A

Abandon Rate: This is the percentage of calls that get connected to the ACD, but get disconnected by the caller before reaching an agent, or before completing a process within the IVR. The abandon rate is the percentage of calls that are abandoned compared to calls received.

ACD: Automatic Call Distributor. A device that forwards incoming calls to the next available agent or answering position.

Adherence to Schedule: A measure of whether agents are "on the job" as scheduled. This percentage represents how closely an agent adheres to his/her detailed work schedule as provided by the workforce management system. 100% adherence means that the agent was exactly where they were supposed to be at the time projected in their schedule. The scheduled time allows for meetings with the supervisor, education, plus answering customer phone calls. The question, "how often do agents deviate from their schedule" is answered by this metric.

After Call Work Time: This is the average amount of time an agent spends on performing follow-up work after the agent has disconnected from the caller. The data for after call work time is taken from the ACD and should be calculated by individual and group, daily, weekly, and monthly.

Agent: A general term for someone who handles telephone calls in a call center. Other common names for the same job include, but are not limited to: operator, attendant, representative, customer service representative (CSR).

Agent Turnover: The total numbers of agents that left the center during a specified period divided by the sum of the number of agents at the beginning of the specified period and the number of newly-hired agents during the same period, less the total number who left during the specified period.

ANI: Automatic Number Identification. ANI is a service of telecommunications carriers, which identifies the telephone number of the calling party. It is commonly used for billing, call routing and database synchronization. There are several specific technologies that fit under the umbrella of ANI, including caller ID.

Auxiliary Time in Percent: This is the average amount of time per shift, in percent, that an agent is logged into an Aux state. This should include all authorized off-line time, i.e. time set aside for handling emails, training, or other job-related tasks.

Average Attendance in Percent: This is a percentage representing how often an agent is NOT absent from work due to an unplanned absence (not to include excused absences, i.e., vacation, FMLA, jury duty, etc.). Take the total number of unexcused absences and divide it by the total number of absenteeism opportunities and subtract that number from 100.

Average 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.

Average Handle Time: An internal metric that is the sum of talk time, hold time, and after call work time.

Average Percent Occupancy: This is the percentage of time that an agent is in their seat connected to the ACD, and either engaged in a call or ready to answer a call as compared to the total number of hours at work.

Average Sale Value per Sale: When agents are taking orders, it becomes important to know the average sale value of individual sales. This number is determined by taking the total sales in dollars during a period of time, let's say a week, and dividing this by the total number of sale calls handled during the same period of time.

Average Speed of Answer (ASA): This is the total queue time, divided by the number of calls handled. This includes both IVR-handled calls as well as calls handled by a live agent.

Average Talk Time: Total number of seconds the caller was connected to an agent.

Average Time in Queue: This is the average wait time that a caller endures. This differs from average speed of answer because this calculation includes only calls that actually had a wait time. This metric is also known as average time of delay.

B

Best Practice: Best practice is the best performing metric in a category.

Budget: The annual call center budget is the total annual dollar amount allocated for all expenses associated with the operation of the call center for which the call center manager is accountable. The annual budget should include all fully loaded direct and indirect costs for budgetary line items such as labor, benefits, and incentives for agents, management, training, and support personnel; HR costs (e.g., recruiting, screening, training); telephony expenses (toll, trunks, equipment); technology purchases/installation (hardware, and software); technology maintenance (hardware, and software) network; furniture, fixtures, decorations, etc.; utilities (gas, water, power, UPS backup); maintenance (repair, janitorial, upkeep); supplies; overhead expenses and charge-backs for shared corporate costs (e.g., legal, risk management, payroll administration, IT support, security, accounting, grounds keeping, real estate, floor space, common areas, etc.) as applicable.)

C

Calls per Hour: 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.

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.

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: Computer-Telephony Integration refers to the linkage of a telephone switch (ACD, PBX) and computer systems to enhance call processing. Common applications include screen pop, simultaneous voice and data transfer, and IVR.

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.

D

DNIS: Dialed Number Identification Service. A carrier service for 800/888 and 900 numbers that forwards the number dialed by the caller to the called party.

E

Effectiveness Index: The index is calculated by statistically combining into an index those metrics that are indicative of effective performance. This is considered to be quality and is impacted by customer-focused processes.

Efficiency Index: The index is calculated by statistically combining into an index those metrics that are indicative of efficient performance. This is considered to be productivity and focuses on the cost of operating the business.

External Metrics: These are usually characterized as "soft" numbers as they are the collected attitudes, opinions, and emotions of customers or other interested parties. The data may be collected by survey, focus group, or interview methods. This represents the customer perspective.

F

Focus Group: A personal, simultaneous interview among a small group of individuals. It depends more on group discussion than individual responses for the data generated.

H

Help Desk: The term typically applied to an "internal" call center that handles primarily calls from employees about technical problems with their computer, monitor, printer, and the like.

Hold Time: This is the average number of seconds that an agent places customers on hold during a call. Most ACDs can provide this number as a total number of hold seconds and then you can compute the average hold time.

I

Internal Metrics: These are generated by computers internal to call center technology (PBS, ACD, or VRU) or through departments such as Accounting, Finance, or Human Resources. Internal metrics are commonly perceived as "hard" numbers. Examples include average handle time, queue time, and abandon rate. This is generally not representing the view the customer has of your company.

IVR: Interactive Voice Response. Technology that allows a customer making an inbound call to interact with the data systems by responding to a menu of options. Responses are typically entered by pressing the keys on the telephone keypad; however, voice recognition is becoming more commonly integrated into the process, thus providing a more useful tool.

IVR Opt Out: Measure in percent, this is the number of callers who during their call to your center initially attempt finding solutions via the IVR, but then elect to speak with a live agent. This is not the same as those who choose to speak to a live agent as an initial menu option.

M

Moment of Truth: MOT is a critical interaction between the customer and the product or service or employee that determines whether the customer will continue to purchase from the vendor.

N

O

Order Taking and Tracking: This is a specific function of customer service and it means that this call center specializes in just taking orders and tracking orders.

Outbound Performance Metrics: These are all the measurements that indicate the performance of an outbound telephone agent. Examples might include calls/agent/shift or sales/agent/shift.

Outsourcing: Contracting with an outside company/vendor to handle some or all of your company's inbound and/or outbound telephone calls or contacts.

P

Peer Group: Peer group does not necessarily connote competitors, but most often are the call centers that have the same profile of activities that you have. For instance, a peer group might be all call centers handling mostly inbound calls that are mostly business-to-business in a call center of over 100 agents for a company with annual revenues of over one billion dollars.

Percent Abandoned: See Abandon Rate

Percent Agent Utilization: Agent utilization is a calculated metric reflecting the percentage of an agent's shift where the agent is logged into the system, engaged in active "telephone mode" which involves "talk time (ATT)", "hold time (AHT)", and "after-call-work time (ACWT)." Utilization equals the product of average call handle time (talk time + hold time + after call work time) and the average number of inbound calls per agent per shift (ACPS), divided by total time the agent is connected to the ACD and ready to handle calls during a shift, i.e., occupancy in minutes.

Percent Attendance: Actual number of shifts worked divided by the planned number of shifts times 100.

Percent Blocked Calls: An internal metric that is the number of callers who received a busy signal and, hence, could not get through to the ACD.

Percent Calls Handled on the First Call (aka, First Time Final): This is the percentage of calls that were completely resolved during the course of the first inbound call initiated by the customer, and therefore do not require a call back.

This information is often hard to find or inaccurate. Some clients calculate it based on the coding an agent does at the end of a call. If this is the case, the information will be in the ACD. However, this type of calculation almost certainly overstates the percent, since it only subtracts those callers who an agent is certain will call back later; many callers whose issues have been coded by agents as having been resolved will almost certainly call back later and therefore the number is lower. The best way to calculate first time final is to analyze call data over a period of time. This is made easier if the client has a CIM package.

Percentage of Calls Placed in Queue: An internal metric, which is simply the number of calls placed in the queue divided by the total of all calls received by the center.

Percentage of Calls Transferred: An internal metric that is the percentage of total calls transferred from the original agent to someone else.

Q

Queue Time: This is the average wait time that a caller endures. This differs from average speed of answer because this calculation includes only calls that actually had a wait time. This metric is also known as average time of delay.

R

Rejection: The customer's state of mind such that disengagement from the current relationship has already been decided and has been or soon will be implemented. Negative word of mouth is likely to occur.

S

Service level: This is a broad-based term that is used to measure productivity; however, its use is not exclusive to the productivity of call handling. In contact centers it commonly defines X amounts of output in Y amounts of time. For example 80 percent of calls answered in 20 seconds.

T

Talk Time: This is the average amount of time an agent spends on performing follow-up work after the agent has disconnected from the caller.

Total Annual Budget: The annual dollar amount allocated for all of the expenses associated with the call center including (but not limited to): telecommunications expense, salaries, incentives, equipment, and supplies.

Total Calls Offered: An internal metric for all calls presented to the center including blocked, abandoned, and handled. This includes calls handled by technology.

Touch-point: Touch-point is a "buzzword" for customer access channels.

U/V

Up Sell: To sell a higher value product to an existing customer. For example, to lease a more expensive copier to an existing customer. also see Cross Sell

Value Creating Gap: This represents a performance gap where your call center is doing better than your peer group.

Value Destroying Gap: This represents a performance gap where your call center is doing worse than your peer group.

Voice Response Unit (VRU): See IVR..

W

Word of Mouth (WOM): What a customer hears about a product, service, company, etc., usually from friends or family. Also rumors from unspecified sources. Wrap Up Time: See "after call work time".

Misc.

80% of Calls Handled in xx Seconds: This is the number of seconds in which 80% of your calls are handled