Glossary - A

Abandon Call

A call that is disconnected by the caller or Called Party after a connection has been made, but before a conversation takes place.

Abandon Rate

The rate at which callers hang-up after being placed on hold or in a queue.

A formal document which defines the procedure to be followed to validate a technical release.

An approach to clustering whereby the second server does useful processing on other applications but still be able to take over for the primary server in the event it should fail. The key benefit is that customers can have server redundancy while retaining use of the second server, instead of limiting it strictly to a backup function. This can reduce the overhead costs of operating a clustered system. Also see Cluster.

ACD

Automatic Call Distributor enabling the automatic, user-defined intelligent routing, re-routing and distribution of calls within the call centre, as well as the routing and distribution of calls to destinations external to the call centre.

ACTIUS

Association of Computer Telephone Integration for users and suppliers. An European CTI industry forum.

AIT

Advanced Intelligent Tape.

AGENT

A person whose job it is to handle outgoing or incoming telephone calls / customer contacts within a call centre operation. Also see CSR.

ALARM

An alarm is a special type of event (with certain attributes set to classify it as an alarm) indicating a [potential] problem condition (as opposed to a purely informational message).

ANI

Automatic Number Identification. Also see Caller ID/CLI.

ANSI

American National Standards Institute.

API

Application Programming Interface.

Application

A computer software program that causes a computer system to perform functions that are of benefit to actual users of the system. The system could contain telephony components.

ARS

Automatic Route Selection.

ATM

Asynchronous Transfer Mode. The fundamental technology of broadband ISDN and capable of carrying synchronous and asynchronous information over the same channel.

ATP

Acceptance Test Procedure.

Authentication

An identified user establishes him or herself as being genuine. The method most commonly used is to enter a user identification code, which is then authenticated with a password.

Authorisation

An authenticated user is authorised by the system to carry out certain functions. The actions are at two levels i.e. to have access to certain documents or files and to carry out particular functions for example read, write and update.

Automated Dialling

Collective term used to describe power, progressive, predictive and preview dialling.

Average Wait Time

The length of time a caller must wait on hold or in a queue before an agent / CSR answers the call.

AVD

Alternative Voice and Data: a method of switching between voice and data during the same call. Also see DSVD, SVD, VDCA