Glossary of terms used in WMS, TMS, Supply Chain and Dispatch software.
Routing engine that distributes incoming calls to the right agent based on skills, queue priority, and availability.
Real-time AI suggestions to agents during calls — next-best-action, knowledge surfacing, sentiment alerts, automated summaries.
Average time an agent spends on a customer interaction including talk time, hold time, and after-call work. Industry benchmark 4-7 minutes for voice.
Contract under HIPAA between a covered entity and a business associate handling PHI. Required for CCaaS deployments in healthcare.
Outsourced call center service. BPOs run multi-tenant CCaaS architectures handling 1,000-50,000+ seats across multiple client engagements.
Cloud-delivered contact center software priced per seat or per usage. The 2025 Gartner CCaaS Magic Quadrant Leaders are NICE, Genesys, Five9, Talkdesk and Amazon Connect.
Software unifying customer data from CRM, marketing tools, eCommerce, support into a single profile. Powers personalization.
Survey score measuring how easy the customer found resolving their issue. Predicts loyalty better than CSAT in many studies.
Post-interaction survey score (typically 1-5 or 1-10). The most direct measure of customer experience but susceptible to selection bias.
Software linking phone calls to computer systems (CRM, helpdesk). Enables screen-pop, click-to-call, automated case creation.
Percentage of customer interactions resolved on the first contact without callback. The single most-watched KPI in contact center operations.
US law restricting debt collection conduct. Regulation F (effective Nov 30, 2021) added the 7/7/7 call-cap rule.
US federal cloud security authorization framework. Moderate, High and DoD IL4/5 tiers.
US law protecting Protected Health Information (PHI). Contact centers handling PHI require a BAA with the CCaaS vendor.
Self-service phone menu that routes callers via DTMF (touch-tone) or voice recognition. Modern conversational IVR uses AI.
Likelihood to recommend score (0-10). Subtracts detractors (0-6) from promoters (9-10). Industry benchmarks vary widely.
Architecture where voice, email, chat, SMS, social and other channels share a single customer record and routing engine.
Security standard for handling cardholder data. CCaaS vendors handling payments are PCI DSS Level 1 service providers.
Outbound dialer with one number per agent. Zero abandonment risk. Industry term overlaps with progressive dialer.
Outbound auto-dialer that places multiple calls per agent simultaneously, predicting agent availability. FCC caps abandonment at 3%.
Outbound dialer that places one call per agent. No abandonment risk because the dialer waits for agent availability before placing the call.
Software for evaluating agent calls against scorecards. AI-assisted scoring automates 100% of interactions vs random sampling.
Agent desktop feature that opens a customer's CRM record automatically when a call arrives.
ACD method routing contacts to the agent with the best-matching skill set rather than first-available.
Independent attestation report on a service organization's controls. Type II covers controls operating over time (6-12 months).
Unified customer profile across all touchpoints — CRM, support history, purchases, prior interactions across channels.
US law restricting telemarketing and auto-dialed calls to cell phones. Jan 27, 2025 one-to-one consent rule changed compliance requirements.
Cloud-delivered business phone, video and team chat. Different from CCaaS but five vendors bundle both: RingCentral, 8x8, Vonage, Dialpad, Nextiva.
Integrated suite combining WFM, QM, performance management, gamification, and analytics for contact center workforce.
Forecasting and scheduling software for contact center staffing. Calabrio, Verint and NICE WFM lead.