Glossary

Click on a letter to browse the terms associated with it.

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Callback Messaging	A feature in which callers on hold can leave an oral message or their telephone numbers using the keys of a touchtone telephone pad for later callback from an agent instead of remaining on hold.
Call Center	An operation with two or more persons handling incoming or outgoing calls. Call centers may be help desks, customer service centers, catalog sales centers, reservations centers, or telemarketing/collections operations. (see Contact Center)
Call/Contact Blending	The process of combining the flow of inbound/outbound calls and other contacts such as email or web transactions to a set of agents. Contact blending can be accomplished manually or by means of automated systems that route the contacts to the agents capable of handling them.
Caller ID	A telephone network feature of the local telephone company by which the telephone number of the caller is passed to the called party.
Caller-Entered Digits	Digits entered by a caller on a touch-tone phone in response to prompts.
Calling Line ID (CLID):	Information about the billing telephone number from which a call originated. The CLID value might be the entire phone number, the area code, or the area code plus local exchange.
Calls per Hour (CPH)	The average number of calls that an agent handles per hour, and is equal to the total calls handled during a working shift divided by the total time (in hours) logged into the telephone system.
Carrier	A company that provides telecommunications circuits. Carriers include the local telephone company and companies such as AT&T, Sprint, and MCI.
Channel Associated Signaling (CAS)	Channel Associated Signaling. A type of signaling on T1 digital circuits where the signaling shares the same channels as the voice or data stream.
Centralized Attendant Service (CAS)	A feature on PBXs where operator consoles can be located at a central site and support branch locations. Commonly used in retail applications
CC	1. Common Carrier. A government-regulated private company that furnishes the general public with telecommunications services and facilities. 2. Country Code. Part of a numbering plan.
CCAPI	Call Control Applications Programming Interface.
CCC	Cisco Conference Connection. A Cisco application that allows users to schedule large-scale conference calls for up to 100 simultaneous callers.
CCITT	Consultative Committee for International Telegraph and Telephone. A telecommunications organization that recommended worldwide standards for common carrier communications services. This organization was superseded by the International Telecommunications Union, now called the ITU-T. See ITU-T.
CCS	Common Channel Signaling. Signaling system used in telephone networks that separates signaling information from user data. A specified channel is exclusively designated to carry signaling information for all other channels in the system.
CCSS7	Common Channel Signaling System 7. The protocol used by the AT&T signaling network. ICM software’s NIC receives routing requests from CCSS7 network and returns a routing label to the CCSS7 network.
CDR	Call Detail Recording. A stored database record containing data about a specific call. Processed as a unit and used to create billing records, a CDR contains details such as the called and calling parties, originating switch, terminating switch, call length, and time of day.
Central Office (CO)	A synonym for switching center also referred to as a telephone exchange.
Centralized Call Processing	A processing construct in which the central site contains all call processing resources and supports the branch offices as well. In terms of the Cisco CallManager, centralized call processing means that the central site contains a Cisco CallManager or Cisco CallManager cluster, but the branches do not have call processing servers.
Character-based Display	The display on the telephone is only capable of displaying characters (letter and numbers), not graphics.
Circuit Switching	Switching system in which a dedicated physical circuit path must exist between sender and receiver for the duration of the "call". Used heavily in the public switched telephone network.
Cisco AVVID	Cisco Architecture for Voice, Video and Integrated Data.
Cisco IP Phone	A full-featured telephone that provides voice communication over an IP network while functioning much like a traditional PBX phone. Allows you to place and receive telephone calls, and supports features such as call forwarding, redial, speed dialing, call transfer, and conference calling. Also allows you to access voice mail, providing connectivity to Cisco IP Phone.
Cisco Media Convergence Servers	The Cisco MCS-7800 series server family, which includes the high-availability MCS-7830 and the Cisco AVVID IP telephony starter kits.
Cluster	A group of CallManager servers that interoperate to form a single system image. This means that the servers in the cluster share databases and act as a single system in terms of features, administration, collection of CDR records, etc. This feature allows Cisco CallManager to scale up to 10,000 phones in a single system.
Codec	Coder-decoder. In Voice over-Frame Relay, and Voice over ATM, a software algorithm used to compress/decompress speech or audio signals.
Completed Call/Contact	A contact that is handled to completion by an agent, or in an outbound dialing scenario, a contact that has been through maximum recycle attempts.
Computer-Telephone Integration (CTI)	Software that integrates voice communications systems with computers for contact center and office automation applications.
Conditional Routing	The capability of the ACD to route calls or contacts on an "if…then" basis. Routing conditions can include day of week, time of day, agent availability, type of call, service needed, etc.
Confidence Interval	The range around a numeric value obtained from a sample, within which the actual, corresponding value for the population is likely to fall, at a given level of probability.
Configuration File	An unformatted ASCII file that stores initialization information for an application. For Cisco CallManager, files in .cnf format that define the parameters for Cisco IP Phone connection.
Contact Management	Software applications and systems that keep track of all customer contacts for subsequent contacts and as an audit trail.
CoS	Class of Service. A Collection of features, privileges, and services that are easily assignable to a group of "class" or telephones. Class of Service is used to simplify administration and maintenance tasks in complex telephony networks.
Cost per Call	This is the sum of all costs for running the call center for the period divided by the number of calls handled in the call center for the same period. This would include all calls for all reasons whether handled by an agent or technology, such as IVR. You can also just calculate the cost per call for agent-handled calls. The number of calls received will be captured by the ACD. The total cost of the center can be obtained from your accounting department.
CPE	Customer Premises Equipment. Telephone equipment, such as key systems, PBXs, answering machines, etc., that reside on the customer’s premise (e.g., office building, home office, or factory). Also called Customer Provided Equipment.
CRM	Customer Relationship Management. The strategy of identifying customer needs, improving customer interactions, and customizing contacts, sales approaches, and automation to provide optimum service to each type of customer to maximize the bottom line benefits to the organization.
Cross-Sell	A cross-sell occurs when an agent recognizes that the caller might be able to use a product from the same company, but in a totally different product line within the company. For instance, an agent at a banking call center who is opening a savings account for a caller might recognize the advantage for the caller to purchase a CD from the bank at a higher interest rate.
CTI Ports	Computer Telephony Interface ports. Virtual devices that are used by Cisco CallManager applications such as Cisco SoftPhone, Cisco IP AutoAttendant, and Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response System (IVR) to create virtual lines. CTI ports are configured through the same Cisco Call Manager Administration area as phones but require different configuration settings.
CTI Route Point	Computer Telephone Interface route point. Virtual device that can receive multiple simultaneous calls for the purpose of application-controlled redirection. Once a CTI route point has been created, lines (directly numbers) can be added and configured. Applications that use CTI route points in clued Cisco IP AutoAttendant, Cisco IP Interactive Voice Response System (IVR), and Cisco TAPI/ JTAPI.
Customer Access Channels	Customer access channels are the multiple ways that customers can reach out and contact a company. A few of the obvious access channels are telephone, e-mail, fax, normal mail, kiosk, and face-to-face.
Customer Centric	Placing the wants and needs of the customer as the central focus of all business practices within the firm. Seeing your business through the "eyes of the customer."
Customer Lifetime Value	The imputed dollar revenues or profits (depending on formula) generated by the customer for as long as the customer remains with the firm.
Customer Retention	Keeping a customer as opposed to losing the customer to the competition. A percentage of this figure would be the tenure of the average customer with the firm as computed by the sum of the time of all customers with the firm divided by the number of customers.
Customer Satisfaction	This is a state of mind that a customer has about a company in which their expectations have been met or exceeded over the lifetime of the product. This leads to company loyalty and product repurchase.
Customer Share	The percent of those who purchase the item of interest from a given firm. Computed as the number of customers who purchase the item from a given firm divided by the numbers of customers who purchase the item from all firms combined.
Customer Value Segment	Customer value segmentation strives to segment customers based on their financial value to the company. This value is usually based on a combination of the total amount of money that a customer spends with the company, and the profitability of that revenue stream. The best example would be the frequent flyer programs that the airlines have. United, for instance, has the following value segments with its frequent flyer program a) regular frequent flyer, b) premium frequent flyer, and c) 1K frequent flyer.