Since a call center is so dependent on people being available to answer phone calls and resolve customer issues when workers are absent it increases the workloads for other agents who may already have lots of work to deal with.

is the art of using words and phrases to communicate a positive, supportive tone to your customers (or anyone else for that matter).

To focus on a particular sound or message. We are more likely to attend to messages that are about us; and to humor, new ideas, real or concrete things.

ACD is a telephony system that recognizes, answers, and routes incoming calls to the terminal or agent that is best suited to handle the caller’s needs.

is a metric that monitors the number of calls transferred to another department, a supervisor, or a different queue. 

leverages software and services to transform data into actionable insights that inform an organization's strategic decisions.

is a management process that routes calls as per categories, which are based on predefined business rules, wait time, and customer value. This allows agents to prioritize calls that need to be answered first based on their value, urgency, etc.

helps agents follow a dialogue template for easy reference. They can fill their responses directly into the customer relationship management tool (CRM) to design workflows.

A CMS is most helpful for outbound contact centers. The software provides the agent with a contact list, or other info needed to reach out to the right people.

can be operated from anywhere, the set-up is very easy and quick and you don’t need any special programming skills or equipment.

CTI is a type of technology that enables computer and telephone systems to interact together. Contact centers implementing CTI can use computers to manage all telephone calls, which in turn leads to increased efficiency and better results.

metric refers to the expenses related to running a contact center (i.e., operational costs, wages, benefits). To calculate the average cost per contact, the total cost associated with operating the business is divided by the total number of contacts handled.

Being customer centric means that every department in the company understands that the customer comes first and everything they do is to obtain, retain, and build relationships with customers.

Customer engagement starts from the first touch point and incorporates subsequent interactions, including the time customers spend with your brand and the actions they take throughout their journey. Customer engagement metrics are effective in measuring service accessibility and the quality of customer experience.

is the result of an interaction between the customer and the company.

Companies should gather customer insights before producing products customers won't want, like, use or buy.  They can do this in many ways, including holding focus groups, conducting surveys, gathering customer feedback, tracking website clicks and emails, and observing trends.

is the complete sum of experiences that customers go through when interacting with a company and its brands.  It considers the complete path from brand discovery to purchasing and beyond. The focus in not on purchases made, but rather on how the customer feels about the interactions throughout their journey with the company.

is a visual depiction (diagrammed or written) detailing the path the customer takes from the time the customer first discovers the brand, to purchasing, and beyond.

is one of the key statistics to track as part of a customer experience program. CLV is a measurement of how valuable a customer is to your company, not just on a purchase-by-purchase basis but across the whole relationship.

CRM software gives agents the 360° customer info they need to solve customer needs as quickly as possible. Contact center agents can also use the servicing application to document customer interactions that can be brought up if the caller needs more help in the future. Having a record can help agents resolve customer issues more efficiently.

refers to the percentage of existing customers or users that are still part of the organization’s pool of consumers over a certain period of time.

A great indicator of customer happiness is the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT).  This metric is calculated by asking a question that pertains to the customer’s feedback on a particular interaction with an agent, “How pleased were you with your experience?” or “Was the agent able to handle your concern satisfactorily?”

Customer service goals are targets for your customer experience typically set by customer-facing teams and individuals as part of strategic planning and performance management (Spacey, 2020)

means that as an employee you are able to display positive attitudes and behaviors, and demonstrate an awareness of the importance of meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations.

is a shared mission for your support team, a set of guiding principles that ensure you’re upholding your core values with every customer interaction

A customer service representative (CSR) – also called an agent – is a person who works in a call or contact center and helps customers with their issues. They may do this using a variety of channels, including phone, chat, email and social media. Customer service representatives (CSRs) play an important role in influencing the customer experience.

refer to the performance that customers can expect from the company. It encompasses various factors, like speed, accuracy, transparency, accessibility, empowerment, efficiency, and friendliness of the staff.

Investing the time and money in customer service training can prove to be an invaluable investment for businesses of diverse sectors and sizes. Teaching members of staff the competencies, knowledge and skills required to increase customer satisfaction and therefore customer retention is a shrewd way for businesses to ultimately increase their sales performance.

is a shared definition of outstanding service that gets all employees working in the same direction.

The first section of a customer service philosophy is a customer service vision statement, which Jeff Toister defines as “a statement that clearly defines the type of customer service employees are expected to provide.

A task in which different audio streams are presented to each ear. Typically, people are asked to monitor one stream while ignoring the other.

make and receive calls from people within the same country.

empowers agents to answer customer queries and manage requests across platforms, such as email, chat, or mobile apps, from a centralized interface.

means giving employees the authority, right technology, systems, and freedom to go the extra mile to make customers happy.

are the customers who purchase products or services from the company.  Employees who work in job positions that require them to interface with external customers directly might be referred to as front-line/front-facing/front-end/customer-facing employees.  Those that work to serve internal customers are working in back-end/back-office/behind-the-scene job positions.

faulty logic

metric shows how many customer requests were solved during the first contact.

The failure to notice a fully visible, but unexpected, object or event when attention is devoted to something else.

The auditory analog of inattentional blindness. People fail to notice an unexpected sound or voice when attention is devoted to other aspects of a scene.

IVR is an automated telephony system that interacts with callers before routing them to the right agent or department, based on the required expertise. The feature aims to ease the situation for callers.

are the company employees who need support, information or action from other employees.  These internal customers may work just down the hall, in another building, or in another country, but they are still part of the company and working to help satisfy external customers.

often use several local phone numbers or toll-free numbers to minimize fees for their customers.

is made up of billions of smart, connected devices, and gives any “thing” a voice through the data it gathers, produces and distributes.

KMS is a computerized system designed to support the creation, storage, and dissemination of information. Such a system contains a central repository of information that is well structured and employs a variety of effective and easy to use search tools that users can use to find answers to questions quickly. 

With onsite configurations, contact centers are owned and operated by the company itself.

In an outbound call center, agents call potential or existing customers rather than receiving calls from them.

has become integral to the customer journey and is now a key driver of brand loyalty across all channels. Consumers are much more likely to buy from brands, both in-store and online,  when offers are personalized.

noise stemming from a physical illness, injury, or bodily stress

A predictive dialer automatically dials from a list of phone numbers. This saves agent time as the dialer will detect busy signals, voicemail messages, disconnected phone numbers, and when there is no answer. Predictive dialing is applicable across channels: mobile, text, social, chat, and email.

provides you with concrete, easy to remember steps you can work through when faced with any issue, customer service related or other.

noise stemming from our psychological states including moods and level of arousal

is simply the attributes of a product or service.

QM applications give managers insight into employee performance so that any areas of weakness can be identified. Managers can also use QM to ensure that agents are adhering to internal policies and procedures.

refers to the total number of calls where a caller hangs up before an agent answers.

Ability to recall information. We tend to remember what is important to us.

Verbal and nonverbal process to confirm understanding

refers to our tendency to rehearse what we are going to say next while a speaker is still talking

Sorting through various sounds and deciding to which sounds to pay attention.

is the agreed-upon, documented, level of service between a vendor and a client. Numerical metrics are often assigned to determine the success or failure of the agreement, along with clear repercussions for failing to meet the service level standards. It’s most commonly used by technology and customer service providers.

are for the requirements, specifications, guidelines, or characteristics established for customer service.

Mobile devices have become indispensable tools of the twenty-first century. Studies show that two-way text messaging systems offer a more direct and expedient means of contacting call centers.

is a customer loyalty metric that businesses use to gauge how their customers feel about them. It measures your customers' willingness to recommend your company, product, or service to others. Companies with high a NPS are more likely to achieve long-term profitable growth.

A ticketing system collects customer support requests from all the sources and centralizes them with the customer data about contact history. Integrating ticketing software with a call center system allows your agents to respond to all the queries efficiently.

TDM was developed in 1870 for large system telegraphy implementation. The technology transports contact center interactions by segmenting multiple data streams and then putting them in a single signal. IP has replaced TDM as the primary mechanism for transporting contact center transactions. IP offers easy access and value-added services such as instant messaging, video calling, and making phone calls directly from websites – all while moving through a less costly network.

Used in the context of contact centers, a basic “trunk circuit” is a telephone line connecting the phones at the contact center to the telephone network. Each circuit can handle one phone call at a time. The number of circuits required depends on the number of simultaneous callers the contact center wishes to accommodate.

A Text telephone is a special device that lets people who are deaf, hard of hearing, or speech-impaired use the telephone to communicate.

Assigning meaning to messages. Assigning a familiar pattern based on knowledge, experience, senses, etc.

Web chat is a real-time communications system between agents and the company's customers that uses a simple, Web interface. Users need browser access in order to use the service. It allows agents to handle multiple chat sessions at the same time.