Customer communication, call centers, outsourcing, AI and agent training
What do AHT, FCR, BPO, omnichannel or AI coach mean? This glossary explains important terms from customer service, contact center operations, outsourcing and artificial intelligence. For each term you will find an explanation, the standard English name and practical context. A separate section explains the features of the WOXA platform. The glossary is intended for team leaders, agents, trainers and companies choosing a solution for customer experience.
01 / 05 · 28 terms
Also known as / abbreviation: Call centre
A workplace or organizational unit focused primarily on phone calls with customers.
In practice: Unlike the broader contact center, the phone is the main channel; it can involve both inbound and outbound calls.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer contact center
An organization or platform serving customers by phone, chat, email, social media and other channels.
In practice: When managing, track the customer's problem across channels, not just the individual phone call.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer support
Helping customers before purchase, while using the service and after, including inquiries and complaints.
In practice: Quality is judged by clarity and by whether the problem was resolved, not just by response speed.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer Experience
The customer's overall impression of all interactions with the brand across the customer journey.
In practice: One successfully handled complaint can strengthen trust; repeated handovers undermine it.
Also known as / abbreviation: Employee Experience
The sum of an employee's experiences with work, leadership, tools, training and the work environment.
In practice: Good EX supports team stability and can positively influence CX.
Also known as / abbreviation: Leadership Experience
In the LX–EX–CX conceptual framework, the term for how leaders' behavior and leadership culture shape employees' conditions.
In practice: It is not a standardized operational metric like CSAT; it is a management framework.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer path
The sequence of steps from the customer's first contact with the brand to using the service and follow-up support.
In practice: A journey map helps reveal where customers repeat information or wait for a handover.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer touchpoint
A specific interaction between the customer and the brand, such as a website, chat, call or store.
In practice: The quality of each point affects the overall perception of the brand.
Also known as / abbreviation: Omnichannel
Connected customer communication across channels in which history and context are preserved.
In practice: It is not the same as multichannel, where channels may operate separately.
Also known as / abbreviation: Multichannel
Providing support through multiple channels that do not necessarily share customer context.
In practice: The customer may therefore have to explain the same problem again in each channel.
Also known as / abbreviation: Inbound calls
Incoming communication initiated by the customer, typically inquiries, complaints and technical support.
In practice: A forecast of contact volume is essential for capacity planning.
Also known as / abbreviation: Outbound calls
Outgoing communication initiated by the company, such as sales calls, surveys or follow-up contacts.
In practice: Operations require consent rules, appropriate outreach and objection handling.
Also known as / abbreviation: Automatic Call Distribution
A system that automatically distributes incoming calls among suitable agents according to queue rules and availability.
In practice: Routing can take language, skills or priority into account.
Also known as / abbreviation: Interactive Voice Response
A voice self-service menu in which the customer chooses options or communicates by voice.
In practice: An overly complex IVR tree can increase frustration.
Also known as / abbreviation: Routing by skills
Distributing contacts to agents according to their knowledge, language or competencies.
In practice: The goal is to connect the customer with a person able to resolve their request.
Also known as / abbreviation: Escalation
Handing a difficult case over to a specialist, a team or a supervisor.
In practice: A good escalation also passes on the history, so the customer does not have to start over.
Also known as / abbreviation: Support ticket
A logged customer request with an identifier, history, status and ownership.
In practice: The record makes it possible to track next steps and deadlines.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer Relationship Management
A system for recording customer relationships, interaction history and business data.
In practice: The accuracy of CRM data affects the quality of subsequent contacts.
Also known as / abbreviation: Help desk
An organizational or software solution for receiving, assigning and resolving support requests.
In practice: It often works with tickets, SLAs and a knowledge base.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer self-service
The customer's ability to resolve a request without a human agent, for example via a portal, FAQ or voice menu.
In practice: It should offer an easy handover to a person when it does not solve the problem.
Also known as / abbreviation: Knowledge base
A structured set of up-to-date answers, procedures and information for customers and agents.
In practice: Version control, content ownership and regular updates are important.
Also known as / abbreviation: Back office
Behind-the-scenes service activities, such as document verification, order processing and administrative operations.
In practice: Request resolution time often depends on how well front office and back office work together.
Also known as / abbreviation: Front office
Teams and channels in direct contact with the customer.
In practice: Handovers of requests to the back office should be traceable.
Also known as / abbreviation: De-escalation
Communication techniques that help reduce tension and bring the conversation back to a solvable problem.
In practice: It includes listening, naming the situation, clear steps and respectful boundaries.
Also known as / abbreviation: Empathy
The ability to recognize and acknowledge another person's situation without automatically agreeing to their request.
In practice: Empathy is not a promise of an outcome; “I understand” is not “I'll take care of it.”
Also known as / abbreviation: Active listening
Consciously verifying what the customer says through appropriate questions, summaries and attention.
In practice: It helps prevent misunderstandings and repeat calls.
Also known as / abbreviation: Objection handling
Finding the real reason behind the customer's reservation and presenting the options clearly.
In practice: In a sales conversation it should not mean pressuring the customer.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer retention
Keeping customers and their relationship with the brand over time.
In practice: Check whether retention is the result of genuinely resolving needs rather than of obstacles to leaving.
02 / 05 · 24 terms
Also known as / abbreviation: Key Performance Indicator
A key performance indicator that tracks progress toward a specific goal.
In practice: Combine indicators; a good AHT alone does not prove good quality.
Also known as / abbreviation: Average Handle Time
The average time needed to handle a contact, including talk, hold and after-contact work, according to the operation's methodology.
In practice: Example: 420 minutes of total time / 60 contacts = 7 minutes.
Also known as / abbreviation: After Call Work
Activities after the call ends, such as recording the outcome, updating the CRM or follow-up tasks.
In practice: ACW is usually part of AHT.
Also known as / abbreviation: Average Speed of Answer
The average time answered inbound calls wait to be picked up by an agent.
In practice: You need to determine whether and how IVR time and abandoned calls are counted.
Also known as / abbreviation: Level of service
The share of contacts handled within an agreed time limit.
In practice: For example, 80% of answered calls within 20 seconds; define the exact denominator.
Also known as / abbreviation: Service Level Agreement
An agreement between provider and client on the level of service and how it is measured.
In practice: It may include availability, response time, quality or an escalation procedure.
Also known as / abbreviation: First Contact Resolution
The share of problems resolved at the first contact without the need for repeated handling.
In practice: The measurement method must take repeat contacts and customer confirmation into account.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer Satisfaction Score
An indicator of customer satisfaction, usually from a short survey after an interaction.
In practice: Example: 82 positive responses out of 100 = CSAT 82%, according to a threshold chosen in advance.
Also known as / abbreviation: Net Promoter Score
A metric of willingness to recommend the brand, based on the share of promoters minus the share of detractors.
In practice: The score range is −100 to +100; it assesses the broader relationship rather than a single call.
Also known as / abbreviation: Customer Effort Score
A measure of the effort the customer had to make to resolve the problem.
In practice: High effort arises, for example, from repeatedly re-entering information.
Also known as / abbreviation: Quality Assurance
Systematic evaluation of the quality of interactions against predefined criteria.
In practice: Evaluation must be calibrated and should also serve coaching.
Also known as / abbreviation: Evaluation form
A set of criteria and scoring rules for evaluating conversations or training sessions.
In practice: It can assess listening, accuracy of information, resolution and closing.
Also known as / abbreviation: Evaluation calibration
Aligning evaluators together on the same examples so that they rate the same performance similarly.
In practice: It helps reduce subjectivity.
Also known as / abbreviation: Agent occupancy
The share of time in an available-for-service state that the agent actually spends handling contacts and doing follow-up work.
In practice: Occupancy that is too high over the long term reduces room for recovery and training.
Also known as / abbreviation: Non-productive availability
The planned and unplanned portion of paid time that cannot be used for direct contact handling.
In practice: This includes, for example, training, breaks, meetings and absence; classification varies.
Also known as / abbreviation: Schedule adherence
The degree to which an agent follows planned work states and shifts.
In practice: It should not lead to ignoring the customer's complex needs.
Also known as / abbreviation: Workforce Management
Planning workload, capacity, shifts and employee availability.
In practice: It is based on forecasts of contacts, AHT, occupancy and shrinkage.
Also known as / abbreviation: Erlang C
A queueing theory model used to estimate the required number of agents and waiting times.
In practice: Results depend on assumptions, for example the model of incoming contacts.
Also known as / abbreviation: Queue abandonment rate
The share of customer contacts ended before being connected to an agent.
In practice: The calculation method should define short abandoned calls.
Also known as / abbreviation: Workload forecasting
An estimate of the number of contacts and the length of their handling in the future.
In practice: Seasonality, campaigns, product changes and incidents are important.
Also known as / abbreviation: Employee turnover
Employee departures, usually expressed as a share over a selected period.
In practice: Compare similar teams and distinguish voluntary from involuntary departures.
Also known as / abbreviation: Onboarding
The process of bringing a new employee into the role, from systems to the ability to handle real situations.
In practice: Good onboarding combines knowledge, shadowing, simulations and feedback.
Also known as / abbreviation: Coaching
Ongoing individualized support focused on specific skills and behavior change.
In practice: Follow-up checks in practice matter more than a one-off score.
Also known as / abbreviation: Training Return on Investment
A comparison of the financially expressed benefits of training with its total costs.
In practice: ROI = (benefits − costs) / costs × 100%; separate documented effect from estimates.
03 / 05 · 15 terms
Also known as / abbreviation: Business Process Outsourcing
Handing the management and execution of selected business processes to an external provider.
In practice: It includes customer service, back office, sales and other processes.
Also known as / abbreviation: Agent outsourcing
Providing a team of agents externally for the client's customer communication.
In practice: The provider may supply people, management, technology and reporting according to the contract.
Also known as / abbreviation: In-house operation
Running the customer center with your own employees and within your own organization.
In practice: Companies sometimes combine an internal team and an external partner.
Also known as / abbreviation: Managed service
A long-term service with assumed responsibility for a defined scope of operations or technology.
In practice: The difference from merely supplying capacity lies in responsibility for operational results.
Also known as / abbreviation: Nearshore outsourcing
Providing services from a geographically close country, often in a comparable time zone.
In practice: The choice depends on language, costs, regulation and talent availability.
Also known as / abbreviation: Offshore outsourcing
Providing activities from a more distant foreign location.
In practice: Besides price, assess language, security, quality and continuity.
Also known as / abbreviation: Onshore outsourcing
External service provision in the same country as the client.
In practice: It can make language and regulatory compliance easier.
Also known as / abbreviation: Hybrid operations
A combination of internal and external teams, or of human handling and automation.
In practice: It requires unified processes, a knowledge base and measurement.
Also known as / abbreviation: Full-Time Equivalent
The converted number of full-time positions.
In practice: Two employees working half-time equal 1 FTE.
Also known as / abbreviation: Workstation / seat
A unit of capacity representing a staffed or ready agent workstation, according to the contractual definition.
In practice: It is not always the same as an FTE.
Also known as / abbreviation: Price per contact
The cost attributable to one customer contact according to the chosen accounting methodology.
In practice: A lower price may not be a benefit if repeat contacts grow.
Also known as / abbreviation: Cost of service delivery
The total cost of providing customer service or serving a customer segment.
In practice: It includes people, technology, operations and often other related processes.
Also known as / abbreviation: Request for Proposal
A call to suppliers to submit a solution design and a commercial offer.
In practice: A good RFP describes volumes, processes, SLAs, security and required results.
Also known as / abbreviation: Service transition
A controlled takeover of an operation or process by a new provider.
In practice: It includes knowledge transfer, training, a pilot and risk control.
Also known as / abbreviation: Collaboration governance
Rules for decision-making, responsibilities, reporting and escalation between client and supplier.
In practice: It prevents the discussion from covering only numbers while the business goal is lost.
04 / 05 · 26 terms
Also known as / abbreviation: Artificial Intelligence
An umbrella term for systems that perform tasks requiring, for example, recognition, prediction or content generation.
In practice: In customer contact it can assist the agent or automate individual steps.
Also known as / abbreviation: Generative AI
Generative artificial intelligence that creates new text, audio, images or other content from learned patterns.
In practice: Outputs may contain errors and require verification.
Also known as / abbreviation: Large Language Model
A large language model capable of processing and producing natural language.
In practice: It is used in chatbots, summaries and assistance systems.
Also known as / abbreviation: Conversational AI
Systems capable of holding a dialogue by voice or text and responding to how it unfolds.
In practice: It includes chat assistants and voicebots.
Also known as / abbreviation: Chatbot
Software that holds a written conversation according to rules or using AI.
In practice: For complex and sensitive requests it needs an escalation option.
Also known as / abbreviation: Voicebot
An automated voice assistant that receives or initiates calls.
In practice: It can combine speech recognition, a language model and voice synthesis.
Also known as / abbreviation: Automatic Speech Recognition / Speech-to-Text
Technology that converts spoken words into text.
In practice: Transcription can be affected by noise, accents and overlapping voices.
Also known as / abbreviation: Text-to-Speech
Technology that converts written text into synthetic voice.
In practice: Quality is affected by the naturalness of pronunciation and response delay.
Also known as / abbreviation: Natural Language Processing
The field of natural language processing, including text classification and analysis of meaning.
In practice: It supports request triage and conversation analysis.
Also known as / abbreviation: Retrieval-Augmented Generation
An approach in which AI looks up information in designated sources before producing an answer.
In practice: It improves grounding of the answer in current documents but does not remove the need for checking.
Also known as / abbreviation: Vector representation
A numerical capture of the semantic properties of text for finding similar content.
In practice: It is used, for example, in semantic search of a knowledge base.
Also known as / abbreviation: Prompt
An input or instruction given to an AI model, including context and the expected output format.
In practice: For company scenarios it is important to describe boundaries and goals.
Also known as / abbreviation: Prompt injection
An attempt to influence AI with malicious instructions hidden in input data or documents.
In practice: Systems must separate trusted rules from customer content.
Also known as / abbreviation: AI hallucination
A plausible-sounding but incorrect or unsupported piece of information generated by a model.
In practice: In customer service it can lead to unauthorized promises.
Also known as / abbreviation: AI agent
Software that uses a model and tools to perform multiple steps toward a defined goal.
In practice: The scope of autonomy and human approval vary by deployment.
Also known as / abbreviation: Agentic AI
An approach that enables AI to plan and carry out sequences of tasks across multiple systems.
In practice: Konecta presents it in its customer experience transformation offering.
Also known as / abbreviation: AI copilot
An assistant that helps a worker during a task, for example by suggesting a reply or looking up a procedure.
In practice: Decisions and communication remain under human control according to process rules.
Also known as / abbreviation: Agent assistance
Real-time support for the agent through recommendations, context or retrieved information.
In practice: Distinguish it from practice training: here a real customer interaction takes place.
Also known as / abbreviation: Sentiment scoring
Automatic estimation of the emotional tone of text or speech.
In practice: The result is an estimate and may not accurately reflect the actual emotional state.
Also known as / abbreviation: Voice analytics
Evaluation of voice conversations, for example topics, interruptions, length or key phrases.
In practice: Interpretation requires context as well as privacy protection rules.
Also known as / abbreviation: Conversational intelligence
Analysis of the content and flow of conversations to gain insights for quality, sales or processes.
In practice: Konecta includes conversation intelligence in its CX modernization.
Also known as / abbreviation: Robotic Process Automation
Automation of repetitive steps in applications, typically transferring data between systems.
In practice: It can be used, for example, in processing forms and back-office tasks.
Also known as / abbreviation: Human in the approval process
A model in which a person verifies or approves selected AI decisions.
In practice: For important or irreversible steps, the review must be meaningful.
Also known as / abbreviation: AI oversight
Rules for the safe, responsible and transparent use of AI in an organization.
In practice: It includes roles, controls, audit, security and risk management.
Also known as / abbreviation: Single Sign-On
Single sign-on through a corporate identity across multiple systems.
In practice: On its website, WOXA states support for SSO via SAML and OIDC.
Also known as / abbreviation: SAML / OpenID Connect
Standards for federated sign-in and passing identity information.
In practice: They support corporate access without a separate password for each application.
05 / 05 · 14 terms
Also known as / abbreviation: AI conversation training platform
A web platform from the Konecta group for training calls, chats and sales conversations with an AI counterpart.
In practice: This is a specific product, not an industry term for all AI simulators.
Also known as / abbreviation: AI role-play counterpart
A virtual customer, client or other role in a practice conversation that responds according to the scenario and the participant's input.
In practice: It is for practicing before a real contact, not for replacing a live customer.
Also known as / abbreviation: Training scenario
A definition of the role, situation, difficulty, required skills and evaluation objectives for a simulated conversation.
In practice: It can be repeated, and progress compared using the same methodology.
Also known as / abbreviation: Weighted objectives
Evaluation criteria with assigned weights from which the training score is derived.
In practice: A score in WOXA is the result of the configured evaluation methodology, not automatic proof of the quality of real-life service.
Also known as / abbreviation: Replay with AI coach
A WOXA product feature offering a recording, synchronized transcript, comments and marking of strong and weak moments.
In practice: It makes it possible to review a specific line instead of giving general feedback.
Also known as / abbreviation: Call heatmap
A graphical marking of conversation segments that, according to the evaluation, need attention or went well.
In practice: It is a supporting visualization, not a direct measurement of the customer's emotions.
Also known as / abbreviation: Scenario Studio
A WOXA tool for preparing, editing and versioning scenarios, including drafting from company documents.
In practice: Before use, the owner must verify the correctness of the rules and objectives.
Also known as / abbreviation: FaceFit
A WOXA feature for facial expression and articulation training in front of a camera.
In practice: It is a specific product feature, not a general call center standard.
Also known as / abbreviation: Gold-standard call
A model conversation used as an example of the required conduct of a conversation.
In practice: WOXA presents it in the context of QA and comparing training sessions.
Also known as / abbreviation: Team leaderboard
An overview of team members' training results and activity.
In practice: It should motivate learning, not serve as the sole tool for personnel evaluation.
Also known as / abbreviation: Badges and streaks
Game-like motivational elements for regularity and training milestones achieved.
In practice: Gamification helps build a habit; by itself it does not prove transfer of skills into practice.
Also known as / abbreviation: Team goals and certificates
A WOXA feature for setting team training goals and automatically issuing confirmation of their completion.
In practice: The certificate relates to the configured training goal.
Also known as / abbreviation: Buzz Copilot
WOXA's AI assistant for managers and QA, which can propose a new or modified scenario and shows the changes for approval before saving.
In practice: Simply describe in your own words what the team should practice; you then accept or reject the proposal.
Also known as / abbreviation: Team analytics
An overview of trends in scores, training activity and identified development needs.
In practice: Progress measured in simulation should also be verified on real calls.
A call center focuses primarily on phone calls. A contact center usually connects multiple channels, such as phone, chat, email and social media.
BPO covers outsourcing entire processes and may include operations management, technology and results. Agent outsourcing is a narrower model focused on providing staffing capacity or teams.
It depends on the goal of the service. It usually makes sense to combine FCR, CSAT, availability, call quality, AHT and employee experience indicators; speed alone is not enough.
AHT tracks time per contact, FCR resolving the problem the first time and CSAT customer satisfaction. Shortening AHT too much can sometimes damage both FCR and CSAT.
No. A chatbot typically communicates with a customer or user. An AI coach evaluates a practice conversation and recommends which skills to work on.
In a simulation the counterpart is AI, and a scenario can be repeated without any impact on a real customer. A real call takes place with a real customer and is subject to operational rules.
It is an approach that systematically considers the use of AI when designing processes, without automatically assuming the elimination of the human role. The outcome depends on the process, data, accountability and skills.
Pick five to ten terms relevant to the role, explain them with examples and verify that employees can use the terms in decision-making and in conversation.
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