The Essential Workforce Management Glossary: Must-Know Terms and Concepts

Abandon rate (ABN)

The number of customers who abandon the queue after waiting for a given time period (30 seconds, 90 seconds, 10 minutes.etc.), expressed as a percentage of total contacts.

Abandoned call rate (ACR)

The percentage of calls that are disconnected by the caller before being answered by an agent.

After call work (ACW)

The "wrap-up time" associated with a contact beyond the actual communication with the customer. This can include tagging or flagging the contact appropriately, adding notes for future support, rerouting the contact to the proper team or solving their underlying problem.‍

Agent occupancy

The percentage of time agents are actively engaged in customer interactions, balancing productivity with potential burnout and resource efficiency.

Agent state

Agent states are the possible states an agent can be in; they include: logged in, away, or on-call. Agent states are taken from your connected support platform. Agent states are used to determine an agent's adherence in the Realtime Overview.

Agent utilization

Agent utilization is a measure of how effectively agents are using their time at work.

Arrival pattern

A structured representation of the times and frequencies of inbound contacts derived from an analysis of past contacts, designed to identify peaks and troughs in contact frequency.

Attrition

The rate at which employees leave your support team. This can be both external (leave the company) and internal (move to a different team). It can also be voluntary or involuntary.‍

Automated speech recognition (ASR)

ASR stands for automated speech recognition. It's a technology that turns spoken words into written text using AI.

Availability rate

The proportion of time that an agent is actively ready to work with customers but not engaged directly with a customer contact, i.e. their time between contacts or waiting for a customer contact.‍

Average resolution time (ART)

Average Resolution Time (ART) or Time to Resolution or Mean Time To Resolution (MTTR) is the average time call centre agents take to solve opened tickets in a specified period.

Average speed of answer (ASA)

The mean of all first response times for your support team.‍

Average talk time (ATT)

Average talk time (ATT) is the amount of time that an agent spends in handling customer calls and resolving their queries.

Average time to abandon (ATA)

Average time to abandon (ATA) is also known as the Average Patience of the caller.

Backlog

The gross number of support contacts that have yet to be addressed or resolved within a set amount of time.‍

Back-office optimization (BOO)

Back-office optimization is the process of streamlining and automating workforce tasks that occur in a contact center.

Blended agent

Blended agents are trained to handle both incoming and outgoing calls.

Business process outsourcing (BPO)

Business process outsourcing (BPO) is a method of subcontracting various business-related operations to third-party vendors.

Call center

A call center is a centralized department that handles inbound and outbound calls from current and potential customers.

Call center agent productivity

Call center agent productivity refers to the efficiency of customer service representatives in handling interactions.

Call center SLA

At the highest level, call center SLA (Service Level Agreement) is a measure of the services provided to a customer in a certain period of time.

Call center workforce optimization

The strategic process of maximizing the efficiency, productivity, and performance of the employees within a call center environment

Champion challenger model

Two or more competing strategies or approaches, known as "champions" and "challengers," are tested against each other to determine which one yields the best results.

Channels

Channels are the means by which your team interacts with and supports your customers. These include: Email, Chat, SMS, Phone, and Social.

Contact center

A centralized facility or department within an organization that manages all inbound and outbound communications with customers, clients, and other stakeholders through various channels such as phone calls, emails, web chats, social media, and SMS

Contact center forecasting

Contact center forecasting is the process of predicting the volume of incoming customer interactions, such as phone calls, emails, chats, and other channels, that a contact center is likely to receive over a specific period of time, typically in the near future.

Contact center scorecard

A contact center scorecard is a performance measurement tool used to assess and evaluate the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of operations within a contact center environment.

Contact center workforce optimization

Contact center workforce optimization is a strategic approach aimed at maximizing the efficiency, productivity, and performance of the workforce within a contact center environment.

Cost per case

The average cost per support contact, which can include both fixed costs (such as office payments and Internet expenses) and variable costs (such as scheduled labor, unscheduled overtime, etc.). Also referred to as “cost per contact.”

CSAT

The score a customer leaves in response to a survey question about their satisfaction after a contact.

Customer experience analytics

The process of analyzing customer interactions and feedback to improve their experience.

Default events

Default Event is an Event type that does not impact your staffing requirements. These are typically used for meetings, lunches, breaks, and project time.

DuPont shift schedule

A rotating work schedule consisting of a series of four-week cycles, including both day and night shifts.

Erlang formulas

A set of industry-standard formulas which allow you to model the relationship between staffing, call volume, and response time. For a given set of inputs, these formulas yield a number of required agents.

Events

Events are discrete blocks of time used to schedule your team. You can create three types of Events: Productive, Default, or Time-off.

Filters

Filters are selective lists based on predetermined criteria. They allow you to change your view within the Staffing Timeline based on Channel, Team, Queue, Site, and Skill.

First contact resolution

The percentage of issues handled completely in the initial contact where a customer does not need additional assistance.

Five by eight schedule

A work schedule consisting of five eight-hour shifts per week.

Full-time equivalent (FTE)

The number of hours needed to handle case volume, expressed in units of full-time work weeks (usually 40-hour increments).

Interval

A period of time which is measured and treated independently for volume forecasting, staffing and analysis.

Intraday management

The process of managing and adjusting staff schedules and workloads throughout the day.

Intraday scheduling

The process of creating and updating staff schedules within the same day.

Multichannel contact center

A contact center that interacts with customers through multiple communication channels.

Net Promotor Score (NPS)

A survey-based metric used to measure customer loyalty and satisfaction on a scale of 0 to 10.

‍Occupancy Rate

The proportion of time that an agent is actively working with a customer contact, either directly engaged with a customer or completing any ancillary work associated with the contact.

Omnichannel contact center

A contact center that provides a seamless customer experience across multiple channels and devices.

Panama shift schedule

A rotating shift schedule that typically consists of 12-hour shifts with a cycle of two days on, two days off, three days on, two days off, two days on, and three days off.

People

People in Assembled indicate your team that can log into the platform. People were previously known as agents and/or users.

Pitman shift schedule

A rotating shift schedule consisting of a mix of 8-hour and 12-hour shifts over a four-week cycle.

Productive events

Productive Events are blocks of time associated with a Channel that impact your staffing requirements.

Quality assurance (QA)

A process of making sure that products or services meet certain standards of excellence.

Quality Management

The structured oversight and enhancement of processes and interactions to ensure that customer service meets or surpasses predefined quality benchmarks.

Queue

Queues are a Filter that can be used to segment a Channel's volume and map specific tickets within your integrated platform. This allows for more granular forecasting. VIP support or Standard Support are common Queues as they may each have different forecasts and SLAs to follow.

Realtime

Realtime Overview is a live-updating dashboard that gives you insight into your current volume, SLAs, what your team is currently doing and whether they are in or out of adherence.

Rotating shift pattern

A rotating shift pattern is a work schedule where employees alternate between different shifts over a specified period, typically including day, evening, and night shifts.

Schedule adherence

The amount of agent time actually spent in accordance with their scheduled tasks as a proportion of their total scheduled time.

Schedule conformance

The amount of agent time actually spent working as a proportion of their total time scheduled to work, regardless of their adherence.

Schedule efficiency

The degree to which your scheduled staff aligns to a given interval's projected requirement. This can be expressed as a percentage of alignment in absolute value.

Service level

Your team’s stated objective for the amount of time until your first response to a customer. Also referred to as service level agreement (SLA).

Shrinkage

The reduction in productivity associated with managing a real-life workforce instead of theoretical FTEs.

Sites

Sites are a filter typically used to reflect physical location, such as APAC, EMEA, New York, or San Francisco.

Skills

Skills are a filter that can be used to reflect a specific type of proficiency that is useful for particular cases or customers. If people on your team have specializations, you can indicate that with Skills.‍

Southern swing shift schedule

A type of work schedule commonly used where employees work rotating shifts that include both day and night shifts.

Speech analytics

The process of analyzing and extracting insights from recorded conversations between customers and support representatives.

Staffable

If a person is Staffable in Assembled, this indicates that they can be scheduled on the staffing timeline.

Staffing timeline

The Staffing Timeline is where you can view your forecasting and staffing requirements and view or create your team's schedule.

Teams

Teams are a filter used to indicate which agents are a part of which team.

Templates

Templates allow you to save a schedule and apply it again for a later time period. You save a Template for your entire Team or for specific people based on the Filters and Channels you've set.

Time-off events

These events are the blocks of time used when someone submits a Time-off request. When doing so, an agent can choose a specific event to associate with the Time-off request.

Utilization rate

The amount of time that an agent is either productive (e.g. occupied) or available to handle incoming contacts as a proportion of their total paid hours.

Volumes

The support contacts expected to be handled by a customer support team. These can be subdivided by the channel through which they're received—e.g. email, chat, phone, SMS.

Volume forecast

A prediction of the incoming support contacts your team will receive over a given interval—whether that’s a day, a week, a month or the next 15 minutes.

Workforce engagement management

The strategic approach of fostering and maximizing employee satisfaction, motivation, and productivity within an organization.

Workforce management

The forecasting, staffing, scheduling and metrics involved in helping your team meet its service goals reliably and efficiently.

The essential WFM glossary