Some Basic Contact Centre Terminology That You Need to Know

Klaris Chua, of RingCentral, introduces some basic contact centre language for contact centre beginners.

With all the buzz about contact centres, terms such as call tracking, call metrics, and call analytics can get confusing especially for the newer players in the field. Like all emerging technologies, the jargon surrounding the call centre industry is still developing and evolving every day.

Some people tend to use these terms interchangeably. Others would go as far as dismissing the opportunities other contact centre terminology present because they’ve been so used to just one functionality for so long. As such, you need to be aware of how these terms fall into your business operations.

Call Tracking

Call tracking, simply put, answers the question, “Where do the calls come from?” Call tracking will tell the called party which sources drove the incoming phone calls.

For instance, someone puts a unique phone number for a specific campaign on a website’s homepage. When a potential client calls this number, the call tracking capability, depending on the service or solutions provider, can record or tag this information, then forward the call to the main line so someone could answer it.

Or say, a huge company pays for their number to be displayed on a billboard, places an ad on a newspaper, or buys airtime on TV, with each campaign assigned a different phone number. When someone calls a number from any of these channels, the company’s salespeople can easily tell where the leads came from. It will be easier to find out which campaigns are working and generating income for the company.

Call Metrics

Call metrics are the statistics gathered in call centres used to make sense of all your call activity. Contact centres have various ways of identifying and varying metrics depending on their needs, so one needs to be aware of the best practices in recording such data types according to the line of business.

Typical statistics that can be recorded include:

• Total number of calls which can be further broken down by hour of the day, day of the week, volume per month, etc.
• AHT or Average Handle Time which is just a fancier term for call length.
• FCR or First Call Resolution which is a measure of how many times a person had to call before his issue gets resolved.

Your call metrics can also be a component of your KPIs or key performance indicators – metrics used to measure success.

Call Analytics

Call analytics, depending on your provider, goes way, way deeper into your call activity. Its definition actually varies from industry to industry.

For instance, in the call centre and telecom industries, it’s more about having advanced call metrics and the ability to generate call reports containing information pertinent to the business. One can increase sales by just paying attention to the callers’ geographical origins, analyzing call patterns, and the like.

For call centre businesses on the other hand, call analytics can also mean the analysis of voice data. It’s supposed to understand how conversations are carried out. You can trigger your call analytics tool to record keywords, understand particular accents, or even understand jargon. With all of these you can figure out who among your callers are happy or angry and which agents are doing well in handling irate callers.

For both industries, however, the rationale for having such a solution remains the same. When you tie your call metrics to your call analytics, you’re supposed to get higher-level metrics so that you can optimize all your call activity according to your business objectives.

Today’s call centres are becoming more and more exciting. Testament to this is the wide selection of tools and services focused on helping improve the typical customer experience.

Start acquainting yourself with the terms and numbers that matter to get your head in the game. In no time, you’ll know exactly what you need to improve processes and performance within your scope of business.