Glossary of Terms

BCP    Business Continuity Plan – Disaster Recovery Plan

B2B    Business to business telemarketing - Providing the services of outbound telemarketing to a company notably in customer acquisition, closing sales, qualifying leads, processing orders and making up-sell/cross-sell offers.

B2C    In marketing, “B2C” describes methods companies use to market to individuals. This term stands for “business-to-consumer.”

Customer Loyalty      A measure of the length of time a person or business has remained a customer once they have purchased a product or service, as well perhaps their inclination to recommend your organisation

Customer Retention   Means simply keeping customers and not losing them to competitors, companies realise that it's far more expensive to find new customers than keep existing ones, and so put sufficient investment into looking after and growing existing accounts, less sensible companies find themselves spending a fortune winning new customers, while they lose more business than they gain because of poor retention activity

Customer Satisfaction  Customer satisfaction is the act of just doing enough to be acceptable to a customer. It is simply meeting basic expectations

Customer Services    All of the activities intended to ensure that customers receive the goods and services they expect to satisfy their needs or wants in the most effective and efficient way

Competitive Advantage         That which one firm can do better than another to satisfy consumer needs and wants

Contact Center         The hub of a telecommerce operation where a multitude of customer touch points are integrated and managed. Customer touch points could include telephone, e-mail, fax, instant messaging, mobile texting (i.e. SMS) and even regular mail.

Cross selling   To sell a product or service that complements or adds value to another purchase, also refers to selling an existing customer another product or service, or the sale by a salesperson of some part of the company's total product range for which another division or salesperson has prime responsibility

Database Management         Creation and maintenance of a database

Data cleaning           The process of telephoning an individual / business to verify the contacts name, job title and address prior to a mailing

Data verify     The checking of data for correctness, or the determination of compliance with applicable standards, rules, and conventions.

Data Entry      A broad term that encompasses a number of occupations. These include electronic data processors, typists, word processors, transcribers, coders and clerks.

Data conversion       The changing of the representation of data from one form to another, as from binary to decimal, or from one physical recording medium to another, as from card to disk. Also known as conversion.

Data processing        A process of converting data into the information and it can also convert information into a data.

Help Desk      A term that generally refers to a call center set up to handle queries about product installation, usage or problems. The term is most often used in the context of computer software and hardware support centers.

Information Hotlines   A telephone line that gives quick and direct access to a source of information or help

Inbound Call Center   A call center service in which handling of incoming calls from a customer or prospect has been done.

ISO     The International Organization for Standardization

ISMS   ISO/IEC 27001 formally specifies a management system that intended to bring information security under explicit management control. Being a formal specification means that it mandates specific requirements. Organizations that claim to have adopted ISO/IEC 27001can be formally audit and certified compliant with the standard

Lead Generation       The process of gathering and identified information from potential customers in order to qualify and score the opportunity for future follow-ups.

Lead Qualification     Marketing activities focused on evaluating the readiness, willingness, and ability of a lead to buy. Industrial marketers, who rely on personal selling, may use a telemarketing or direct mail effort to qualify leads before spending money on a personal call.

Lead Nurturing          having consistent and meaningful communication with viable customers regardless of their time to purchase

Market Research       The Market Research Society (MRS) defines research as follows: The collection and analysis of data from a sample of individuals or organizations relating to their characteristics, behavior, attitudes, opinions or possessions. It includes all forms of marketing and social research such as consumer and industrial surveys, psychological investigations, observations and panel studies

Outbound      Call made from a call center to a prospective customer.

Outbound Call Center   An outbound call center is a call center where telephone agents or telemarketers only make outgoing phone calls for a company or organization. Outbound call center agents typically are selling products and services or making appointments. An outbound call center may be a traditional call center or a virtual call center.

Outsource      Contracting some or all call center services to an outside company.

Pre sales       a process or a set of activities normally carried out before a customer is acquired, though sometimes presales also extends into the period the product or service is delivered to the customer.

Proprietary     describes a technology or product that is own exclusively by a single company that carefully guards knowledge about the technology or the product's inner workings.

QMS   The International Organization for Standardization's ISO 9001:2008 series describes standards for a QMS addressing the principles and processes surrounding the design, development and delivery of a general product or service. Organizations can participate in a continuing certification process to ISO 9001:2008 to demonstrate their compliance with the standard, which includes a requirement for continual (i.e. planned) improvement of the QMS.

Retention Calls        The ability to retain customers can be measure in different ways, average retention period of all customers, percentage of lost customers over a certain period.

Insurance industry   uses this term to determine recruiting success, where they measure successful retention of new recruits as a percentage of those hired that remain after years one through four and beyond, comparative numbers are usually benchmarked at the four year period

Response Handling    Response handling is a requirement for a plethora of marketing initiatives, such as direct response campaigns, for example direct mail, press advertisements, DRTV, etc. where contact details are provides via the media source. Types of response handling include reservation bookings, lead capture, on and off-line surveys, coupon redemption, catalogue order entry, dealer location, fundraising and donation lines, information and referral, mail order fulfillment, market research, merchant processing, and many more. A more recent development has been the rise of mobile marketing, so receiving high-volume short message service (SMS) requests is now a substantial sector of response handling

ROI     Return on investment - A performance measure used to evaluate the efficiency of an investment or to compare the efficiency of a number of different investments. To calculate ROI, the benefit (return) of an investment is dived by the cost of the investment; the result is expressed as a percentage or a ratio. 

SLA    Service Level Agreement a sales contract's clause that defines a guaranteed level of service and any penalties or adjustments should the level of guaranteed service not be met by the providing organization, generally used to make the customer more confident about the purchase

Subscription Renewals         Policy offering the policyholder the option to renew for a specific period of time-frequently one year-for a particular length of time

Tailor-made    Perfectly fitted to a condition, preference, or purpose; made or as if made to order

Technical Support     A repair or advice service offered to customers by some computer hardware and software manufacturers, usually by telephone, fax, or e-mail

Telemarketing  A cost effective method of selling to prospective customers and of maintaining contact with existing customers using the telephone and other advanced telecommunications technologies

Telephone Survey     used to assess the market feasibility of new product or service ideas, and to compare perceptions of competitors' strengths and weaknesses.

Tele-service   Refers to a variety of enhanced services via telephone, including fax-on-demand, voicemail and computer telephone integration.

TSR    Telephone Sales Representative or Telephone Sales Executives (TSEs) or Telephone Sales Agents (TSAs) or Telemarketing Representative (TMRs)
A term commonly used in contact center industries for employees who proactively place calls to customers or prospects to obtain data, share information, or sell products and services.

Up selling       The process of offering customers, with whom the company has an existing relationship, either an upgraded or better deal on a product/service purchased previously.

Value-Added   The elements of service or product that a sales person or organization provides to customers. Prepared to pay for because of the benefits obtained, add values are real and perceived, tangible and intangible, a good, reliable, honest, expert, informed sales person becomes a very significant part of the selling organizations add value, as perceived by the customer.