Below is a list of common terms used with ViciDial and other Dial Fusion products & services. The glossary also contains other Industry related terms for Contact Centers, Marketing & Technology.
Click the corresponding letter category to see definitions. For example, to look up the definition of Safe Harbor, scroll down and click the letter S. This will open up and display all of the terms that begin with the letter S.
Content is continuously being added and updated so check back often and please let us know if there is something missing!
A2P - A2P messaging means "Application to Person" and is a common term in the SMS (texting) industry.
ABANDON - Refers to an inbound contact (call) that waited in queue to be connected to a live agent but disconnected or hung up before the connection was made. In outbound contacts (calls) the term refers to an occurrence where the automated dialer hangs up or disconnects because the system was unable to establish a live answer.
ABANDONMENT RATE - Call center abandonment rate is a call center metric that records the percentage of calls terminated by callers after being placed in a queue (after going through an IVR and before ringing at an agent or ring group).
ACTIVE X CONTROLS - The interactive objects in a web page that provide interactive and user-controllable functions
ADHERENCE TO SCHEDULE - Term used typically in workforce management and call center operations that refers to how well teams, centers, groups and/or agents adhere to their schedule. Formulas may vary however this is a considerable metric used to manage performance and identify possible impactors or opportunities for improvement.
ADVERTISOR - An advertiser is the owner of an offer/product. They pay affiliates for every conversion. When an ad network speaks about “Advertisers”, they refer to people who buy traffic there.
AD NETWORK - A company that connects advertisers to publishers (owners of websites). Media Buyers can purchase its inventory. There are several pricing models available, and you bid for impressions, clicks or views.
AFFILIATE LINK - A unique linking code. It enables the advertiser and/or the network to track any activity. This code is embedded in a text or graphic link which in turn identifies a visitor as hailing from a specific affiliate website when the graphic or text is clicked on.
AFFILIATE MARKETING - Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate promotes a product and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make usually through tracking links.
AFFILIATE PROGRAM - An arrangement through which the advertiser pays a fee to an affiliate for the action of generating clicks, sales or leads from links located on that affiliate’s website. These can also be known as partner, associate, revenue sharing or referral programs.
AFTER CALL WORK (ACW) - is the average amount of time an agent takes to wrap up a call.
AGENT – Another name for a user on Dial Fusion, it also implies they do not have administrator access. This term is typically applied to Call Center Representatives (CSR) or users that will be handling inbound, outbound or both types of calls inside the system.
AGENT COACHING - Agent coaching is a quality management and/or performance activity in which you provide agents with feedback, examples, and activities to complete to help them improve their skillset.
AGENT OCCUPANCY - Occupancy is a workforce management (WFM) metric that shows the percentage of time agents are actively engaged in interaction handling activities compared to their total time logged in.
AGENT REPORTS - A performance report providing statistical insights related to an individual agent’s average handle time, unavailable time, call log, etc.
AGENT SELF-EVALUATIONS - Agent self-evaluations or self-assessments are a quality management activity in which agents evaluate and score their own interactions using the same evaluation form that another evaluator would use.
AGENT UTILIZATION - Agent utilization is a workforce management metric that indicates agent productivity.
AGI - (Asterisk Gateway Interface) In Dial Fusion AGI scripts are designed to allow application level control of selected features, and increase their existing level of functionality.
ANALOG - An analog signal, such as voice or music, that varies in a continuous manner. An analog signal may be contrasted with a digital signal, which represents only discrete states.
ANALYTICS - Tools that analyze data points, make correlations, reveal insights, and report on trends to help a contact center or business improve operations.
ANCHOR TEXT - The clickable words on a hyperlink.
ANI - Automatic number identification. A series of numbers associated with a call. These numbers identify the phone number of the caller. Sometimes referred to as Caller ID. A telephony software system that allows the receiver of a phone call to capture and display the phone number of the phone initiating the call.
ANNOUNCEMENT - A recorded message played by the system. Also may be a communication announced to client group in WHMCS billing system.
API - (application programming interface) These can be set up to automatically execute commands that are generally handled by the agent or admin. Agent APIs deal with commands the agent would normally handle, while Non-agent APIs refer to administrator functions.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) - Cognitive technology that uses and analyzes data, algorithms, and programming to perform actions, predict problems, and adapt to circumstances.
ASTPP - ASTPP is the open source VoIP switch software platform used by Dial Fusion for billing purposes.
AVERAGE HANDLE TIME (AHT) - is a metric for the average length of customer interaction in the call center. It’s one of the most commonly analyzed KPIs in the call center industry and is frequently assessed when measuring efficiency or productivity.
AVERAGE HOLD TIME - is the measure of time customers were put on hold during a call with an agent. Agents usually put calls on hold to find additional information or to transfer the call to another source, either another agent internally or an external source.
AVERAGE TALK TIME (ATT) - is the amount of time an agent spends talking with customers
AVERAGE TIME OF ABANDONMENT (ATA) - is the average length of time that a caller will stay in queue (INGROUP) before they hang up the call.
AVERAGE WAIT TIME (AWT) - This term can apply to both the average time a customer waits in queue before an inbound call is answered (Average Speed to Answer ASA) OR it can apply to the average time an agent spends waiting in between calls. It depends on how your organization defines and measures this metric or term.
APPLICATION SERVICE PROVIDER (ASP) - an application service provider is a company that provides software applications to customers over the internet, otherwise known as “software as a service” (SaaS)
AUTOMATIC SPEECH RECOGNITION (ASR) - is the technology that allows human beings to use their voices to speak with a computer interface in a conversational way.
AUTOMATED CALL DISTRIBUTOR (ACD) - is a telephony software system that answers incoming calls and routes them to a specific agent, group of agents, person or department within a company. An important role of ACD is to produce management information that tracks both calls and agent performance.
AUTOMATIC CALLBACK - A computer telephony calling feature that permits a customer-when encountering a busy condition or other condition where an agent is unavailable - to instruct the system to return their call when an agent becomes available.
AUTOMATION - Technology built to assume control of processes previously performed by humans to boost efficiency and reliability and empower customers to self-serve.
AVERAGE SPEED OF ANSWER (ASA) - is the average number of seconds it takes for a call to be answered.
AUTO DIALER - automates the process of making telephone calls by dialing from a list of phone numbers until connection with human (customer) is made, the call is then passed to a live agent or played an automated message via IVR. Dialers allow for increased agent productivity as the software is able to filter out non-contact type of calls without ever utilizing a live agent. See Predictive Dialer.
BACK OFFICE MANAGEMENT - The back office typically supports and works to deliver on the objectives and promises of the customer-facing team. It includes the administration of a company’s human resources, technology, and services.
BARGE (IN) - a capability that allows a Supervisor or Manager to “barge” into an ongoing call and take over if needed.
BEST IN CLASS (BIC) - is something that has been designated by management as the preferred solution, standard, etc.
BLENDED - allowing both inbound and outbound calls. An employee in the role of a contact center agent who divides their time and attention between multiple communication channels (Voice Calls, Emails, SMS, Chats, Etc) to service customer needs.
BOT - A bot is a piece of software that automates tasks that humans would otherwise perform.
BROADCAST CAMPAIGN - a campaign that places calls without the aid of human agents. When the recipient answers a message is played and then the call is disconnected. This is used for announcement recordings to be played to customers that have already opted to receive the call (school closings, prescription reminders, etc.). Also known as “robo-dialing”
BUSINESS PROCESS OUTSOURCING (BPO) - is outsourcing some aspect of your business’s operations to a third-party vendor or service provider. For example, a manufacturer may outsource their customer service to a call center. But business process outsourcing isn't limited to customer service, or to call centers. The same manufacturer might use BPO to outsource payroll, accounting, and similar administrative tasks.
BUSINESS OPTIMIZATION - A systematic process of improving performance by managing and optimizing key areas of an organization that impact prospects, processes, people and profits.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY/DISASTER RECOVERY (BC/DR) - are plans and practices put into place that support an organization’s ability to stay operational after an adverse event.
BUSINESS CONTINUITY PLANNING (BCP) - is planning for all possible scenarios to ensure your call center can continue in the midst of an unexpected issue or event.
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE (BI) - is a combination of analytics, data mining, data visualization, data tools, and infrastructure to help call centers make more data driven decisions and improve agent efficiency and the customer experience.
BUSINESS TO BUSINESS (B2B) - describes commerce transactions between businesses.
BUSINESS TO CONSUMER (B2C) - describes commerce transactions between businesses and consumers.
BYTE - A unit of data that is eight binary digits long, used by most computers to represent a character such as a letter, number, or symbol.
CALL ABANDONMENT RATE - is the percentage of inbound calls that are abandoned (hung up) by the customer before speaking to an agent. It is calculated as abandoned calls divided by total inbound calls.
CALLBACK - is a feature in a software system that allows a customer to instruct the system to return their call later. For example, if a customer is placed into an inbound queue to wait for an available agent, they can be given the option to receive a callback either through a Call Menu or IVR option depending on the system being used to manage or handle calls. It can also be defined as a status in Dial Fusion if an agent talking with a customer is asked to schedule a call back.
CALL CENTER BLOCKAGE - the inability of a call center’s communication channels to handle a new incoming contact, either due to high incoming traffic or technical difficulties.
CALL CENTER INTERVAL REPORTS - a snapshot of call center performance during a specific timeframe of usually less than a day. As distinct from the daily/weekly/monthly reports used to measure wider performance trends, an interval report allows you to measure specific KPIs and general performance at a specific time of day (e.g. lunchtime).
CALL CENTER MANAGEMENT - the term call center management refers to how businesses manage daily call center operation. The policies, procedures, and tools used to manage operations, employees, and interactions within a call center.
CALL CENTER REPORTING - The tracking and presentation of key performance indicators (KPIs) and planned metrics on call center activities and individual call center agent performance.
CALL CENTER WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION - A strategy to improve call center workforce management and planning through a series of forecasting, scheduling, quality management, training, and reporting tools.
CALL CENTER WORKFORCE PLANNING - Call center workforce planning is the process of forecasting staffing needs based on anticipated volume or other business drivers, then ensuring everything is in place to hire, train, schedule, and manage the required agent team.
CALL DETAIL RECORD (CDR) - is the data record that documents the details of a telephone call or other telecommunications transaction, including caller name and numbers, date and time the call was made, duration, and other information elements.
CALLER ENTERED DIGITS (CED) - are any digits callers enter using their telephone keypads.
CALLING LINE IDENTITY (CLI) - is essentially caller ID. It allows the person receiving the call to see the caller’s number.
CALL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (CMS) - is a software product for organizations that receive a large volume of telephone calls. Features often include collecting call-traffic data, creating management reports, and providing an administrative interface.
CALL MENU - an automated attendant that plays an announcement to the caller, offering several routing choices based on which button they press. This is also known as an IVR (interactive voice response).
CALL TIMES - In Dial Fusion the outbound call time is relative to the local time zone of the lead being called. For example, if the campaign's call time was set to “9am-5pm”, a lead would not be called until it was at least 9am local time; regardless of what time zone they lived in. For inbound calls, the call time is based on the server time. Anything outside of that time is considered “after hours”.
CALL TRANSFER RATE - a contact center KPI which measures the percentage of total calls that are transferred from one agent to another agent or resource (whether at the request of the caller or as a step towards connecting the caller to more relevant personnel.) A well designed modern contact center will keep CTR low with effective automatic call distribution.
CALL RECORDER - Known as call recording software, is contact center technology that records the contents of phone calls and may also capture agent screens. Example, Verint.
CALL VOLUME - The number of calls or contacts made or received during a given time period.
CAMPAIGN - the basic module of Dial Fusion, allowing for outbound calls. A user will need to log into a campaign to be able to place or receive phone calls.
CARRIER - The telephony provider that connects calls to, and receives calls from, the public telephone network.
CHANNELS - Various voice and digital communication mediums that facilitate customer interactions in a contact center.
CHANUNAVAILABLE - this indicates calls the dialer intended to place, but didn't have enough lines available to send it to the carrier.
CHAT - A digital messaging application built into an organization’s contact center platform, and launched from the organization’s website, that allows a customer to communicate and receive service quickly and easily online.
CHATBOT - a software application that is capable of conducting a human-like online chat conversation experience via text or text-to-speech.
CID - (caller identification) The phone number displayed to the customer or lead on an outbound phone call
CLOSER - The agent that receives a transferred call from another user (the fronter) in Dial Fusion.
CLOUD CONTACT CENTER - a cloud or cloud-based contact center is one that has its technology hosted in the cloud by a third-party vendor. A contact center powered by cloud native software (rather than on-premise hardware) to handle inbound and outbound customer interactions across multiple voice and digital channels.
COMPLIANCE - Abiding or conforming to rules, regulations, or laws. Can also refer to adherence to agent schedule.
COMPUTER TELEPHONY INTEGRATION (CTI) - is used to describe any technology that enables computers to interact with telephones. This technology is primarily used in call centers and is often used to describe desktop interactions that improve human agents' productivity.
CONTACT CENTER - An operation that supports inbound and/or outbound communication between customers and agents (or self-service systems) across multiple voice and digital channels, typically for the purposes of Customer Service, Sales, or Support.
CONTACT CENTER AS A SERVICE (CCaaS) - stands for Contact Center As a Service, a framework for contact center infrastructure management in the cloud.
CONTACT DISPOSITION - Dispositions are user-defined statuses that can be assigned to completed interactions either by an agent or by the system. AKA Status.
CONTEXT - A combination of identifying factors about a customer—including user identity, environmental, and process-based information—that form insights which allow an organization to deliver a relevant and optimal experience to the customer.
CONGESTION - a carrier message indicating the dialer sent calls to the carrier that they were unable to place.
CNAM - (Caller ID Name) The name displayed on the recipient's caller ID. While the caller ID number is sent along with the call, the caller ID name is supplied by the receiving party's carrier. If the recipient carrier's database is not updated frequently CNAM can display a previous owner for the phone number. Sometimes this may even display the state or “unknown” if the phone number doesn't exist in their database at all. Canada is the only exception, allowing carriers placing the call to send both caller ID number & name.
CRM - (Customer Relationship Management or Customer Resource Management) Any system designed for storing and handling customer interactions and data. The custom fields feature allows you to create a wide array of new tables to retain customer information. They allow it to perform most CRM features. Dial Fusion can integrate directly with any web-based CRM, using a URL string to post data.
CROSS-SELL - When a sales rep suggests that an existing customer would benefit from the purchase of an additional product or service.
CUSTOMER ACQUISITION COST (CAC) - Customer acquisition cost (CAC) is a measure of how efficient a company's sales and marketing efforts are at acquiring new customers.
CUSTOMER CONTROLLED ROUTING (CCR) - is the process of customizing customer experience by routing incoming calls to specific agents trained to address the customer’s specific issue.
CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT - A metric to track and measure customer engagement over their journey. A framework connecting multiple systems, processes, and stakeholders together to optimally engage the customer across their customer journey.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT (CEM) - is the practice of designing and reacting to customer interactions to meet or exceed their expectations, leading to greater customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.
CUSTOMER FEEDBACK - Customer feedback is input that consumers provide to companies they do business with. It may be unsolicited - for example, a customer may file a complaint - but organizations often use structured methods to solicit and collect customer feedback.
CUSTOMER INFORMATION SYSTEM (CIS) - is the system containing all data pertaining to all customer premises, including addresses, billing determinants and historical data.
CUSTOMER INTELLIGENCE (CI) - Customer intelligence is the process of collecting and analyzing information about a business's customers with the intent of identifying the best way of interacting with them in order to strengthen relationships and increase loyalty.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY - is the overall experience a customer has with a company, from awareness to loyalty. Describes a complete end-to-end set of experiences customers have when interacting with an organization or brand.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT - Customer journey management uses the latest strategies and software to provide seamless and consistently exceptional omnichannel customer experiences across a customer journey.
CUSTOMER JOURNEY OPTIMIZATION - The process of optimizing the customer journey through mapping and management.
CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE (CLV) - Describes the total value of a customer’s relationship to an organization over a lifetime.
CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) - is all techniques, tools, and technologies used by organizations for developing, retaining and acquiring customers.
CUSTOMER SATISFACTION (CSAT) - is a score that indicates how satisfied a customer is with a specific product, transaction, or interaction with a company. The term “CSAT” is most often used in the context of a “CSAT Score,” which describes a numerical measure of customer satisfaction.
CUSTOMER SENTIMENT - is a KPI (Key Performance Indicator) that shows customers’ emotions towards a product, service, or brand. When customers engage with a brand - by using a product and leaving a review online, interacting through phone calls and voice and chatbots, talking about a company on social media, or others - there’s always a predominant emotion involved called “sentiment.”
CUSTOMER SERVICE - the support a company gives to their customer before, during and after they buy a product or service.
CUSTOMER SERVICE REPRESENTATIVE (CSR) - is anyone who interacts with customers. They handle complaints, process orders, and provide information about an organization’s products and services.
CUSTOMER SURVEYS - Customer surveys are tools organizations use to collect feedback from their customers about any number of topics. Customer surveys can take several forms, including paper-based documents that are mailed customers, digital surveys that appear after website transactions, and surveys facilitated by outbound phone agents.
DASHBOARD - a call center dashboard is a type of graphical user interface that often provides a simplified visual analysis of relevant KPIs to monitor and optimize performance in real time.
DATABASE - An application that stores, organizes, and structures data consistently for efficient analysis.
DID - (Direct Inward Dialing) A phone number, provided by a carrier, so the dialer can receive incoming calls. Also called DDI (Direct Dial In) in Europe and Australia.
DIALED NUMBER IDENTIFICATION SERVICE (DNIS) - identifies the originally dialed telephone number of an inbound call. a carrier service that indicates which, of the many possible phone numbers a company may own, was dialed by the customer to reach them.
DIALER - an application that automates outbound calls by automatically calling for a number and then delivering the call to an agent. It can be a preview, a predictive, a ratio or a power dialer.
DIGITAL - The representation or transmission of data expressed in binary code.
DIGITAL CALL CENTER - A customer service operation that provides support for its customers through digital channels such as email, chat, text (SMS), social media, and more.
DIGITAL SUBSCRIBER LINE (DSL) - uses existing telephone lines to transport high-bandwidth data, such as multimedia and video, to service subscribers.
DISPOSITION - The agent selected status placed on a lead during the phone call with an agent. (see “status”)
DMS (DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM) - Document management is a system or process used to capture, track and store electronic documents such as PDFs, word processing files and digital images of paper-based content.
DNC - (Do Not Call) a status defined by an agent or through AGI Script that adds a lead to a system or campaign specific DNC list. Customers designated to not be called back, either due to personal request or having been placed on the National Do Not Call list.
DTMF (DUAL-TONE MULTIFREQUENCY) - is the sounds or tones generated by a telephone when the numbers are pressed. These tones are transmitted with the voice channel. DTMF is used to control automated equipment and signal user intent, such as the number they wish to dial.
ECHO CANCELLATION - The process of making the channel quiet enough so that the system can hear and recognize Natural Language inputs during the prompt.
ENTERPRISE APPLICATION INTEGRATION (EAI) - is the use of software and computer system architectural principles to integrate a set of enterprise computer applications.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT - the extent to which employees are actively engaged in their work - directly correlated with employees’ motivation, retention, performance, and customer experience.
EMAIL RESPONSE MANAGEMENT SYSTEM (ERMS) - an email response management system is a set of programs that automatically handles email messages and attachments according to user-defined rules.
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING (ERP) - refers to a centralized and comprehensive system meant to integrate the resources, information and day-to-day business activity of a company. With a shared common database, real-time data visibility provides a single source of information for company stakeholders
ESCALATION - The process by which a customer contact is seamlessly transferred, via omnichannel communication, to a contact center agent or supervisor for handling.
EXPECTED WAIT TIME (EWT) - is the predicted amount of time an interaction has to wait in a queue before being answered by an agent.
FILTER - a script designed to use one or more set criteria to dial certain phone numbers that reside in a much larger list. For example, a list may contain thousands of leads for people spread across the country. A filter would allow you to dial only men named “Matthew” in one particular town.
FIRST CALL RESOLUTION (FCR) - is resolving a customer issue, problem, question or need the first time they call, with no follow-up required.
FIRST CALL RESOLUTION RATE (FCRR) - is a popular call center metric (KPI) that measures the percentage of calls where the customer’s problem, issue, question or need was resolved or fixed during the first phone call or interaction.
FORECASTING - this is the method by which a contact center uses historical call arrival patterns and other call traffic reporting to estimate future contact (calls, emails, chats, all types of customer contact) volume (traffic) and the number of agents needed to handle the volume.
FRONTER - The user that transfers a phone call to another agent (the closer) in Dial Fusion.
FULL TIME EQUIVALENT (FTE) - is equal to the number of total scheduled person-hours divided by the number of hours per week that constitute a full-time person. For example, FTE may consist of several part-time individuals whose combined work hours in a week equal the full-time person. It’s frequently used to forecast staffing needs and the formula can be customized based on your unique operation.
GAMIFICATION - Gamification rewards teams for staying on task, turning the best behaviors into habits. Whether winning redeemable coins, collecting badges or climbing the leaderboard.
GRADE OF SERVICE (GOS) - is a metric that measures the percentage of calls or customer interactions answered within a given time period. It’s typically used to help call centers determine the amount of staff they need to provide an exceptional level of service. Synonym for SERVICE LEVEL.
GRAMMAR - In the contact center, grammar refers to language used in conjunction with IVR systems that require a complete list of possible spoken responses to be programmed for recognition and stored in a grammar file.
GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE (GUI) - A computer interface enabling on-screen navigation through menus, icons, and interactive mouse or touchscreen technology.
HOLD TIME - The total amount of time a contact spends in an agent-initiated hold status.
HOTKEYS - A feature in Dial Fusion that allows the agent to dispose of calls more quickly. It is enabled in the campaign and statuses are assigned a preset number (0-9). The agent mouses over the “hotkeys” button on their screen and selects the corresponding number. This saves the time of going through several steps, and they are immediately available to take another call.
HOPPER - Where the dialer temporarily places the leads, just prior to dialing them. Rather than pulling leads from the database one at a time, which is resource intensive, every 60 seconds the dialer grabs a group of leads. Once a lead is selected, the hopper script runs all of the system checks (call time, filter, DNC list, etc.) before placing it in the hopper to be dialed.
HOSTED SERVICES - Refers to contact center and call center services hosted by a network provider and delivered on-demand through the cloud. Dedicated Fusion Hosting is an example of hosted services as each client has a unique installation of VICIdial accessible through their customized URL.
INBOUND CALL - is a contact with your business that is initiated by customers or prospects - typically seeking customer service, support, billing, product, or order assistance.
INTELLIGENT NETWORK SERVICE (INS) - helps to distribute calls to multiple destinations present in a virtual call center network.
INTEGRATED SERVICES DIGITAL NETWORK (ISDN) - is a circuit-switched telephone network system that provides access to packet-switched networks that allows digital transmission of voice and data.
INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER (ISP) - is the industry term for the company that is able to provide you with access to the internet.
INTERACTIVE VOICE RESPONSE (IVR) - is an automated (telephony) business phone system feature that interacts with callers and gathers information by giving them choices via a menu. It then performs actions based on the answers of the caller through the telephone keypad or their voice response. A voice and call-processing option that responds to a customer’s speech, or to the digits entered by a customer. IVR allows customers to interact with an automated menu in order to enter a call queue, connect with an agent, or complete a self-service interaction by enabling them to access information easily, complete transactions, or leave messages with no agent assistance required.
INTEREXCHANGE CARRIER (IXC) - is a legal term for a telecommunication company. It is defined as any carrier that provides services across multiple local access and transport areas.
INTRADAY MANAGEMENT - Intraday management is the workforce management process/activity of monitoring the current day’s volumes and trends and making changes to schedules accordingly.
INTRADAY REFORCASTING - Intraday reforecasting allows for the contact center to reevaluate workforce management needs based on the day-of trending of volume, average handle time, and service levels.
INTERACTION - The touchpoint of communication between a customer and an organization on the customer’s preferred communication channel of choice. Customers can initiate and complete self-service interactions using communication channels like IVR or chatbots. Customers and organizations can also initiate live agent interactions—in which an agent representing an organization interacts directly with a customer—using human communication channels like voice or video calls.
IAX2 - (Inter-Asterisk eXchange) a voice over IP protocol native to Asterisk based systems. This is sometimes preferable to SIP, because it can navigate network firewalls more easily.
INGROUP - a queue, staffed by agents, allowing them to receive inbound calls. The Ingroup must be attached to a campaign, to allow the agents to log into it.
JAVASCRIPT PIXEL - JS tags hosted on a third party tracking server used to gather data about a user and attribute actions to them. Some JS pixels function as a conversion pixel as well as an audience pixel, tagging and tracking every user with cookies and allowing the users to sort through all the data the pixel captures. Google Adwords and Facebook Ads both use JS audience pixels to gather data and attribute actions to specific traffic in their systems.
KNOWLEDGE BASE - a knowledge base is a published collection of documentation that typically includes answers to frequently asked questions, how to guide, and troubleshooting instructions.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT - is the process of creating, sharing, using, and managing the knowledge and information of an organization.
KEY PERFORMANCE INDICATOR (KPI) - is a measurable value that demonstrates how effectively a contact center is achieving key business objectives.
LEADERBOARDS - Leaderboards show employees where they stand compared to their peers on important Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
LIFETIME CUSTOMER VALUE (LCV) - represents the value of a customer over their lifetime as a client of an organization or brand.
LEAST OCCUPIED AGENT (LOA) - is the agent with the lowest occupancy rate, which is the ratio between the time the agent has been busy compared to the agent’s total time available.
LOCAL AREA NETWORK (LAN) - is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, school, laboratory, university campus or office building.
LOCAL TOUCH GROUP (LTG) - is a term used by Dial Fusion that indicates a group of local area code phone numbers. LTGs are used as caller ID display for outbound dialing projects and may increase answer rates. May also be referred to as a CID (Caller ID Group). Each phone number included in the LTG is an owned phone number used to make and receive phone calls.
LOGS - Also referred to as log files. Logs are records of occurrences that document details, typically time stamps, related to what took place within a computer system.
LONG CODE - is a term that refers to a standard phone number. Primarily designed for P2P (person to person) text messaging. A local long code (phone number) can support up to 1 SMS message per second and only a few hundred per day.
LIDB - (Line Information DataBase) used in the US and Canada to store and retrieve caller ID records.
LIST ID OVERRIDE - Several campaign features can be overridden on a list by list basis. These features are: agent script, campaign caller ID, answering machine message, drop inbound group, web form, web form 2, and transfer-conf 1-5. If any of these are set on the list they will supersede the campaign's setting. Once a list override has been enabled, the word “OVERRIDE” will appear (in red print) next to the corresponding campaign setting.
MANUAL DIALER/CLICK TO DIAL - This is the MANUAL campaign dial method. The leads have been preloaded into the dialer and selected for the campaign. The agent clicks a “dial” button on their interface to place a call to the lead the system selected for them. In this dial method the calls are placed one at a time. The agent initiates the call, although they have no choice regarding who is dialed.
MOST IDLE AGENT (MIA) - is a call center metric or KPI that identifies the agent with the most idle or available time waiting for a call to be connected. It is the agent with the most available time spent in a “waiting” status - ready and available to take a call.
MULTIMEDIA ROUTING (MMR) - is a technology that allows for the creation of routing workflows for all media. This provides a consistent routing experience across all channels. (SMS, email, video, etc)
MULTICHANNEL CONTACT CENTER - is a platform or solution that integrates multiple customer touchpoints, including voice, text, and social media, and others.
NETWORK SERVICE PROVIDER (NSP) - is a business or organization that sells bandwidth or network access by providing direct internet backbone access to internet service providers and usually access to its network access points (NAPs).
NATURAL LANGUAGE SPEECH RECOGNITION (NLSR) - is an advanced type of speech recognition that can recognize and interpret words and phrases.
NET PROMOTER SCORE (NPS) - is a metric or KPI that ranges from -100 and +100 and measures the loyalty of customers to a company. It is often pointed as the gold standard customer experience metric.
OPERATIONS, ADMINISTRATION and MAINTENANCE (OAM) - are the processes, activities, tools, and standards involved with operating, administering, managing, and maintaining a contact center system.
ON-THE-JOB-TRAINING (OJT) - is a training method that teaches a paid employee the knowledge and skills necessary to perform the job and is provided while they are engaged in productive work.
OFF PHONE ACTIVITY (OPA) - is any task, responsibility, or activity completed by a call center agent that does not involve being on the phone or handling communication from customers. In Dial Fusion, clients can create a custom PAUSE code to capture off phone activity if needed.
OMNICHANNEL CONTACT CENTER - handles both inbound and outbound interactions seamlessly across multiple channels, recording all interactions and sharing information across channels to identify and contextualize future interactions.
OPEN SYSTEM INTERCONNECTOR (OSI) - provides a standard for different computer systems to be able to communicate with each other.
OUTBOUND CALL CENTER - A call center or contact center that makes a large volume of outgoing calls, typically for the purpose of sales, fundraising, or similar business campaigns.
PHONE CODE OVERRIDE - This is found on the web-based lead loader and allows you to specify the phone code (also known as country code) for an entire list of leads, rather than on each one individually.
PHONE NUMBER PREFIX - In the US, this is the set of 3 digits that immediately follows the area code. In the example phone number “123-456-7890”, the telephone prefix would be “456”.
PHONE REGISTRATION –In order for a phone to work with Dial Fusion, it needs to be registered to a phone extension at all times. First, the phone extension must be built in Dial Fusion (Admin-Phones), for the phone to connect with. Then the software or hardware phone will require specific information to register (IP address, registration password, extension, VOIP protocol, etc.), depending on the type of phone. Once the phone registration has successfully completed, the agent can log into the system to place and receive calls. Dial Fusion is designed to work specifically with the softphone Zoiper version 3.5. You may download the correct version of Zoiper for agent workstations here: https://dial-fusion.com/Zoiper.exe
PORT - A connection point that allows the transfer of information between two devices or between a computer and a server over a network.
POST CALL PROCESSING (PCP) - is the duration of time spent between two successive calls and includes the time that a call center agent takes to perform the post call formalities like filling out necessary forms and notating customer records.
PREDICTIVE/ADAPTIVE DIALER - is an application that initiates a large volume of outbound calls at one time, predicting agent availability and transferring any connected calls to live agents. This uses an algorithm and administrator configured settings to dynamically increase or decrease the number of calls placed per agent throughout the day. Because this dial method is designed to adjust as it dials, it requires less supervision than ratio dialing.
PRESS 1 - a campaign that engages the recipient to “press 1” to continue (or agree to) the call, and is then transferred to an agent. This type of call is currently illegal in the US unless it is placed business to business, for political, or not-for-profit purposes. This is known in Dial Fusion as a “survey campaign”.
PRIVATE AUTOMATIC BRANCH EXCHANGE (PABX) - is a call center solution that allows companies to use a single access number that has several extensions. The benefit of a PABX is that it’s often cheaper than using many landlines linked to the public network.
PRIVATE BRANCH EXCHANGE (PBX) - is a telephone network that is owned, operated and used within a single organization or business.
PROMPT - A message that guides the customer to respond by indicating a selection, dialing a number, or speaking a phrase associated with a desired outcome.
PROXY SERVER - An external intermediary used to handle resource requests requiring heavy or intense processing from a server.
PUBLIC SWITCHED TELEPHONE NETWORK (PTSN) - is inclusive of the world’s circuit-switched telephone networks that are operated by national, regional, or local telephony operators. It consists of telephone lines, fiber optic cables, cellular networks, communications satellites, and undersea telephone cables, all interconnected by switching centers, which allows most telephones to communicate with each other.
QUALITY ASSURANCE (QA) - is the process of measuring the overall performance of agents and then using that data to determine if the level of service meets customer expectations. The data gathered is used to make improvements to processes in an effort to optimize the customer experience.
QUEUE - a queue is a system that organizes and distributes calls in a phone system. It can provide a greeting message or music while customers are waiting on hold for an agent to be connected to their call.
QUALITY EVALUATION - A quality evaluation is a quality management activity in which another individual, typically a supervisor or someone from the QM/QA team scores an agent interaction based on key criteria defined in a quality form.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT - The systems, processes, and strategies an organization uses to manage and improve quality. In contact centers, quality management is often associated with workforce management.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT CALIBRATION - Calibration is a quality management activity that helps ensure all evaluators are on the same page in how they are evaluating interactions.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISPUTE - Quality management dispute is a quality management process that allows agents to dispute or contest a score they’ve received on a quality evaluation and explain where they disagree.
QUALITY MANAGEMENT FORM - A quality management form is a set of questions used by evaluators to evaluate the performance of agents during interaction handling and identify areas for improvement.
QUALITY MONITORING (QM) - the process by which a Supervisor, Manager or Quality Assurance Analyst, listens and scores calls. It can also be a technology that helps a call center track agent performance across all customer interactions to ensure standards of service are being met.
QUALITY OF SERVICE (QOS) - is inclusive of any process or protocol that monitors data traffic to ensure that certain streams of data are prioritized to provide a guaranteed level of service to customers. For example, voice data streams are often prioritized in call centers in order to provide callers and agents with a crystal clear connection.
QUEUE - a queue is a system that organizes and distributes calls in a phone system. It can provide a greeting message or music while customers are waiting on hold for an agent to be connected to their call.
RATIO DIALING – Using this dial method, the dialer allocates a set number of lines per agent. The dialer then constantly places calls on the allotted lines. For example, with a dial method of RATIO, and a dial level of 2, the system will constantly place 2 calls per logged in agent. Remote agents - In terms of Dial Fusion, this is any user that is connected to the system by phone only, and does not have a computer. This was originally designed for users out in the field, that may only be connected over a mobile phone or hardline. The dialer can still send them calls, but they don't have any of the call control functions offered in the agent interface.
REAL TIME ADHERENCE (RTA) - is a metric that helps managers and supervisors pinpoint agents currently out of adherence with the planned schedule.
RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI) - is a performance measurement used to evaluate the amount of return on a particular investment relative to the investment’s cost.
REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) - is a preliminary informative document requested by companies that have no prior experience with a product or software and need to gain an understanding of the range of options available to them.
REQUEST FOR PROPOSAL (RFP) - is a document that requests vendors to propose solutions to a customer’s problems or business requirements. An RFP typically follows an RFI.
RING NO ANSWER (RNA) - is the duration an initiated call rings at the destination before being classified as a “no answer.”
RING-ALL - An ingroup setting that allows all of the agents' phones to ring, rather than sending the call to just one of them. The first agent to answer their phone receives the call.
ROBO DIALING - a campaign that places calls without the aid of human agents. When the recipient answers a message is played and then call is disconnected. This is used for announcement recordings to be played to customers that have already opted to receive the call (school closings, prescription reminders, etc.). Also known as “Broadcast dialing”
SaaS (Software as a Service) - A licensing and delivery model in which a vendor hosts and manages software in the cloud, making it available to access via the internet for clients paying on a subscription basis.
SAFE HARBOR (MESSAGE) - Named because of its designed intent to comply with US FTC Safe-Harbor regulations (see “FTC Safe Harbor Regulations”). The second provision states that if a call is dropped, the caller must play a message stating the name of your company, why you are calling, and a phone phone number where the company can be reached back.
SALES FORCE AUTOMATION (SFA) - is a system designed to improve sales productivity by automating various sales processes like making calls, sending emails, leaving messages, or noting interaction details in CRM tools.
SCHEDULING - In contact center workforce optimization and workforce management, this refers to ongoing planning of employee on-duty hours, activities, and required staff fluctuations.
SCHEDULE ADHERENCE - is a metric that tells how effectively an agent follows their schedule.
SCREEN POP - A customer information screen that automatically "pops" onto an agent's dashboard at the same time an interaction is initiated with that customer. It can deliver additional customer context enabled when an organization’s business systems, like its CRM database, are integrated with its contact center platform.
SELF-SERVICE RATE - also known as self-service completion rate, is a KPI or metric that measures the percentage of issues that users are able to troubleshoot on their own.
SERVICE LEVEL - measures the performance of a system. Certain goals are defined and the service level gives the percentage to which those goals should be achieved.
SENTIMENT ANALYSIS - AI enabled analysis deriving from speech and text sources that indicates issues or sentiments behind the commentary.
SERVICE LEVEL AGREEMENT - is the level of service you expect from a vendor, laying out the metrics by which service is measured, as well as remedies or penalties should agreed-on service levels not be achieved.
SHRINKAGE - refers to the time in which agents are being paid but are not available to handle interactions. It is a common metric or KPI in contact centers that is calculated by the total number of agents actively talking with customers (on calls) by the number of agents not available to take calls.
SHORT CODE - A 4-6 digit number used by businesses for non-consumer SMS messaging globally. Short codes are capable of sending millions of SMS messages per day at very high throughput rates.
SIP - (Session Initiated Protocol) a specific VOIP protocol. Dial Fusion is capable of using either SIP or IAX2 protocols to send voice traffic.
SKILLS BASED ROUTING (SBR) - is a call assignment strategy used in contact centers to assign incoming calls to the most suitable agent, instead of simply choosing the next available agent.
SMS (Short Messaging Service) - commonly known as texting. It's a way to send text-only messages of up to 160 characters between phones.
SOFTPHONE - is a software for making telephone calls over the internet using a desktop, smartphone, or another computer rather than dedicated hardware such as a desk phone. Dial Fusion uses Zoiper as the softphone for agent workstations.
SPEECH ANALYTICS (SA) - is the process of analyzing recorded calls to gather customer information to improve communication and future interaction.
STATUS - This is the system state of the lead. The system dynamically changes the status throughout an active call and upon completion of a call, a status is assigned to a lead. For example, when the call is placed it's statused as DIALING, but once connected to a customer, the system will change it to INCALL. Once the call has ended, the final status placed on the lead is known as the disposition.
Stir/Shaken - STIR/SHAKEN is a framework of interconnected standards. STIR/SHAKEN are acronyms for the Secure Telephone Identity Revisited (STIR) and Signature-based Handling of Asserted Information Using toKENs (SHAKEN) standards. This means that calls traveling through interconnected phone networks can have their caller ID "signed" as legitimate by originating carriers and validated by other carriers before reaching consumers. STIR/SHAKEN digitally validates the handoff of phone calls passing through the complex web of networks, allowing the phone company of the consumer receiving the call to verify that a call is in fact from the number displayed on Caller ID.
SURVEY DIALING - a campaign that engages the recipient to “press 1” to continue (or agree to) the call, and is then transferred to an agent. This type of call is currently illegal in the US unless it is placed business to business, for political, or not-for-profit purposes. This is also known as “Press 1” dialing.
SWITCH - A device within a telephone exchange that connects calls from recipient to destination and controls voice and data traffic across the exchange.
SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR - An IT role overseeing installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of software or hardware across a network.
T1 - A T1 line is a point-to-point, high capacity phone/data communications transmission service that connects a business customer with a telecom or internet service provider. T1 is quickly being replaced by more modern DSL and cable connections.
TALK TIME - The amount of time a contact spent interacting with an agent between the initial greeting and conclusion of a conversation. It includes anything that happens during a call, including hold time and conference time. It can include inbound time and outbound time.
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) - TCP establishes network data exchange standards across programs and works with IP, which defines how computers transmit data packets.
TELEPHONY APPLICATIONS PROGRAMMING INTERFACE (TAPI) -
TRUNK - A connection that allows calls to, and from, the dialer. A “trunk” generally refers to the connection with the carrier, also referred to as "SIP TRUNK."
TTS (TEXT TO SPEECH) - Dial Fusion integrates with Cepstral Text To Speech, allowing written data to be spoken aloud over the phone.
URL (UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR) - This is the specific character string displayed on top of a web browser, inside an address bar. This is usually designed to allow someone to access a resource of information on the internet or private network. Since Dial Fusion is web-based, it can also be used to dynamically post information and integrate with other web-based systems (CRM, billing program, shipping & receiving software, etc.).
USER V. PHONE - This can be confusing to new users of Dial Fusion. The phone (either softphone or hardware phone) is registered to a phone extension in the system. That phone extension is then assigned to that desk phone or PC, it doesn't move around (unless re-registered). The user represents a unique person and they can login from any registered phone. This is why the dialer requires 2 separate logins for the agent. First the phone, then the user. So that understands where and whom it will be sending the phone calls.
VDAD (DIAL FUSION AUTO DIAL) - When this is listed as the “user” for a call, it means the system handled it and it was never sent to an agent.
VIRTUAL AGENT - A virtual avatar or computer-generated character representation of chatbot functionality and features.
VIRTUAL CALL CENTER - A single, virtual call center operation made up of multiple, geographically dispersed agents working in smaller remote facilities or directly from home.
VOICE AUTHENTICATION - A biometric verification of a user’s voice granting authorization or access rights to the user.
VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER (VOC) - Market research that captures, stores, and analyzes customer feedback—whether direct, indirect, or inferred—to produce a set of insights on customer preferences, priorities, satisfaction, and more.
VOICE RESPONSE UNIT (VRU) - A predecessor to the more commonly known IVR, this term describes the automated telephone answering system that allows a caller to navigate through a series of prerecorded messages and menu options using buttons on a touch-tone phone.
VOICE USER INTERFACE - An interface allowing users to interact with a voice application through spoken commands and phrases. It is part of the foundation on which today’s sophisticated, AI-enabled voice and speech recognition technology is built.
VOIP (VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL) - The delivery of voice communication over a network (usually the internet), rather than using the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). Based on an IP standard that transmits voice and data on the same network. VoIP doesn’t require a dedicated connection throughout an entire call, and is often seen as a more efficient alternative to circuit-switched networks as a result.
WEBFORM - A web page that allows a user to enter data that is sent to a server for processing. IN the case of Dial Fusion, the Web Form & Web Form 2 buttons can launch different URL scripts containing static or variable data for performing a multitude of tasks. Generally this is the most common way for agents to send data to another web-based system (CRM, billing program, shipping & receiving software, etc.).
WORKFLOW - A system that enables and tracks the efficient, optimal, consistent execution of business processes and automated tasks.
WORKFORCE MANAGEMENT (WFM) - The management, monitoring, and training of agents within the contact center. This includes scheduling, forecasting, and workforce optimization initiatives.
WORKFORCE OPTIMIZATION - A strategy to improve multichannel or omnichannel customer and agent experiences via workforce management software. These software tools can include AI-enabled forecasting, scheduling, quality management, performance management, coaching, analytics, or reporting applications.
TBD Check back for more content soon!
TBD Check back for more content soon!
TBD Check back for more content soon!