. Instead of agents typing up call wrap-ups or scrolling through long transcripts, the system captures the key points, issues raised, and actions agreed. It reduces the admin workload that often slows agents down and increases the pressure between calls.

Auto summary in contact centres – Auto summarisation refers to AI turning long customer conversations into short, accurate notes. Instead of agents typing up call wrap-ups or scrolling through long transcripts, the system captures the key points, issues raised, and actions agreed. It reduces the admin workload that often slows agents down and increases the pressure between calls.

Automatic Call Distribution (ACD) – Automatic Call Distribution, or ACD, is a telephony function that receives incoming calls and routes them to the most suitable person or team. Instead of relying on front-desk staff to manually pass calls around, it uses rules and data to support intelligent call routing. This reduces constant misdirects, improves customer satisfaction, and helps organisations use their people more effectively.

Average Handle Time (AHT) – Average Handle Time is one of the most widely used metrics in contact centres to understand how long agents take to resolve customer interactions. It helps organisations balance efficiency, quality, and customer satisfaction by tracking the total time spent on each conversation from start to finish.

Average Speed of Answer (ASA) – Average Speed of Answer measures how quickly a customer reaches an agent after entering a call queue. It helps organisations understand wait times, staffing efficiency, and the overall responsiveness of their contact centre operations.

Backlog – A backlog is a list of work that is accepted but not yet completed. It sits between planning and execution. Teams use it to keep track of pending items without mixing them into current tasks. A backlog can exist in an office, a service operation, or a project workflow. It helps create visibility and order, especially when demand arrives faster than a team can finish it. Backlog is not automatically a problem. In many workplaces, it is a normal way to queue tasks, review priorities, and decide what gets handled next.

Behavioural Routing – Behavioural Routing is an adaptive routing approach used in modern communication and network systems. It focuses on selecting routes based on live conditions and contextual signals, rather than relying on fixed paths. This makes it suitable for environments where traffic patterns and interaction volumes change frequently.

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

BOT or IVA – BOT or IVA refers to software systems designed to interact with people using text or voice. These systems are used to answer questions, guide users through processes, and complete routine tasks without direct human involvement. Bots and intelligent virtual assistants are now a common part of digital services, especially where speed, availability, and consistency are important. Although the terms are sometimes used interchangeably, bots and IVAs differ in capability and complexity, which affects how and where they are used.

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.

Case – A case in a call centre is a structured record created to track a customer issue from the moment it is reported until it is fully resolved. It represents the problem itself, not just a single conversation. A case can include multiple interactions across voice calls, emails, chats, or digital messages, all tied to the same issue. In operational terms, a case provides continuity. Even if the customer speaks to different agents over time, the case ensures that the full context is available, reducing confusion and repeated explanations.

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.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) – Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) connects telephone systems with computer applications, allowing contact centres to handle calls more intelligently and efficiently. Instead of agents working with separate phone systems and desktop applications, CTI brings them together so information flows automatically between the two.

Concurrency – Concurrency is the ability of a system to deal with more than one task in the same time window. It does not always mean tasks run at the exact same instant. Instead, a concurrent system manages multiple activities so each one makes progress without blocking the others for long. You see concurrency in everyday computing. Your phone can download an update while you message someone and listen to music. The system keeps switching attention across tasks so everything stays responsive. Concurrency becomes even more important when thousands of users interact with the same platform at once, such as in an AI-enabled contact centre.

Containment – Containment is a core concept in customer service and contact centre operations. It refers to how effectively customer queries are resolved without being passed to a live agent. When containment is implemented well, customers receive faster responses, agents focus on complex issues, and service teams operate more efficiently. Containment does not remove human support. Instead, it ensures that simple and repetitive requests are handled at the earliest stage, while human agents are reserved for cases that require judgment, empathy, or deeper investigation.

CSAT – CSAT stands for Customer Satisfaction Score. It is a customer experience metric used to understand how satisfied someone feels after a specific interaction. It is usually collected right after an event, such as a support call, a chat, a delivery, or a service request. Because CSAT captures feedback quickly, it helps teams spot problems early and improve service without waiting for long-term trends. In simple terms, CSAT tells you how customers feel about one moment. That is what makes it valuable for day-to-day service quality.

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.

Deflection in contact centres – Deflection refers to moving customer demand from high-cost channels (like phone calls) to lower-cost alternatives or self-service. The goal is reducing contact volume and operational costs whilst maintaining or improving customer experience. When done well, deflection benefits both the organisation and the customer. When done poorly, it creates frustration and damages trust.

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.

Disposition – Disposition is the label applied to an interaction recording what happened and how it ended. When an agent finishes a call, chat, or email, they select a disposition code describing the outcome - whether the issue was resolved, what type of query it was, and what needs to happen next. This simple labelling system drives reporting, forecasting, routing decisions, and follow-up actions across the contact centre. When done well, disposition provides accurate insight into customer needs and operational performance. When done poorly, it creates meaningless data and wastes agent time.

Erlang – Erlang is a set of mathematical formulas used to calculate how many agents you need to handle predicted contact volume whilst meeting service level targets. Named after Danish mathematician Agner Krarup Erlang who developed them in 1909 for telephone networks, these formulas remain the foundation of contact centre workforce planning today. The maths sounds intimidating, but the concept is straightforward: if you know how many contacts are coming, how long they'll take, and what service level you're aiming for, Erlang tells you how many agents to schedule.

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.

FCR (First Contact Resolution) – First Contact Resolution (FCR) measures whether a customer's issue gets resolved on the first interaction without them needing to contact you again. It's one of the most important metrics in contact centre performance because it directly impacts both customer satisfaction and operational costs. When FCR is high, customers are happy because their problems get sorted quickly. Costs are lower because you're not handling the same issue multiple times. When FCR is low, customers are frustrated, agents are demoralised, and your contact volume is artificially inflated by people calling back about things that should have been fixed already. Simple concept. Surprisingly difficult to measure accurately and even harder to improve consistently.

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

Feedback management – Feedback management is the organised practice of collecting, analysing, and acting on insights from employees, customers, and stakeholders. It converts raw opinions into practical improvements for services, processes, and products. A good approach builds a clear loop between what people say, what teams learn, and what changes next.

Forecast Accuracy – Forecast accuracy measures how close your predictions were to what actually happened. You forecast that 500 calls would arrive on Tuesday morning with an average handle time of 4 minutes. Tuesday arrives and you get 650 calls averaging 5 minutes. Your forecast was wrong, your staffing was short, and your service level collapsed. This happens constantly in contact centres. The gap between what you predicted and what actually occurred determines whether you've staffed appropriately or whether you're either drowning in unexpected volume or paying agents to sit idle.

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.

Hand-off – Hand-off is the moment when a chatbot or virtual assistant transfers a customer to a human agent, ideally with full conversation context and transcript. When done well, the customer moves seamlessly from AI to human without repeating themselves. When done badly, it's the digital equivalent of being transferred three times and starting from scratch each time. This single moment often determines whether customers see AI as helpful or infuriating. The chatbot might have handled the first part brilliantly, but if the hand-off breaks and the agent has no idea what's already been discussed, the entire experience collapses.

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

ID&V (Identification and Verification) – Identification and verification (ID&V) is the process of confirming who the customer is and that they have the right to access account information or make changes. It's the "can you confirm your date of birth and postcode" ritual that starts almost every contact centre interaction. ID&V sits at the uncomfortable intersection of security and customer experience. Too little verification and you're handing account access to fraudsters. Too much and you're putting legitimate customers through interrogation just to check their balance. Every contact centre struggles with this balance. Make it too easy and you'll be explaining to regulators why you gave account details to someone who shouldn't have them. Make it too hard and customers will be fuming before the actual conversation even starts.

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

Intelligent email sorting – Intelligent email sorting is the use of artificial intelligence and machine learning to organise, prioritise, and route emails automatically. Instead of relying only on manual sorting or static folders, intelligent systems analyse email content, sender importance, behaviour patterns, and context to decide where each message should go. This approach helps people and teams organise their inbox more efficiently, reduce email overload, and build sustainable email management habits. For many organisations, intelligent email sorting is the backbone of modern email management services and supports the goal of reaching inbox zero in a realistic way.

Interaction analytics – Interaction analytics is the process of examining customer interactions across multiple communication channels to uncover trends, patterns, and opportunities for service improvement. It combines speech, text, and digital data to help organisations understand customer sentiment, detect root causes of issues, and improve overall customer experience. By leveraging artificial intelligence and conversational intelligence, organisations can analyse large volumes of customer conversations to make data-driven decisions and improve operational efficiency.

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.

Knowledge surfacing – Knowledge surfacing is the process of identifying, extracting, and displaying the right information at the right time across digital systems. It ensures that useful knowledge stored in databases, documents, or conversations becomes immediately available to employees and customers who need it. By connecting information sources with intelligent systems, organisations can improve decision-making, response accuracy, and service quality.

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.

Performance management in contact centres – Performance management in a contact centre is the structured way supervisors monitor, coach, and support agents so they can deliver consistent customer experiences. It aligns daily behaviour with operational goals and gives agents a clear sense of what “good” looks like. When done well, it becomes less about policing numbers and more about setting people up to succeed.

Post-call summarise – Post-call summarisation refers to the process of documenting the essential points of a customer interaction after a conversation ends. It helps agents capture key details such as the customer issue description, actions taken, escalation requirements, and resolution steps. Modern contact centres use artificial intelligence, natural language processing, and speech analytics to generate call summaries automatically, reducing manual note-taking and improving customer experience. Accurate post-call summaries also support customer service consistency and help teams maintain a clear activity timeline for future interactions.

Predictive analytics – Predictive analytics refers to the use of statistical modelling, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to forecast future outcomes based on historical data. Organisations rely on predictive modelling to understand customer behaviour, measure potential risks, and plan more accurately across different functions. The insights generated from these models help teams anticipate patterns such as seasonal demand changes, shifts in user activity, or early signs that a customer may become disengaged. Predictive analytics supports everything from forecasting cash flow to identifying changes in endpoint behaviour that may suggest performance or security issues. By moving beyond descriptive analytics it provides forward-looking guidance so teams can make decisions with more confidence.

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.

Real-time knowledge surfacing – Real-time knowledge surfacing is the process of presenting the most relevant information, guidance, or insights to employees or customers during an interaction. Instead of relying on manual searching or switching between multiple systems, real-time surfacing uses artificial intelligence, knowledge management techniques, and machine learning to detect what the user needs and display helpful content instantly. It improves customer experience and supports agents by reducing response times, simplifying decision-making, and improving accuracy during customer interactions.

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.

Supervisor Copilot – Supervisor Copilot refers to an AI-driven tool designed to assist team leaders and managers in real time across contact centre operations. It provides instant insights, summaries, and recommendations to improve agent performance, customer satisfaction, and service standards. Built on Generative AI and data intelligence, it supports supervisors with quick decision-making and reduces manual review time.

Support ticket categorisation – Support ticket categorisation is the process of assigning structured labels to customer issues so that support teams can manage, route, and resolve requests efficiently. Ticket categorisation allows organisations to organise support requests, reduce resolution time, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain consistent service across departments. By grouping tickets under meaningful categories, support agents and help desk teams can prioritise work, identify patterns in customer experiences, and improve overall support workflow performance.

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 augmentation – Workforce augmentation is a staffing approach that allows organisations to enhance their internal teams by bringing in external professionals with specialised skills. Instead of hiring full-time employees, businesses add temporary or project-based experts to support workload peaks, fill skill gaps, or meet specific technical requirements. This approach strengthens business objectives while helping teams scale quickly without restructuring their existing workforce.

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.