Glossary S - V
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Scatter Diagram. A chart that graphically depicts the relationship between two variables.

Schedule Compliance. See Adherence to Schedule.

Scheduling Exception. When an agent is involved in an activity outside of the normal, planned schedule.

Screen Monitoring. A system capability that enables a supervisor or manager to remotely monitor the activity on agents' computer terminals.

Screen Pop. A CTI capability. Callers' records are automatically retrieved (based on ANI or digits entered into the VRU) and delivered to agents, along with the calls.

Screen Refresh. The rate at which real-time information is updated on a display (e.g. every 5 to 15 seconds). Note, screen refresh does not correlate with the time-frame used for real-time calculations. See Real-Time Data.

Seated Agents. See Base Staff.

Service Bureau. A company that handles inbound or outbound calls for another organization.

Service Level Agreement. Performance objectives reached by consensus between the user and the provider of a service, or between an outsourcer and an organization. A service level agreement specifies a variety of performance standards that may or may not include "service level." See Service Level.

Service Level. Also called Telephone Service Factor, or TSF. The percentage of incoming calls that are answered within a specified threshold: "X% of calls answered in Y seconds." See Response Time.

Service Observing. See Monitoring.

Shrink Factor. See Rostered Staff Factor.

Silent Monitoring. See Monitoring.

Skill Group. See Agent Group.

Skill-Based Routing. An ACD capability that matches a caller's specific needs with an agent that has the skills to handle that call, on a real-time basis.

Smooth Call Arrival. Calls that arrive evenly across a period of time. Virtually non-existent in incoming environments.

Special Causes. Variation in a process caused by special circumstances. See Common Causes.

Speech Recognition. The capability of a voice processing system to decipher spoken words and phrases.

Split. See Agent Group.

Supervisor Monitor. Computer monitors that enable supervisors to monitor the call handling statistics of their supervisory groups or teams.

Supervisor. The person who has front-line responsibility for a group of agents. Typical ratios are one supervisor to every 10-15 agents. However, help desks can have one supervisor for every 5 people, and some reservations centers have one supervisor for every 30 or 40 agents. Generally, supervisors are equipped with special telephones and computer terminals that enable them to monitor agent activities.

T1 Circuit. A high speed digital circuit used for voice, data or video, with a bandwidth of 1.544 megabits per second. T1 circuits offer the equivalent of twenty-four (24) analog voice trunks.

Talk Time. The time an agent spends with a caller during a transaction. Includes everything from "hello" to "goodbye."

Telecommuting. Using telecommunications to work from home or other locations instead of at the organization's premises.

Telephone Service Factor. See Service Level.

Telephony Applications Programming Interface (TAPI). CTI protocol developed by Microsoft and Intel.

Telephony Services Application Programming Interface (TSAPI). CTI protocol developed by Novell and AT&T.

Threshold. The point at which an action, change or process takes place.

Tie line. A private circuit that connects two ACDs or PBXs across a wide area.

Toll-Free Service. Enables callers to reach a call center out of the local calling area without incurring charges. 800 and 888 service is toll-free. In some countries, there are also other variations of toll-free service. For example, with 0345 or 0645 services in the United Kingdom, callers are charged local rates and the call center pays for the long distance charges.

Touchtone. A trademark of AT&T. See Dual-Tone Multifrequency.

Traffic Control Center. See Network Control Center

Transaction. See Call.

Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). The protocols that govern the exchange of sequential data. TCP/IP was designed by the U.S. Department of Defense to link dissimilar computers across many kinds of networks. It has since become a common standard for commercial equipment and applications.

True Calls Per Hour. Actual calls an individual or group handled divided by occupancy for that period of time.

Trunk. Also called a Line, Exchange Line or Circuit. A telephone circuit linking two switching systems.

Trunk Group. A collection of trunks associated with a single peripheral and usually used for a common purpose.

Trunk Load. The load that trunks carry. Includes both Delay and Talk Time.

Trunks Idle. The number of trunks in a trunk group that are non-busy.

Trunks in Service. The number of trunks in the trunk group that are functional.

Unavailable Work State. An agent work state used to identify a mode not associated with handling telephone calls.

Uniform Call Distributor (UCD). A simple system that distributes calls to a group of agents and provides some reports. A UCD is not as sophisticated as an ACD.

Universal Agent. Refers to either A) An agent who can handle all types of incoming calls or B) An agent who can handle both inbound and outbound calls.

Virtual Call Center. A distributed call center that acts as a single site for call handling and reporting purposes.

Visible Queue. When callers know how long the queue that they just entered is, and how fast it is moving (e.g., they hear a system announcement that relays the expected wait time). See Invisible Queue.

Voice Processing. A blanket term that refers to any combination of voice processing technologies, including Voice Mail, Automated Attendant, Audiotex, Voice Response Unit (VRU) and Faxback.

Voice Response Unit (VRU). Also called Interactive Voice Response Unit (IVR) or Audio Response Unit (ARU). A VRU responds to caller entered digits or speech recognition in much the same way that a conventional computer responds to keystrokes or clicks of a mouse. When the VRU is integrated with database computers, callers can interact with databases to check current information (e.g., account balances) and complete transactions (e.g. make transfers between accounts). See Voice Processing.