Common Acronyms - Call Centers

When working in a call center, you’re likely to hear many different acronyms, but they’re only useful if you know what they mean. In this topic, you’ll learn some common acronyms that call center employees use daily, so you can understand and use them properly during conversations with co-workers and customers.

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1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are the metrics that a company or department uses to track their goals and progress. First Response Time (FRT) and Customer Effort Score (CES) are examples of KPIs.

2. Service Level Agreement (SLA) is the statement of what the customer service team is committed to, including their standards, procedures, and services. It is used to make agreements with customers and stakeholders.

3. It’s important to differentiate large, enterprise businesses from small-to-medium sized businesses. The acronym used to discuss these smaller businesses is SMB.

4. Quality Assurance (QA) summarizes the actions a company takes to prevent errors or problems with their products and services. It’s a necessary component of good customer service.

5. To promote better customer service scores and profitability, it’s important to be able to keep track of your customers. A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) strategy or platform is often used to maintain these relationships.

6. The User Interface (UI) is the way the customer interacts with you, your product, or service, such as through a website or software. Its design plays a significant role in the customer’s satisfaction and experience.

7. A Knowledge Base (KB) is a collection of resources on a particular topic. This may be internal, for employee use, or external, to share with customers.

8. The Customer Effort Score (CES) is a measurement of how much work the customer has to do to get their request handled or problem solved. The less effort the customer has to spend, the more likely they are to be satisfied.

9. The Average Handle Time (AHT) measures how long, on average, it takes to resolve a ticket or problem. It includes all the talk, hold, and follow-up time for the request to be completely solved.

10. First Response Time (FRT) measures the amount of time between a customer requesting or placing a ticket for support, and a service agent contacting them. The lower this score is, the more effective the customer service is.