The call centre, or contact centre industry has developed its own language, wording, phrases and acronyms over many years. Agent00 have created a short glossary of common terms, in plain English, to help those who are new to the industry or who are confused by 'technospeak' or jargon.

We do not claim this call centre glossary to be definitive by any means, and we have deliberately steered away from complex technical expressions. However, we welcome your contributions and suggestions for adding new terms into this glossary. Please email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it with your suggestions and we will acknowledge each contribution.

ACD - Automatic Call Distribution - a technology relating to calls coming into a contact centre which is programmable to ensure an even spread of calls being answered by available agents, primarily to reduce waiting times for callers.

Agent - A generic term for someone who works in a call or contact centre, communicating with customers by making or receiving calls, texts, emails or instant messages, and updating records and company systems.

Attrition - Also known as staff turnover, this is the annual rate of agents leaving their employment and being replaced in relation to the total number of agents, usually expressed in percentage terms. For example, the average agent attrition rate in UK call cantres is 30.4%.

Bonus - An extra payment earned by an agent, usually linked to three distinct criteria : quantity, quality and customer satisfaction. Most progressive contact centres understand that rewarding agents for great performance is fundamental to achieving self-motivated agents.

Browser - Typically meaning Internet Explorer or Firefox, which allows access to internal company held information or applications (intranet), or external information or websites (internet).

Conditioning - Sometimes also referred to as behavioural conditioning, meaning the science of rewarding good performance, and by doing so trying to establish a pattern or habit. Linked to experiments created by Pavlov with dogs, where he would reward them for salivating by just ringing a bell.

Contact Centre - A more modern term for a call centre, which implies that agents do not merely make and take phone calls, but communicate with customers using newer technologies.

Costs - Usually with the word 'reduce' before it. In a contact centre, agent costs will be 50-70% of the operating budget, so this is where management often look to save money, especially in attrition rates.

CRM - Customer Relationship Management, typically a tool used by agents to keep information on customers and their transactions. The analysis and reporting functions of these systems are used heavily by marketing departments to target customers with specific offers.

CTI - Computer Telephony Integration - the software, hardware and programming needed to integrate computers and telephones so that they work together with some degree of intelligence.

Customer Satisfaction - An often emotive or subjective measurement of how a customer rates his or her experience in dealing with an organisation. This critically important measure is gathered from surveys (and complaints), and can be associated with agents, teams or companies.

Delay - The amount of time a customer has to wait in a queue until dealt with by an agent. The longer the delay, the lower the customer satisfaction rating (in general terms).

Handling Time - the time taken for an agent to commuicate with the customer and do the Wrap-Up Work associated with the call. This measure is more significant in Help Desk environments.

Help Desk - A call centre that is set up to handle incoming calls from customers who have problems with products. Very common with software, computer, networking and technology companies.

Historical Reports - Data that has been captured, processed and presented, usually for management level, in order that informed decisions might be made. Customer satisfaction ratings should be monitored and reported in real time, not historically.

Incentive - An additional motivating factor to achieve an objective faster, or overachieve the objective. In call centre terms this is usually in the form of money, prizes, recognition, awards or time off.

Morale - For individual agents, their motivation level at any point in time towards their everyday tasks. For call centres as a whole, the mood or feel of employees collectively towards management, which is usually suppressed, and only measurable in anonymous staff surveys.

Motivation - An internal or external driver for an agent to get on with the day to day tasks. Sometimes referred to as the 'holy grail' of call centre issues, companies spend small fortunes trying to improve this one thing, often temporarily without it being sustained.

to be continued..