Agent

Also known as a Call Centre Agent or Contact Centre Agent. An agent’s primary role is to help service customer requests, generally telephonically. An inbound Call Centre receives calls from customers, and may be taking orders or servicing queries. Outbound Call Centres are predominantly sales oriented. Because of their role, agents’ productivity is key to the performance of the business, hence reporting around this is critical.

AGI

The Asterisk Gateway Interface, commonly referred to as AGI, is a language-independent API for processing calls. It allows programmers to write simple programs to manipulate and route calls on Asterisk servers in a simple, easy manner.

Analytics

Analytics is the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data; and the process of applying those patterns towards effective decision making. In other words, analytics can be understood as the connective tissue between data and effective decision making within an organization. Especially valuable in areas rich with recorded information, analytics relies on the simultaneous application of statistics, computer programming and operations research to quantify performance.

Attendance

The action or state of going regularly to or being present at a place or event

Attended transfer

A call transferred after notifying the agent who is on the line

Auto Dial

System side dialling functionality that does not require manual input.

Barge In

When barging into a call, the agent and client can hear the person who has barged in.

Blocklist VS Allow

Blocklist: In computing, a blocklist is a basic access control mechanism that allows everyone access, except for the members of the blocklist (i.e. list of denied accesses). The opposite is a Allowlist, which means allow nobody, except members of the Allowlist.

Caller ID

The number displayed to the other party when calling.

Campaign

A campaign is a planned set of calls being made by agents for a common purpose. Campaigns usually contain lists of contacts who may have more than one contact number.

CDR

A call detail record (CDR) is a computer record created by a telephone exchange.

Conference Room

A Conference Room is a location where multiple members can dial into in order to speak as a single conversation. Conference room members can be from the external call and internal calls, making it a very flexible tool for communication. Permanent conference rooms are fixed rooms which can be used for any meeting at any time. These room numbers never change also allowing their meetings to be protected by pin numbers.

Contacts

Contacts can have personal and business information. Multiple telephone numbers can be linked to a single contact.

CRM Tag

An alphanumeric string such as a reference or policy number.

Destination

In telephony terms, this is the number that was dialled. 

DID

Direct Inbound Dialling (DIDs) numbers are regular telephone numbers that can be dialled from any telephone or cellphone, external to the organisation. 

DND

Do Not Disturb

DTMF

DTMF is the global standard for audible tones that represent the digits on a phone keypad, and is used to navigate automated systems such as phone menus.

External Client

This is a Windows-only separate application that interacts with the web browser. The user will need to install a service to use this application. External Client is a very stable and high-quality voice call application.

Hot Desk

To dial from any desk/location. 

Hunt List

A Hunt List is a predetermined sequence of dial attempts for the purpose of reaching a suitable recipient or group. With a hunt list the order of attempt is important, since the inbound call will attempt the first destination, then the second, and so on. Like the IVR, this can be used with a Queue as a hunt option, where a caller can be sent to a queue if the preceding attempts fail.

Inbound Queue

Allows callers to wait in a queue to be answered.

Inbound Route

Inbound routing is one of the key pieces to a functional PBX. The Inbound Routes module is the mechanism used to tell the PBX where to route inbound calls based on the phone number or DID dialled. 

IVR

Interactive Voice Response (IVR), also known as "Automated Attendant" is a technology that allows people to interact with the user’s menus through the use of DTMF tones on the caller's keypad. IVR systems generally respond with the pre-recorded audio file at each step to further direct users on how to proceed. IVR systems are generally used when a user requires the caller to make a selection before continuing for example "Select 1 for Sales”

Latency

This refers to the time taken to traverse the distance between two points (such as between a client and server), generally measured in milliseconds. 

Login

Login is a set of credentials used to authenticate a user. Most often, these consist of a username and password. 

Manager

a person responsible for controlling or administering an organization or group of staff.

Menu Action

The chosen directive by Caller, therefore, the user can view all calls who chose action 9 which could be a specific department/queue

Participant

a person who takes part in queue activities without the productivity or time and attendance reporting associated with call centre agents.

PBX

Private Branch Exchange

Penalty

A penalty is set for an agent or participant to allow weighting or prioritisation.

Pickup Group:

A list of extensions that, when used, can answer a ringing call on a group of extensions.

Productive Pause

This will be work-related e.g Meetings or Training.

Provisioning

Provisioning allows settings to be automatically downloaded to a phone upon booting. The phone is identified by its unique MAC address.

Queues

Call queues are virtual queues within a user's PBX that coordinate incoming calls by putting them in order. Employees who are members/agents in the queues will receive calls based on the order and strategy setup. Queues are useful when a user has many callers and a few agents. Queues can also be set up to play announcements and music when the callers are waiting.

Realtime Ques

This real-time display shows the calls currently waiting in any of the users queues. The system will search for all calls based on tenants. Use the mouse to select any extension name to see the full details of the extension and for additional functionality. The user can start and stop the auto-reload by selecting the "Stop Updating" and "Start Updating" button.

Role

The position or purpose that someone or something has in a situation

RTP

Realtime Transfer Protocol - used for carrying the actual voice stream within a SIP session

Script


What the administrator/manager wants the agents to say, specifically for this campaign, in order for them to communicate the information required.

SDP

Session Description Protocol - works within SIP to define the parameters of a session

SFTP Path

SFTP stands for Secure File Transfer Protocol. It is another file transfer protocol like FTP but it provides the facility of a secure connection.

SIP

Session Initiation Protocol - VoIP signalling protocol

Source


Spy

When the administrator/manager spys on a call, they can listen to the conversation without the client or agent being aware.

Status

This shows whether the agent is idle or in use.

Sticky agent

When a number is sent directly to a specific agent, that has already dealt with that specific customer.

Supervisor/Team leader

Supervisor complete technical and administrative tasks.he is responsible for material, member health, work have to complete on deadline, Leader provides direction to a team member and doing management work. ... They play the role of both co-worker and supervisor by sometimes wearing both hats in their daily work.

Toll fraud

When hackers get hold of the users SIP credentials and then start making calls internationally from their account. The cost will then be sent to the user and will have to be paid

Tooltip

a message which appears when a cursor is positioned over an icon, image, hyperlink, or other element in a graphical user interface

TMS

Telephone Management Systems (TMS) The term 'Telephone ManagementSystem' or 'TMS' is best described as a Software application which interconnects to a Telephone System and enables detailed Telecoms calling expenditure for the organisation. ... Incoming or Outgoing call.

Trunk Account

What controls what comes in and out - White labels and re-sellers will have a trunk account

Unattended transfer

A call transferred without notifying the agent who is on the line

Unique ID

This is the ID number of the actual call used to track the call if needed, Each call will have its own ID.

Unproductive Pause

This will be acceptable but not work-related pauses e.g Bathroom Break, Tea Break, Smoke Break.

URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and is used to specify addresses on the World Wide Web. A URL is the fundamental network identification for any resource connected to the web (e.g., hypertext pages, images, and sound files). The protocol specifies how information from the link is transferred.

Web RTC

Realtime Communication that is built into the browser. This does not need any additional application and is used to do voice calls. Web RTC is a more flexible option than an external client and can be used on any platform with a browser.

Whisper

This allows a user to speak to the agent without the client being able to hear the conversation.