Glossary of terms
An important and helpful feature of this column is the ‘Square One Glossary of Terms”– a select group of terms commonly used in the telemarketing and business telecommunications industry. Each month, we will present new terms and acronyms, as well as repeat the common terms found here, in order to provide you with a full “telemarketing vocabulary.”
LINE
A transmission wire within a telephone system; part of a local loop that connects a subscriber to the central office.
LINE CAPACITY
The total number in-house telephones that a switch can accommodate.
PRIVATE BRANCH EXCHANGE (PBX)
A private phone switching system allowing communication within a business and between the business and the public network. Calls are received at a centralized console for rerouting or can be designated to individuals. Modern PBXs are automated and called PABXs (Private Automatic Branch Exchanges).
QUEUE
A function that holds all inward bound calls in the order in which they arrive until the next available agent takes the first in line, moving the next call into the front position.
SOURCE IDENTIFICATION
An audible identification of where the next call an agent is receiving is originating from in terms of geographic location. Part of an ACD system.
TIME DIVISION MULTIPLEXING (TDM)
A process which divides a single communications path into a number of time slots and assigns each signal its own intermittently repeated time slot.
TIME ZONE SEQUENCING
Preparation of national telemarketing lists according to time zones so calls can be made at the most productive times.
TRUNK
A communications channel linking a central office with a PBX or other terminal equipment. A trunk is a local line originating from the telephone company central office to a business telephone system, terminating in a PBX.
TWISTED WIRE CABLE
Twisted wire cable is insulated copper wire twisted in pairs to minimize electromagnetic interference between one pair and another when they are packed into a large cable. These cables are the primary path (the local loop) between a subscriber’s premises and the telephone company’s local Central Office.
UNIFORM CALL DISTRIBUTOR (UCD)
A telephone device that puts telephone agents in uniform line, and routes calls not to the next available agent, but to the available agent closest to the top of the line.
VOICE OUTPUT
The ability of a computerized machine to communicate in an audio mode.
VOICE RECOGNITION
The ability of a device to recognize the meaning and act upon the words of a human voice, such as voice-to-text computer application without the use of a keyboard.
Copyright Technology Marketing Corporation Jul 1994
Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.
