Telephony Glossary - Page 2

Background Area of Concern, Consequence, and Incentive (BACI) - A questioning strategy for uncovering a customer's implied needs and converting them to clearly defined needs that may lead to a purchasing decision.

Basic Call Vectoring - A DEFINITY® feature that processes and routes incoming calls according to a set of commands that can be preprogrammed by the customer to route calls. Calls can be handled differently depending on variables such as the tie of day, the day of week, the number of calls waiting, etc.

Basic Rate Interface - See ISDN BRI.

BRI - See ISDN BRI.

British Approvals Board of Telecommunications (BABT) - This is the British agency that approves telecommunications equipment.

Brock - Partner with Hewlett Packard. (Reviewers: More info needed?)

Broker's Ally - A popular software application used by brokers for contact management. When PassageWay™ Telephony Services or Direct Connection and FastCall™ are also installed, a FastCall™ macro can be set to pop a Broker's Ally screen when a customer calls.

Btrieve - A set of client/server-based record management programs used by Novell NetWare 3.0 and later that enables NetWare users to create and access data in databases.

Busy Hour Call Completions - See BHCC.

Busy Hour Call Completions (BHCC) - The maximum number of calls a switch can connect in an hour, usually as determined by the switch's manufacturer or by a Call Center using the switch.

Call Applications Manager - See CAM.

Call Applications Manager (CAM) - Tandem's API that links its fault tolerant computers to the DEFINITY® and other major ACDs and PBXs.

Call Center - An operation that combines voice communications and data processing technology to enable an organization to implement critical business strategies or tactics aimed at reducing costs or increasing revenues. Physically, a Call Center is a place where a group of people handle large volumes of incoming or outgoing calls for the purpose of sales, marketing customer service, technical support, or other specialized business activity.

Call Center Manager - An ASAI- and TSAPI-compliant CTI software program from Genesys that provides a graphical display of real-time inbound and outbound calls.

Call Concentrator - An ASAI- and TSAPI-compliant CTI utility from Genesys that logs calls for historical data and deposits the information in a supported relational database management system (RDBMS).

Call Information Logging (CIL) - Recording of telephone call activity, such as the time the call began, its duration, the number called.

Call Processing - The setting up, routing, connecting, and clearing of telephone calls. Often applied to the software in a telephone switch that performs this function.

Call Progress Monitoring - A facility for monitoring and interpreting the detection of progress of an outbound telephone call (e.g., dialing, ringing, engaged, unobtainable, answered).

Call Router - An ASAI- and TSAPI-compliant CTI software program from Genesys that makes routing decisions for single and multiple networked Call Centers and works with an ACD such as DEFINITY to route calls to the best available agent. Also transfers both voice and data to agents.

Call-based Data Selection (CBDS) - Use of telephone call data (e.g., CLI) to select the data to be displayed on an agent screen.

Caller ID - Common product name for Custom Local Area Signaling Services (CLASS), which allows people to see the telephone number of a caller between first and second ring. Local telephone companies offer the service for an extra charge. (See also ANI.)

Calling Line Identification - See ANI.

CallPath Services Architecture (CSA) - A family of computer-specific APIs developed by IBM to provide mapping between ASAI and several IBM computer operating systems for IBM mainframes, minicomputers, and PS/2.

CallVisor® ASAI - Optional software in the DEFINITYâ that provides a bridge for two-way communication between the switch and a host computer. ASAI enables the switch to pass information to the host computer, and, with additional software on the host side, allows the host computer to access switch features and to control calls.

CallVisor® PC - A Lucent Technologies offering that maps the ASAI protocol directly, in a one-to-one manner, into a message-driven application programming interface (API). The API on CallVisor® PC gives application programmers access to all DEFINITY® CallVisor® ASAI capabilities.

Cambridge Technologies - Partner with Hewlett Packard. (Reviewers: More info?)

Campaign Manager - An ASAI-compliant CTI software program from Genesys designed for conducting complex marketing campaigns. It delivers predictive dialing capabilities to a Call Center and implements inbound/outbound call blends to help the Call Center use its agent resources efficiently.

CCA - See Computer Centers of America.

Centenium - Client/server software from EIS International, Inc., that increases the quality and productivity of integrated inbound/outbound Call Centers. It integrates with the DEFINITY® G3 and uses CallVisor® ASAI for its Call Center management CTI systems