Glossary

Known as automatic call distribution, or ACD switch is the heart of call centre system, answering incoming calls and then figuring out what to do next.

In the “Experience Economy” customers seek experiences over products and services. It’s not surprising that customer experience (CX) has become the differentiator between market winners and losers. Ensuring that your employees are well-trained and have the tools to deliver remarkable experiences is vital to success. CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) is a key component to mixing up a competitive advantage by providing memorable experiences that build loyalty and keep your customers coming back.

Historically, enterprises have walked a difficult line when using workforce optimisation tools to keep down labour costs while trying to improve the customer experience, believing one had to be sacrificed to improve the other. Aspect has broken the mold on that antiquated thinking by introducing technologies that give call centre agents a much more engaging work environment, and that manifests itself in better agent performance, lower turnover and ultimately lower cost while improving the customer experience.

A chatbot (aka chat bot), chatterbot or bot for short, is an automated, Conversational User Interface (CUI) to any kind of service on the Internet. As opposed to a Graphical User Interface (GUI) such as a website, a mobile app, or a kiosk terminal, a chatbot exposes information through text-based chat, leading a conversation with the user using natural language, or a combination of natural language and buttons to advance the dialog.

IVR is historically, interactive voice response (IVR) solutions have used pre-recorded voice prompts and menus to present information and options to callers, and touch-tone telephone keypad entry to gather responses. Modern IVR solutions also enable input and responses to be gathered via spoken words with voice recognition.

Let's you know instantly when your IVR applications are experiencing downtime or quality of service issues. Rapid notification minimises the impact downtime can have on your business

Makes an outbound contact centre more efficient by automating the process of placing outbound calls. The dialler algorithmically predicts when agents will be available and how long it takes calls to be answered, and adjusts the dialling rate. Agents get more live connections, increasing productivity.

A technique used to get customers to the right call centre agent to address their query. While simple automatic call distributor (ACD) systems might route calls to the next available agent irrespective of that agent’s expertise, skills- based routing allows contact centres to designate call centre agents as specialists in certain products or issues.

Is often used to describe a cloud-based contact centre deployment that requires no specialised hardware and allows call centre managers and agents to be geographically dispersed - often, including work-at-home agents. With web-based agent and call centre manager desktops and softphone technology, a computer and Internet connection are all your contact centre team needs.

Workforce engagement management (WEM) is an approach for increasing customer service agent engagement. Workforce engagement management makes it easy to create great employee experiences. Engaged agents help the organisation meet its business objectives. In a contact centre, this typically means providing outstanding customer service and meeting individual KPI targets.