Comprehensive Contact Center Glossary
A
- Abandonment Rate: The percentage of callers who hang up before reaching an agent.
- Adherence: A measure of how closely agents stick to their scheduled work times.
- Advanced Queue Functionality: Enhanced features within call queues, such as skills-based routing and real-time insights, to improve call management and customer service.
- After-Call Work (ACW): Tasks completed following a call (same as Wrap-Up Time, but worth having both terms).
- Agent Assist: Real-time AI tools that provide agents with suggested responses and relevant information during calls.
- Agent Scripting: Prewritten prompts and branching dialogue displayed to an agent during an interaction so responses stay consistent and compliant. See also Agent Assist, Quality Assurance, Knowledge Base.
- Agent Status: The current availability of an agent (Available, Busy, Away, etc.) that determines whether they can receive calls in a presence-based routing scenario.
- Agent Timeline Report: A visual breakdown of how agents spend their time throughout the day.
- Agent Utilization: The proportion of time agents are actively engaged in call activities compared to idle time.
- AI Digital Assistants: Automated virtual agents that can handle common customer service scenarios independently, with reporting capabilities similar to human agents.
- API (Application Programming Interface): Technology that allows different software systems to communicate and share data.
- Asynchronous Messaging: Conversations where the customer and agent do not need to be present at the same time, such as SMS or WhatsApp threads that pause and resume over hours or days. See also Omnichannel Contact Center, SMS, WhatsApp Business Platform.
- Attendant Console: A tool that enables receptionists or operators to manage and direct incoming calls efficiently within a communication platform like Microsoft Teams. See also Contact Center.
- Automatic Call Distributor (ACD): The system component that receives inbound calls and assigns them to agents according to configured rules. In Microsoft Teams deployments, the ACD layer sits above native call queues and adds skills, priority, and overflow logic. See also Call Queue Routing, Skills-Based Routing, Priority-Based Routing, Overflow Routing.
- Automatic Number Identification (ANI): The telephone number of the calling party, delivered by the carrier with the call. Used for screen pops, CRM lookups, and routing decisions. See also Caller ID, Data Dip, Call Pop.
- Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR): Technology that converts spoken audio into text. ASR powers voice IVR input, real-time transcription, and speech analytics. See also Interactive Voice Response, Real-Time Transcription, Speech Analytics, NLP.
- Average Handle Time (AHT): The average time an agent spends on a call, including talk time, hold time, and post-call work.
- Average Speed of Answer (ASA): The average time it takes for an agent to answer an incoming call after it enters the queue.
- Average Talk Time: The average time an agent spends actively speaking with a customer, excluding hold time and after-call work. See also Average Handle Time, After-Call Work, Hold Time.
- Average Wait Time: How long a caller stays in the queue before speaking with an agent.
- Auto Attendant: An automated system that answers incoming calls and provides a menu of options to direct callers to the appropriate department or individual.
- Azure Communication Services (ACS): Microsoft’s cloud platform for building communication capabilities into applications.
B
- Barge: A supervisory feature that allows managers to join an ongoing call between an agent and a customer, typically for training or assistance purposes. See also: Listen, Whisper.
- Blended Agent: An agent who handles both inbound and outbound interactions, or both voice and digital channels, rather than a single queue type. See also Agent Utilization, Omnichannel Contact Center, User Skills.
- Blind Transfer: A direct transfer method where the call is sent to another agent or number without confirmation. The original agent disconnects immediately after initiating the transfer. See also Call Transfer, Chat Consult Transfer, Consult Transfer, Safe Transfer.
- Bring Your Own Storage (BYOS): A recording architecture where audio, video, and transcripts are written to a storage account the customer owns and controls rather than the vendor’s. Keeps recordings inside the customer’s own compliance boundary. See also Call Recording, Compliance Recording, Data Residency, Retention Policy.
- Business Continuity Plan: Documented procedures that keep contact center operations running during an outage, carrier failure, or site loss. See also Failover Options, Overflow Routing, Service Level Agreement.
C
- Calendar Integration: The synchronization of scheduling tools within the contact center system to manage appointments, callbacks, and agent availability effectively.
- Calibration: A recurring session where supervisors and quality reviewers score the same recorded interaction and compare results, so scoring stays consistent across evaluators. See also Quality Assurance, QA Scorecard, Call Monitoring.
- Caller ID: The identification information displayed when receiving an incoming call, typically showing the caller’s name and phone number.
- Call Abandon Time: The average time a caller waits before disconnecting.
- Call Back from Queue: A feature which allows customers to request a return call from an agent instead of waiting on hold.
- Call Center: A centralized department or facility that handles incoming and outgoing telephone calls from customers, typically focused primarily on voice communications. A call center is often considered a subset of a contact center, which manages interactions across multiple channels.
- Call Deflection: Redirecting calls to self-service options to reduce agent workload.
- Call History: A record of past calls, often including details like caller ID, duration, and timestamp.
- Call Monitoring: The practice of supervisors observing agent calls for training and quality purposes.
- Call Park: A feature that places a call on hold and generates a unique code that any authorized user can use to retrieve the call from any device.
- Call Pop: A feature that displays relevant caller information to the agent at the start of the call, helping personalize service and reduce call handling time. See also Call Pop URL
- Call Pop URL: A customizable web link that displays external data (e.g., CRM info) about the caller inside the call pop panel or browser tab. See also Call Pop.
- Call Quality Dashboard (CQD): A Microsoft 365 reporting tool that aggregates call quality telemetry across a tenant, showing packet loss, jitter, and audio degradation trends. See also Mean Opinion Score, Quality of Service, VoIP.
- Call Queue: A system that places incoming calls in line to be answered by the next available agent, often providing hold music or messages during the wait.
- Call Queue Routing: The process of distributing incoming calls to the appropriate agents or departments based on predefined rules, such as longest idle agent, round robin, or specialized skills matching. See also Longest Idle Routing, Parallel Routing, Priority-Based Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, Skills-Based Routing.
- Call Recording: The process of capturing audio (and sometimes screen activity) of calls for quality assurance, training, and compliance purposes.
- Call Summarization: An AI-generated recap of an interaction, produced from the transcript, capturing the reason for contact, actions taken, and any follow-up needed. See also Real-Time Transcription, After-Call Work, Wrap-Up Time, Agent Assist.
- Call Transfer: The process of redirecting a call from one agent to another or to a different department, ensuring the customer reaches the appropriate resource. See also Blind Transfer, Chat Consult Transfer, Consult Transfer, Safe Transfer.
- Call Volume: The number of inbound or outbound calls over a given period. Used for staffing and resource planning.
- Call Wrap-Up Questions: A post-call workflow where agents answer predefined questions to categorize the call or record key details. See also Wrap-Up Time.
- Chat Consult Transfer: A transfer method where an agent consults with a colleague via a chat message before transferring the call. See also Blind Transfer, Call Transfer, Consult Transfer, Safe Transfer.
- Click-to-Call: A link or button on a web page, email signature, or CRM record that starts a call without manual dialing. See also CRM Integration, Native Integration, Computer Telephony Integration.
- Co-Browsing: A support technique where the agent views, and with permission interacts with, the customer’s browser session to guide them through a form or checkout. See also Web Chat, Self-Service, First Call Resolution.
- Compliance Recording: The practice of recording communications to meet legal, regulatory, or organizational requirements, ensuring transparency and accountability.
- Computer Telephony Integration (CTI): The link between telephony and business applications that lets call events drive software behavior, such as opening a customer record the moment a call connects. See also CRM Integration, Call Pop, Data Dip, API.
- Connect Model: A Microsoft Teams integration approach where contact centers connect through Microsoft-certified SBCs and Direct Routing, allowing basic interoperability without deep integration into the Teams experience. See also Extend Model, Teams Phone Extensibility.
- Containment Rate: The share of interactions fully resolved by self-service without reaching a live agent. See also Self-Service, Call Deflection, Interactive Voice Response, Virtual Agent.
- Conversational AI: AI technology that enables natural dialogue between systems and users.
- Consult Transfer: A call transfer where the agent speaks with the intended recipient before completing the transfer. See also Blind Transfer, Call Transfer, Chat Consult Transfer, Safe Transfer.
- Contact Center: A centralized operation that handles customer interactions across multiple channels, including voice calls, email, chat, social media, and video. Unlike a call center that primarily focuses on voice communication, a contact center provides a unified approach to customer service across all touchpoints and methods. See also Attendant Console
- Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS): A cloud-based solution that enables organizations to manage customer interactions across various channels without the need for on-premises infrastructure.
- Copilot Studio: Microsoft’s low-code environment for building conversational agents that answer questions, call APIs, and hand off to a live agent. Contact center platforms connect to it so a bot can handle front-line questions before the interaction is queued. See also Conversational AI, Virtual Agent, AI Digital Assistants, Self-Service.
- Cost Per Contact: Total contact center operating cost divided by the number of interactions handled in the same period. See also Total Cost of Ownership, Agent Utilization, Containment Rate.
- CRM Integration: Connection between the contact center and Customer Relationship Management systems for unified customer data.
- Customer Effort Score (CES): Measures how much effort a customer had to expend to resolve their issue.
- Customer Satisfaction (CSAT): Measures customer contentment through surveys conducted after interactions.
D
- Data Collection: Capturing and storing specific information during a call (e.g., from IVR interactions) for reporting and follow-up.
- Data Dip: A contact center’s query of an external database such as a CRM, which uses the returned data to personalize or route the call based on that information.
- Data Residency: The requirement that customer data, including recordings and transcripts, be stored in a specific country or region. See also Bring Your Own Storage, GDPR, ISO/IEC 27001 Certification, Compliance Recording.
- Delegate Calling: A Microsoft Teams arrangement where one user is authorized to make and receive calls on behalf of another, common for executive assistants. See also Attendant Console, Teams Presence, Call Transfer.
- Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS): The number the caller dialed, delivered with the call. Lets one contact center serve multiple published numbers and route each to a different queue or greeting. See also Automatic Number Identification, Call Queue Routing, Auto Attendant.
- Direct Inward Dialing (DID): A phone number that reaches a specific user, queue, or auto attendant directly, without passing through a main switchboard number. See also PBX, Direct Routing, Number Porting, Resource Account.
- Direct Routing: A method that allows organizations to connect their telephony infrastructure directly to Microsoft Teams, enabling external calling capabilities.
- Disposition Code: A category the agent selects at the end of an interaction to record the outcome, such as resolved, escalated, or callback scheduled. See also Call Wrap-Up Questions, After-Call Work, Scheduled Reports.
- Dual-Party Consent: A legal requirement in some jurisdictions that every participant be informed of and agree to recording before it begins. See also Compliance Recording, Call Recording, Policy Call Recording.
E
- E911: Emergency calling service that delivers the caller’s number and dispatchable location to the appropriate public safety answering point. Teams deployments configure location data per network site. See also Microsoft Calling Plans, Direct Routing, Microsoft Teams Phone.
- Encryption in Transit and at Rest: Protection applied to data as it moves across networks and as it sits in storage. See also ISO/IEC 27001 Certification, SOC 2, Bring Your Own Storage.
- Entra ID: Microsoft’s cloud identity service, formerly Azure Active Directory. Contact center platforms use it for sign-in, group membership, and permission assignment. See also Organization Unit, User Skills, Native Integration, Tenant.
- Erlang C: A queueing formula used to estimate how many agents are needed to hit a target service level at a given call volume and handle time. See also Forecasting, Service Level, Workforce Management, Average Handle Time.
- Escalation: The process of transferring a call to a higher-level agent or supervisor when initial resolution attempts fail.
- Extend Model: A Microsoft Teams integration approach where contact center solutions use Microsoft’s native Communication APIs to integrate directly with Microsoft Teams. See also Connect Model, Teams Phone Extensibility.
F
- Failover Options: Predefined backup configurations to reroute calls in case of service disruptions.
- First Call Resolution (FCR): Measures the percentage of customer issues resolved in a single interaction.
- First Response Time: On digital channels, the elapsed time between a customer’s first message and the agent’s first reply. See also Average Speed of Answer, Web Chat, Omnichannel Contact Center.
- Forecasting: Predicting future call volumes and staffing needs based on historical data.
G
- GDPR: The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, governing how personal data is collected, stored, and deleted, including call recordings and transcripts. See also Data Residency, Retention Policy, PII Redaction, Compliance Recording.
- Generative AI: AI that produces new text, audio, or summaries rather than only classifying existing input. In contact centers it drafts responses, summarizes calls, and answers knowledge base questions. See also Large Language Model, Call Summarization, Agent Assist, Conversational AI.
- Geographic Routing: Directing calls based on caller location.
H
- Help Desk: A resource intended to provide customers or end users with information and support related to products or services. Help desks typically focus on troubleshooting technical issues and are often the first point of contact for users experiencing problems. See also Service Desk.
- HIPAA: US legislation setting privacy and security rules for protected health information, including recorded calls that contain patient details. See also Compliance Recording, PII Redaction, Retention Policy, Encryption in Transit and at Rest.
- Hold Time: The portion of a connected call where the customer waits with the agent’s audio muted. Separate from time spent waiting in queue. See also Hold Time Alerts, Average Handle Time, Average Wait Time, Music on Hold.
- Hold Time Alerts: Visual and/or audio notifications triggered when a call has been on hold for longer than a preset time threshold.
- Hunt Group: A set of contacts that are tried in sequence or simultaneously when a call comes in, ensuring that calls are answered even if the first line is busy.
I
- Intent Recognition: The step where an AI system classifies what a customer is trying to accomplish from their words, so the interaction can be routed or answered. See also NLP, Conversational AI, Virtual Agent, Interactive Voice Response.
- Interaction: Any customer contact handled by the contact center, across voice, web chat, SMS, WhatsApp, Facebook, or RCS. Used in place of “call” when reporting spans more than one channel. See also Omnichannel Contact Center, Multichannel Contact Center, Queue Statistics.
- Interactive Voice Response (IVR): An automated telephony system that interacts with callers, gathers information, and routes calls to the appropriate recipient. See also IVR Designer.
- Intraday Management: Adjusting staffing, breaks, and queue assignments during the day in response to live volume rather than to the original forecast. See also Forecasting, Workforce Management, Real-Time Insights, Schedule Adherence.
- ISO/IEC 27001 Certification: An internationally recognized standard for information security management systems, confirming that an organization follows best practices to protect data confidentiality.
- IVR Designer: A visual interface that allows users to create custom call flows using prebuilt blocks like prompts, transfers, or data dips. See also IVR.
K
- Knowledge Base: A searchable repository of articles and answers that agents and self-service systems draw on during interactions. See also Agent Assist, Self-Service, Virtual Agent, First Call Resolution.
L
- Large Language Model (LLM): An AI model trained on large volumes of text that generates and interprets natural language. Underlies summarization, sentiment scoring, and conversational agents. See also Generative AI, NLP, Conversational AI, Sentiment Analysis.
- Listen: A supervisory feature that allows managers to listen to an ongoing call between an agent and a customer, typically for training or assistance purposes. See also Barge, Whisper.
- Live Dashboards: Interactive, real-time displays that provide up-to-date information on contact center operations, enabling quick decision-making.
- Longest Idle Routing: A call distribution method that sends incoming calls to the agent who has been idle the longest. See also Call Queue Routing, Parallel Routing, Priority Based Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, Skills Based Routing.
- Longest Wait Time: The single longest duration a caller spent on hold before disconnecting or being answered.
M
- Marketing Messages: Pre-recorded announcements played while a caller waits in a queue, often used for promotions or information.
- Mean Opinion Score (MOS): A numeric rating of perceived audio quality on a one-to-five scale, calculated from network measurements. See also Call Quality Dashboard, Quality of Service, VoIP.
- Media Bypass: A Direct Routing configuration where voice traffic travels directly between the Teams client and the session border controller, skipping the Microsoft cloud media path. See also Direct Routing, Session Border Controller, SIP Trunks, Quality of Service.
- Microsoft Calling Plans: A Microsoft-managed telephony solution that assigns phone numbers and calling services directly to Teams users, enabling them to make and receive PSTN calls without additional infrastructure. See also Direct Routing, Operator Connect.
- Microsoft Graph: The unified API for Microsoft 365 data, including users, presence, calendars, and Teams calls. Contact center and attendant console products read presence and directory data through it. See also API, Teams Presence, Calendar Integration, Native Integration.
- Microsoft Teams Certified: Designation indicating that a contact center solution meets Microsoft’s standards for integration and performance within the Teams platform.
- Microsoft Teams Phone: Microsoft’s cloud calling service that adds PSTN voice to Microsoft Teams, delivered through Calling Plans, Operator Connect, or Direct Routing. See also Microsoft Calling Plans, Operator Connect, Direct Routing, PSTN.
- Multichannel Contact Center: A contact center with the ability to interact with customers across various channels, including voice calls, emails, chats, and social media. See also Omnichannel Communication.
- Music on Hold: Audio played to a caller placed on hold or waiting in queue, often paired with position announcements or marketing messages. See also Hold Time, Marketing Messages, Call Queue.
N
- Native Integration: Seamless incorporation of contact center solutions within platforms like Microsoft Teams, ensuring a unified user experience without the need for additional software. See also Connect Model, Extend Model, Teams Phone Extensibility.
- Net Promoter Score (NPS): A metric that gauges customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend your services.
- NLP (Natural Language Processing): A field of artificial intelligence that enables computers to understand, interpret, and respond to human language, allowing features like voice recognition, chatbots, sentiment analysis, and intelligent call routing in contact center solutions.
- Number Porting: Moving an existing phone number from one carrier to another so the number stays the same after a platform change. See also Direct Inward Dialing, Operator Connect, Microsoft Calling Plans.
O
- Off-Peak Hours: Periods with lower call volume, allowing reduced staffing levels.
- Occupancy Rate: The percentage of an agent’s logged-in time spent actively handling calls.
- Omnichannel Contact Center: A sophisticated contact center approach that integrates multiple communication channels into a unified system, maintaining context and conversation history across channels so customers don’t have to repeat information.
- Operator Connect: A service that allows organizations to connect their existing telephony provider to Microsoft Teams through a certified operator, simplifying PSTN calling without managing direct SIP trunking. See also Direct Routing, Microsoft Calling Plans.
- Organization Unit: A logical grouping within the Contact Center used for role-based access, reporting, and configuration management.
- Overflow Routing: Automatically redirecting calls to backup agents or queues when primary resources are unavailable.
P
- Parallel Routing: A Call Distribution method in which all available agents receive an alert at once for an incoming call. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Presence Based Routing, Priority Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, Skills Based Routing
- PCI DSS: The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, restricting how card data is captured, transmitted, and stored. Contact centers meet it by pausing recording or redacting card entry. See also PII Redaction, Compliance Recording, Call Recording, Self-Service.
- Peak Hours/Peak Time: Periods with the highest call volume, requiring maximum staffing.
- PBX (Private Branch Exchange): A private telephone system used within an organization that manages internal calls and routes external calls through PSTN, SIP trunks, or VoIP. See also PSTN, SIP Trunks, VoIP.
- PII Redaction: Automatic removal or masking of personally identifiable information, such as card numbers, from recordings and transcripts. See also PCI DSS, GDPR, HIPAA, Compliance Recording.
- Policy Call Recording: A feature that allows organizations to define rules for recording calls, such as recording all calls or only specific types, to comply with legal and regulatory requirements.
- Post-Call Survey: A short questionnaire offered at the end of an interaction, by IVR, SMS, or email, to capture satisfaction scores. See also Customer Satisfaction, Net Promoter Score, Customer Effort Score, Voice of the Customer.
- Power Automate: Microsoft’s workflow automation service. Contact centers use it to trigger actions from interaction events, such as creating a ticket or sending a follow-up message. See also API, CRM Integration, Native Integration, Copilot Studio.
- Power BI: Microsoft’s analytics and visualization service, used to build custom contact center reports on top of exported interaction data. See also Scheduled Reports, Live Dashboards, Queue Statistics, Real-Time Insights.
- Presence Based Routing: A call distribution method that uses agents’ Teams presence to make routing decisions. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Parallel Routing, Priority Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, Skills Based Routing
- Priority-Based Routing: A call distribution strategy that routes higher-priority calls—based on caller type, service level agreements, or issue urgency—ahead of others in the queue. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Parallel Routing, Presence Based Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, Skills Based Routing.
- PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network): The traditional global telephone network that enables voice calls over circuit-switched landlines and mobile networks. See also VoIP, SIP Trunks.
Q
- QA Scorecard: The structured form used to evaluate a recorded interaction, with weighted criteria covering greeting, accuracy, compliance, and resolution. See also Quality Assurance, Calibration, Call Recording.
- Quality Assurance (QA): Systematic monitoring and evaluation of agent interactions to ensure service standards.
- Quality of Service (QoS): Network configuration that prioritizes voice and video packets over other traffic to protect call quality. See also VoIP, Mean Opinion Score, Call Quality Dashboard.
- Queue Breakout: A feature that lets callers press a key to leave the queue and be transferred to another destination, such as voicemail or another department.
- Queue Callback Rate: The percentage of callers who choose a callback instead of waiting on hold.
- Queue Depth: The number of interactions waiting in a queue at a given moment. See also Queue Statistics, Live Dashboards, Longest Wait Time, Overflow Routing.
- Queue Statistics: Data metrics that provide insights into the status and performance of call queues, such as the number of calls waiting, average wait time, and service levels.
- Queue Timeout: A condition where a caller is automatically redirected after waiting too long in queue, based on a configured duration.
R
- RCS (Rich Communication Services): A messaging standard that upgrades SMS with verified sender identity, read receipts, images, and action buttons on supported handsets. See also SMS, Omnichannel Contact Center, Asynchronous Messaging.
- Real-Time Insights: Immediate data and analytics that provide an up-to-date view of contact center performance, allowing for swift adjustments and improvements.
- Real-Time Transcription: Live conversion of an in-progress conversation to text, shown to the agent or supervisor as the call happens. See also Automatic Speech Recognition, Agent Assist, Speech Analytics, Sentiment Analysis.
- Repeat Call Rate: The share of customers who make contact again about the same issue within a defined window. The inverse view of first call resolution. See also First Call Resolution, Customer Effort Score, Escalation.
- Resource Account: A disabled Microsoft 365 account that holds a phone number and license on behalf of an auto attendant or call queue rather than a person. See also Auto Attendant, Call Queue, Direct Inward Dialing, Entra ID.
- Retention Policy: Rules defining how long recordings, transcripts, and interaction data are kept before automatic deletion. See also Compliance Recording, GDPR, Data Residency, Bring Your Own Storage.
- RONA: Reroute-On-No-Answer; a contact center feature that reroutes a missed call to another agent, and places the first agent in an unavailable status to avoid more missed calls.
- Round Robin Routing: A call distribution method that assigns incoming calls to agents in a rotating order, ensuring calls are shared evenly and each agent gets an equal opportunity to handle them. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Parallel Routing, Presence Based Routing, Priority Based Routing, Serial Routing, Skills Based Routing.
S
- Safe Transfer: A transfer type in which, if the recipient doesn’t answer, the call returns to the original agent. See also Blind Transfer, Call Transfer, Chat Consult Transfer, Consult Transfer.
- Schedule Adherence: How closely agents follow their assigned schedules.
- Scheduled Reports: Automated reports that are generated and delivered at set intervals providing insights into contact center performance without manual effort.
- Screen Pop: The common industry term for the customer record that appears on the agent’s screen when an interaction arrives. See also Call Pop, Call Pop URL, CRM Integration, Computer Telephony Integration.
- Self-Service: Automated options that allow customers to resolve issues without agent assistance.
- Serial Routing: A routing method where calls are routed to agents in a pre-defined order. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Presence Based Routing, Priority Based Routing, Round Robin Routing, Skills Based Routing
- Service Desk: A more comprehensive resource than a help desk, serving as a single point of contact (SPOC) between service providers and users. Service desks manage incidents and service requests and handle communication with users throughout the service lifecycle. See also Help Desk.
- Service Level: The percentage of interactions answered within a target time, commonly written as 80/20 for 80 percent answered in 20 seconds. See also Service Level Agreement, Average Speed of Answer, Erlang C, Abandonment Rate.
- Service Level Agreement (SLA): A set of standards that defines the expected performance level (e.g., 80% of calls answered in 20 seconds).
- Session Border Controller (SBC): A network device that secures and controls VoIP communications, ensuring quality and security in SIP-based communications. See also VoIP, SIP Trunks.
- Sentiment Analysis: The use of natural language processing and AI to assess and categorize the emotions expressed during customer interactions, helping to gauge customer satisfaction. See also NLP.
- Shrinkage: The percentage of time agents are paid but unavailable for calls (breaks, training, meetings, system issues).
- Simultaneous Ring: A configuration that rings several endpoints or users at once, with the first to answer taking the call. See also Parallel Routing, Serial Routing, Hunt Group.
- SIP Trunks: Virtual phone lines that use the SIP protocol to deliver voice over the internet, connecting an on-premises phone system to the PSTN through an internet connection. See also PSTN.
- Skills-Based Routing: A call assignment strategy that routes incoming calls to the most suitable agent based on their skill set. See also Call Queue Routing, Longest Idle Routing, Parallel Routing, Presence Based Routing, Priority Based Routing, Round Robin Routing, Serial Routing, User Skills.
- SMS: Text messaging over carrier networks, used as a contact center channel for support threads, callbacks, and survey delivery. See also Omnichannel Contact Center, RCS, Asynchronous Messaging, Post-Call Survey.
- SOC 2: An audit framework covering security, availability, processing integrity, confidentiality, and privacy controls at a service provider. See also ISO/IEC 27001 Certification, Encryption in Transit and at Rest, Data Residency.
- Speech Analytics: AI-powered analysis of recorded calls to identify trends, compliance issues, and training opportunities.
T
- Teams Admin Center: The Microsoft 365 portal where administrators manage Teams users, policies, phone numbers, call queues, and auto attendants. See also Resource Account, Auto Attendant, Call Queue, Microsoft Teams Phone.
- Teams Phone Extensibility: A Microsoft Teams technology that enables developers to build deeply integrated voice applications using Azure Communication Services, with features like dual persona support, advanced call handling, and AI-powered enhancements inside Microsoft Teams. See also Connect Model, Extend Model.
- Teams Presence: Real-time status indicators that show the availability of agents or team members, facilitating efficient call routing and collaboration.
- Tenant: An organization’s dedicated instance of Microsoft 365, holding its users, data, and policy configuration. See also Entra ID, Teams Admin Center, Data Residency.
- Text-to-Speech (TTS): Synthesized voice generated from written text, used for IVR prompts and variable announcements without recording audio files. See also Interactive Voice Response, Auto Attendant, IVR Designer.
- Time-Based Routing: Routing calls differently based on time of day, day of week, or business hours.
- Total Cost of Ownership (TCO): The full cost of running a contact center platform over time, counting licensing, telephony, integration work, training, and administration. See also Cost Per Contact, Contact Center as a Service, Microsoft Calling Plans.
- Transfer Rate: The share of interactions an agent passes to another agent, queue, or external number. See also Call Transfer, First Call Resolution, Skills-Based Routing.
- Transfer to PSTN: The ability to transfer a Microsoft Teams call to a standard telephone number using the Public Switched Telephone Network.
U
- Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS): Cloud-delivered calling, meetings, chat, and presence for an entire organization. Distinct from CCaaS, which adds queueing, routing, and agent tooling for customer-facing teams. See also Contact Center as a Service, Microsoft Teams Phone, VoIP.
- Unify Model: Microsoft’s newest and most advanced contact center integration approach that uses Azure Communication Services to build native CCaaS applications using Teams calling infrastructure, providing organizations with an AI-powered customer engagement platform directly within the Microsoft ecosystem.
- User Skills: Tags or labels that describe an agent’s abilities (e.g., language fluency or service specialization), used in skills-based routing. See also Skills Based Routing.
V
- Virtual Agent: An automated conversational assistant that handles customer questions across voice or digital channels and escalates to a person when needed. See also Conversational AI, Copilot Studio, Containment Rate, AI Digital Assistants.
- Visual IVR Builder: A graphical interface that allows contact centers to design and implement IVR systems without coding, streamlining the setup process.
- Voice of the Customer (VoC): A program that gathers and analyzes customer feedback from surveys, recordings, and digital transcripts to guide service decisions. See also Post-Call Survey, Sentiment Analysis, Customer Satisfaction, Speech Analytics.
- Voicemail Transcription: Automatic conversion of a voicemail recording into readable text delivered alongside the audio. See also Automatic Speech Recognition, Call History.
- VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol): A technology that allows voice communication and multimedia sessions over the internet instead of traditional phone lines. See also PSTN.
W
- Wallboard: A real-time display tool used in contact centers to show key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics.
- Warm Transfer: The common industry term for a transfer where the agent speaks with the receiving party before connecting the caller. See also Consult Transfer, Safe Transfer, Blind Transfer, Call Transfer.
- Web Chat: A messaging channel embedded in a website or portal, routed and reported alongside voice interactions. See also Omnichannel Contact Center, Chat Consult Transfer, First Response Time, Call Deflection.
- WhatsApp Business Platform: Meta’s business messaging service, connected to a contact center so WhatsApp threads route to agents through the same queue structure as calls. See also Omnichannel Contact Center, Asynchronous Messaging, SMS.
- Whisper: A feature that enables supervisors to provide real-time guidance to agents during calls without the customer hearing, facilitating on-the-job training. See also Barge, Listen.
- Workforce Management (WFM): The practice and tooling used to forecast volume, build agent schedules, and track adherence against them. See also Forecasting, Schedule Adherence, Shrinkage, Intraday Management, Erlang C.
- Workforce Optimization (WFO): The broader discipline combining workforce management with quality assurance, coaching, and performance analytics. See also Workforce Management, Quality Assurance, QA Scorecard, Speech Analytics.
- Wrap-Up Time: The time an agent spends completing after-call tasks before becoming available again. See also Call Wrap-Up Questions.
