Terminology that is unique to Pay Per Call and the Call Center industry.
Abandonment Rate - The percentage of callers who hang up before connecting to an agent.
Abandoned Call (Abandons) - Calls that are not answered before the caller hangs up.
ACD – Automatic Call Distributor (ACD Status) - A telecommunications system that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of targets or agents.
ACL – Average Call Length - When viewing statistics for a campaign, the average call length is represented by taking the total number of minutes and dividing them by the total number of calls. For instance, if your campaign has 10 calls with 600 minutes of total time on the phone, the ACL would be 600 minutes / 10 calls = 60 minutes.
Agent - Person who answers calls in a call center regardless of their job function.
Agent Productivity - A performance metric for determining the productivity of an agent in a call center using factors like abandoned rate, average handle time, after-call work.
AHT – Average Handle Time - The average amount of time an agent is occupied on an incoming call or the average of all time across numerous agents or an entire call campaign.
Allocate Numbers - Assign numbers or issuing new numbers to a number pool, campaign, offer, or publisher.
Area Code - Three digit code that identifies different areas of the United States, Canada and certain other countries.
Barge-In (Barge) - The ability to listen to a live call without the knowledge of the agent or caller.
Bi-Directional (2-way) SMS - A messaging system for sending and receiving text messages that allows commercial users to reply to text messages. For instance, typically bulk SMS are sent out to users and the user is expected to click a link, call a number, or interact with the information in some way. However, nothing prevents the user from replying to the SMS, and most systems do not allow continuous communication or a 'conversation' to take place.
Blocked Call - Calls that are automatically terminated due to identifying the caller as unwanted or spam.
BPO – Business Process Outsourcing (BPO Company, BPO Center) - A company that provides outsourcing services for specific business activities. Typically these companies operate large scale contact centers.
Busy Signal - A tone used to indicate that the party on the receiving end of a call is currently in another conversion.
Buyer - The party responsible for buying a call. In Ringba Targets can be assigned buyers (owners) with sub-accounts so a buyer can login and see all of their statistics and payouts for all of their targets. Buyers can be assigned to multiple targets because sometimes they may have different partners, queues, or campaigns all in the same brokerage or call center.
Call Attribution - By linking calls to specific source and user data it allows you to optimize your campaigns and attribute revenue to specific traffic and call sources. Without detailed information about who is and is not calling, it is not easy to optimize campaigns by performance.
Call Center - A business that is set up to handle a large volume of telephone calls.
Call Center Efficiency - Call Center Efficiency is the process of optimizing the operations of a call center, including; response time, handle time, abandonment rate, average handle time, agent productivity and caller satisfaction.
Call Duration - Length of the call from the moment the call is connected to our server and the moment the call is terminated. Also referred to as ‘call length’ or the ‘length of a call’.
Call Log - In-depth log of all a call’s details, meta-data, call recording and any other data associated with that call.
Call Tracking - The process of associating advertising sources with generated calls.
Call Queue - This is where calls are held when they cannot be immediately answered by agents. Queues typically run on a first-in, first-out basis, but can also be configured into priority and waterfall scenarios.
Caller ID – Caller Identification (CNAM - Caller Name) - The phone number and name of the caller.
Campaign - Settings assigned to a specific group of actions, publishers, or targets to meet the needs of your clients.
Capacity - The amount of call traffic, or concurrency, a target can handle.
Capacity Management - The management of human resources to match the number of predicted inbound calls throughout the day.
Carrier - A company that is authorized by regulatory agencies to operate a telecommunications system.
CLEC – Competitive Local Exchange Carrier - A telecom provider that is competing with an already established carrier in a market or region.
Click to Call - A type of user interaction for connecting with a business or individual.
Cold Transfer (Raw Call) - A type of transfer where a call is routed immediately to a destination without any initial context.
Concurrency (CC, cc) - The number of simultaneous calls that a contact center, target, or campaign can receive, or is receiving, at any given time. For instance, if a call center has 25 agents, their maximum concurrency is 25.
Connect - When a caller and a receiving party are connected, whether it be with an agent, or a phone system that answers the call.
Connected - The moment when a call is answered by an agent or automated system.
Connection - The link between the different parties on a phone call.
Contact Center (Customer Contact Center, or Call Center) - A business that specializes in communicating with customers through a variety of channels like voice, email, live chat, and more.
Country Code - The 2 digit ISO code assigned to the country a caller wants to reach when making an international phone call. Examples: US, CA, GB, AU, MX. This can also reference the “Country Calling Code” that is the prefix of every country when dialing it from a foreign country.
Deallocate (Deallocate Number) - Remove a number from your Ringba account. Once a number is deallocated, it is released back to the phone carrier and cannot be repurchased or added back to your account.
Dial Tone - A sound indicating a caller may start to dial on a landline phone.
DID – Direct Inward Dial - A virtual phone number used to route inbound calls. All phone numbers issued inside of Ringba are DIDs.
Disposition (Call Disposition) - The outcome or result of a phone call. Example: Sale, not interested, follow-up.
Distributed Call Center - A call center with remote agents who can be located anywhere in the world and work from home or a shared office space.
Downtime (Down) - The period of time that a system has not been working or available. Call centers refer to any time where something is causing their floor to stop taking calls as downtime.
Dropped Call - A phone call that is terminated or disconnected abruptly before the speakers finished their conversion due to some kind of technical difficulty, not the users hanging up the phone.
Duplicate Call - A repeat call made by the same caller within a specific period of time.
EPC – Earnings Per Call (EPCall) - Estimated revenue per call generated for a campaign. Typically calculated by taking the revenue and dividing it by the number of calls it took to generate.
Failed to Connect - When a target’s system is unable to answer or connect a call it is marked as a failure.
FCC – Federal Communications Commission - The US government agency responsible for regulating communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in the United States.
Floor - The office area of a call center where agents take calls.
Floor Plan - The seating plan for agents working in a call center.
Fulfillment (Call Center Fulfillment) - A company that specializes in providing call center and customer support services on behalf of another company.
Geo Routing - The routing of a call based on the caller's actual geographic location.
Granular - Granular refers to the specificity of reporting information that is available inside tracking platforms. Examples being the caller's: Device, operating system, geographic location, carrier, landing page, and more.
Handle Time - The length of time a caller spends talking to an agent.
Headset - A hands-free device used by contact center agents for communicating with callers.
Hold Time - The length of time a caller spends waiting on hold to speak to an agent. Hold time is calculated from the moment the call is connected to the moment when an agent answers the call.
Home Agents - Agents that service calls from their home instead of an office or call center facility.
Hours of Operation - The hours that a contact center can accept calls.
Inbound Call - A call that is originated by an external source, or caller.
Inbound Number - A phone number designated to receive calls.
Integrations - The ability to connect to third-party tools and workflows.
IVR – Interactive Voice Response - A system responsible for interacting with callers by requesting they press numbers on their dial-pad or speak into the phone.
IXC – Interexchange Carrier - A long distance phone company.
Landline - A POTS (“Plain Old Telephone System”) telephone line that is made using copper wire. These phone lines are provided low voltage power from the phone station so that even during a power outage, phone lines still work. These are still in use today due to requirements for critical services like 911.
LCR – Least Cost Routing - The process of selecting the routing of a call traffic based on cost.
LEC – Local Exchange Carrier - A local telephone company.
Leg - A segment of the entire network-to-network path that a call is routed through. For instance when someone references an "outbound leg", they're speaking about the route from their system or platform to the end user. An "inbound leg" refers to the opposite, the route from the caller to their system or platform.
Line Busy - When a phone number has reached the maximum number of concurrent calls the line can handle.
Load Balancing - The process of optimizing how calls are routed based on capacity and/or performance.
Local Number - A type of phone number that is associated with a specific geographic location.
Local Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a local phone number to a different carrier. Types of porting: service provider portability, geographic portability, service portability
Misdials - Connected calls where the caller dialed an incorrect number.
MMS – Multimedia Message System - The technical term for a txt message that includes multimedia files such as pictures, audio or video.
Mobile Number - The phone number of a mobile phone or device that connects to the network wirelessly.
Mobile Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a mobile phone number to a different carrier.
No Connects - Calls that were initiated but dropped or unanswered by their destination targets.
No Target Answered - When a call is not answered by any of a campaign’s targets Ringba throws this error event.
No Target Found - When there are no targets found based on the routing criteria for a call Ringba throws this error event.
North American Numbers - Phone numbers for United States and Canada. It doesn’t matter whether a toll-free number is issued in the US or Canada, it operates the same way.
Number Format - The format used to display a phone number generated by a Ringba JavaScript tag. You can specify the format inside your account and Ringba will automatically format your dynamic numbers visually the way you prefer. For example, (nnn) nnn-nnnn
Number Lock - When a number from a number pool is assigned to a user, Ringba locks it for a specific period of time allowing the user to call.
Number Pool - A group of phone numbers used for caller analytics.
Number Pool Misses - All numbers inside of your number pool are in use by other sessions. When you start to see this warning we suggest increasing the size of your pool.
On-Site - Agents that service calls from an office or call center facility.
Optimizing Call Flow - The process of improving the return on investment of your efforts by changing settings and rules inside of your campaign configuration to better deliver calls to buyers. Also called Call Flow Optimization.
Outbound Call (Outbound) - A call originated by an agent to reach a customer outside of their contact center or location.
Overages - The additional cost that is charged over included usage.
Overflow - Excess call traffic that is greater than a call center's capacity.
Paid Call - A call that meets conversion criteria and pays commission.
Payout - The money paid to your publisher for every conversion that meets a campaign’s criteria.
Pay Per Call (PPCall) - An advertising, billing, and performance marketing model for connecting businesses with inbound customer calls.
Pay Per Call Network - A platform that manages Pay Per Call campaigns on behalf of advertisers and generates calls through the network of publishers.
Pay Per Callers - People involved in the Pay Per Call industry in some way call themselves “Pay Per Callers”. It is also the name of the industry’s only forum you can find at PayPerCallers.com.
PBX – Private Business Exchange - A private phone system that powers a business or a contact center. PBX Systems can be physical located on-premise, or remote in the cloud and provide a wide range of services. Some examples are transferring calls, IVR systems, voicemail and more.
Per Minute Usage - The associated cost for a single minute of voice traffic through a platform or provider.
Per Seat - A billing model used in the call center world that refers to billing a customer "per seat", which implies a concurrency billing model as multiple people may share the same seat. Example: A call center has 100 desks and seats for agents so they must license their CRM software on a per seat basis.
Porting (Number Portability) - The process of switching a phone number from one carrier to another.
POTS – Plain Old Telephone System - A traditional phone line that uses copper wire to deliver voice services to users. When you plug a phone into the wall using a standard phone cord you are connecting to a POTS telephone line.
Predictive Dialer (Dialer) - An outbound calling system that automatically dials from a list of telephone numbers. Also known as; robodialer, autodialer
Priority - A scoring variable used by Ringba to determine which target to send a call.
PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network - The aggregate of the world's interconnected communications networks.
QA – Quality Assurance - The process of determining whether a call or agent’s performance meets specified requirements.
QoS – Quality of Service - A metric for measuring the voice quality on a call.
Raw Call - An inbound call, whether answered or not. This term is typically used to describe a billing method where the buyer is responsible for paying for every call, whether they answer it or not. Example: "$10 per raw call"
Recording (2-Channel Recording, Call Recording) - The act of recording and storing an audio file of a phone call. Two channel recordings record each party on a call inside of a separate audio channel in a single file and you can hear them separately on the right and left speakers.
Redials - When a caller who has previously called connects with an agent using the same phone number.
Repeat Call (Duplicate Call) - A call from someone who has previously called in.
Reporting - Analytics and tools for reviewing call traffic, call logs, caller details and recordings.
RespOrg – Responsible Organization - The company responsible for registering and provisioning individual toll-free numbers.
Ringba JavaScript Tag (Ringba Tracking Tag, Ringba Tag) - A snippet of code used by Ringba to track information about users and to display phone numbers on web pages.
Ringing - The period of time that a call is waiting to be answered.
Ringless Voicemail - A method of leaving pre-recorded audio messages in someone's voicemail without their phone ringing. Also known as a ‘voicemail drop’ or ‘Ringless Voicemail Drop’ (RVD or RVM).
Robocall - An automated call done by a computer that plays back a pre-recorded message to the user.
Routing Plan - A collection of targets for managing calls flows and routing call traffic inside of your call tracking platform.
RPC – Revenue Per Call - The gross revenue generated per inbound call to a call center. This is calculated by taking the gross revenue and dividing it by the number of calls it took to generate the revenue.
Schedule Adherence - A method of measuring how close an agent follows their schedule. Schedule Adherence is expressed by taking the total time a call center agent is available and dividing it by the time they are scheduled to work.
Seat - A position or availability in a call center for an agent to take calls.
Seat Fees - The cost associated with operating a single seat.
Self-Reporting - When a party provides reporting information about calls and conversions without full transparency for all parties involved.
Short Duration Calls - Extremely short phone calls that last for 5 seconds or less.
SIP – Session Initiated Protocol - SIP is a VOIP Protocol used by most cloud based phone service providers. Using SIP allows you to take a VOIP call and connect it directly without passing it through the offline telecom system preserving higher voice quality and reducing connection times. Every time a call is routed from a normal phone line to VOIP it will typically be compressed and lose quality.
SIP Endpoint - A SIP Endpoint is the connection address used to route a call using VOIP, without connecting to the telephone network. Also known as a “SIP Address”.
SIP Header - The header of a packet sent using the SIP protocol. This header can contain information about the call, unlike a traditional call, that allows you to attribute it to specific data similar to a traditional online marketing tracking link.
SIP Trunk - A VoIP technology based on SIP that provides the ability to deliver telephone and communications services online.
SMS – Short Message Service - The technical term for a text message (txt message). These messages have specific length restrictions based on country and carrier.
Speech-to-Text - Assistive technology that uses computers to translate spoken language into text. Also known as “Transcription”.
Sub-Account - Employee or team member account that is controlled by your main account to allow permission based access to different areas of Ringba.
SubID – Sub Identification - An identification variable that tracks specific information about a user. Typically used with keywords, traffic sources or some other kind of data to attribute the user’s actions to a specific source.
Tag Routing - The ability to dynamically route calls using tags or data points inside of Ringba.
Target - The receiving party of a call. Usually this is a sales person, call center, marketplace, or broker.
Target Number - The phone number or SIP address of a target that will be used to route calls to them.
Target Priority - The priority of a target determines what order a call will be routed if there are multiple targets that are open and have available concurrency.
Target Timeout - The amount of time that a target has to answer a call before it is routed to another target.
Target Weight - A sub-setting of the target priority, weight allows you to add a target to a campaign and adjust its relative priority within a group without re-organizing numerous other targets. Weight is calculated after priority.
Targets - A destination or phone number that inbound calls can be routed to.
TCL – Total Call Length - The total call length for a specific campaign is a total of the time spent on the phone for every call over a specific period of time. For instance if you had 10 calls that were each 30 minutes, you would have a total call length of 5 hours. To calculate this we take 30 minutes * 10 calls for 300 minutes, divided by 60 for a conversion to hours, is 5 hours of total call length.
Telco Providers (Carrier) - A company that provides telecommunications ("telecom") products and services.
Termination Point - Call termination refers to connecting a call to an end-user's mobile or landline phone. The termination point refers to the phone number of the end user that the call is being terminated.
Text-to-Speech - Assistive technology that uses computers to read text aloud.
TFN – Toll Free Number (Telephone Number) - Type of phone number where the receiving party pays for the telecom costs. This is mostly irrelevant now in the United States and Canada with the advent of unlimited calling plans, however we find Toll Free Numbers have a much higher conversion rate as they are associated with trust.
Time to Call - The time between when a user is shown a phone number and when they call. This is calculated by subtracting the time when the user was first shown the phone number from the time when they actually called.
Time to Connect - The time between when a call is accepted into Ringba and the moment it is connected with a target.
Toll-Free Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a toll-free phone number to a different carrier.
Transcription - The process of converting speech to text
Trunk - Individual channels or circuits that can be grouped. This is the smallest denominator for a network facility.
Trunking - The process of grouping individual channels or circuits.
Voice - A term used to describe a specific type of traffic over a network. For instance, someone may say: "we have 1,000 minutes per day of voice traffic"
Voicemail - A computer-based system that allows users to exchange voice messages via telephone.
VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol - Phone and voice services that happen over the internet without requiring a user to use traditional ‘copper wire’ phone lines. Many international calls are routed over VOIP to reduce the transport cost of the call. Services like Google Voice and Skype use VOIP to connect to the telephone network and allow their users to make calls.
VOIP Provider - A provider of VOIP services, including; infrastructure, billing and customer care.
Vox - The formal definition is 'vocals' or 'voice'. Vox is traditionally paired with some other form of name to create a brand in the VOIP industry. For instance, Voxbone is one of the largest VOIP companies in Europe.
Warm Transfer - A type of transfer where an agent speaks to the person they transferring their call to prior to handing off the call.
Welcome Message - The recording or text-to-speech message a caller hears when their call is initially answered.
Whisper Message - A message played back to the receiving party of a call before it is connected to give them information about the call or caller.
Wireless Provider - A provider of wireless telecom services, including; infrastructure, billing, customer care, provisioning computer systems and repair.
Workforce Management - The process of maximizing the performance, productivity and competency for an organization, including; staffing, scheduling, training, forecasting and monitoring.
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Abandonment Rate - The percentage of callers who hang up before connecting to an agent.
Abandoned Call (Abandons) - Calls that are not answered before the caller hangs up.
ACD – Automatic Call Distributor (ACD Status) - A telecommunications system that distributes incoming calls to a specific group of targets or agents.
ACL – Average Call Length - When viewing statistics for a campaign, the average call length is represented by taking the total number of minutes and dividing them by the total number of calls. For instance, if your campaign has 10 calls with 600 minutes of total time on the phone, the ACL would be 600 minutes / 10 calls = 60 minutes.
Agent - Person who answers calls in a call center regardless of their job function.
Agent Productivity - A performance metric for determining the productivity of an agent in a call center using factors like abandoned rate, average handle time, after-call work.
AHT – Average Handle Time - The average amount of time an agent is occupied on an incoming call or the average of all time across numerous agents or an entire call campaign.
Allocate Numbers - Assign numbers or issuing new numbers to a number pool, campaign, offer, or publisher.
Area Code - Three digit code that identifies different areas of the United States, Canada and certain other countries.
Barge-In (Barge) - The ability to listen to a live call without the knowledge of the agent or caller.
Bi-Directional (2-way) SMS - A messaging system for sending and receiving text messages that allows commercial users to reply to text messages. For instance, typically bulk SMS are sent out to users and the user is expected to click a link, call a number, or interact with the information in some way. However, nothing prevents the user from replying to the SMS, and most systems do not allow continuous communication or a 'conversation' to take place.
Blocked Call - Calls that are automatically terminated due to identifying the caller as unwanted or spam.
BPO – Business Process Outsourcing (BPO Company, BPO Center) - A company that provides outsourcing services for specific business activities. Typically these companies operate large scale contact centers.
Busy Signal - A tone used to indicate that the party on the receiving end of a call is currently in another conversion.
Buyer - The party responsible for buying a call. In Ringba Targets can be assigned buyers (owners) with sub-accounts so a buyer can login and see all of their statistics and payouts for all of their targets. Buyers can be assigned to multiple targets because sometimes they may have different partners, queues, or campaigns all in the same brokerage or call center.
Call Attribution - By linking calls to specific source and user data it allows you to optimize your campaigns and attribute revenue to specific traffic and call sources. Without detailed information about who is and is not calling, it is not easy to optimize campaigns by performance.
Call Center - A business that is set up to handle a large volume of telephone calls.
Call Center Efficiency - Call Center Efficiency is the process of optimizing the operations of a call center, including; response time, handle time, abandonment rate, average handle time, agent productivity and caller satisfaction.
Call Duration - Length of the call from the moment the call is connected to our server and the moment the call is terminated. Also referred to as ‘call length’ or the ‘length of a call’.
Call Log - In-depth log of all a call’s details, meta-data, call recording and any other data associated with that call.
Call Tracking - The process of associating advertising sources with generated calls.
Call Queue - This is where calls are held when they cannot be immediately answered by agents. Queues typically run on a first-in, first-out basis, but can also be configured into priority and waterfall scenarios.
Caller ID – Caller Identification (CNAM - Caller Name) - The phone number and name of the caller.
Campaign - Settings assigned to a specific group of actions, publishers, or targets to meet the needs of your clients.
Capacity - The amount of call traffic, or concurrency, a target can handle.
Capacity Management - The management of human resources to match the number of predicted inbound calls throughout the day.
Carrier - A company that is authorized by regulatory agencies to operate a telecommunications system.
CLEC – Competitive Local Exchange Carrier - A telecom provider that is competing with an already established carrier in a market or region.
Click to Call - A type of user interaction for connecting with a business or individual.
Cold Transfer (Raw Call) - A type of transfer where a call is routed immediately to a destination without any initial context.
Concurrency (CC, cc) - The number of simultaneous calls that a contact center, target, or campaign can receive, or is receiving, at any given time. For instance, if a call center has 25 agents, their maximum concurrency is 25.
Connect - When a caller and a receiving party are connected, whether it be with an agent, or a phone system that answers the call.
Connected - The moment when a call is answered by an agent or automated system.
Connection - The link between the different parties on a phone call.
Contact Center (Customer Contact Center, or Call Center) - A business that specializes in communicating with customers through a variety of channels like voice, email, live chat, and more.
Country Code - The 2 digit ISO code assigned to the country a caller wants to reach when making an international phone call. Examples: US, CA, GB, AU, MX. This can also reference the “Country Calling Code” that is the prefix of every country when dialing it from a foreign country.
Deallocate (Deallocate Number) - Remove a number from your Ringba account. Once a number is deallocated, it is released back to the phone carrier and cannot be repurchased or added back to your account.
Dial Tone - A sound indicating a caller may start to dial on a landline phone.
DID – Direct Inward Dial - A virtual phone number used to route inbound calls. All phone numbers issued inside of Ringba are DIDs.
Disposition (Call Disposition) - The outcome or result of a phone call. Example: Sale, not interested, follow-up.
Distributed Call Center - A call center with remote agents who can be located anywhere in the world and work from home or a shared office space.
Downtime (Down) - The period of time that a system has not been working or available. Call centers refer to any time where something is causing their floor to stop taking calls as downtime.
Dropped Call - A phone call that is terminated or disconnected abruptly before the speakers finished their conversion due to some kind of technical difficulty, not the users hanging up the phone.
Duplicate Call - A repeat call made by the same caller within a specific period of time.
EPC – Earnings Per Call (EPCall) - Estimated revenue per call generated for a campaign. Typically calculated by taking the revenue and dividing it by the number of calls it took to generate.
Failed to Connect - When a target’s system is unable to answer or connect a call it is marked as a failure.
FCC – Federal Communications Commission - The US government agency responsible for regulating communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable in the United States.
Floor - The office area of a call center where agents take calls.
Floor Plan - The seating plan for agents working in a call center.
Fulfillment (Call Center Fulfillment) - A company that specializes in providing call center and customer support services on behalf of another company.
Geo Routing - The routing of a call based on the caller's actual geographic location.
Granular - Granular refers to the specificity of reporting information that is available inside tracking platforms. Examples being the caller's: Device, operating system, geographic location, carrier, landing page, and more.
Handle Time - The length of time a caller spends talking to an agent.
Headset - A hands-free device used by contact center agents for communicating with callers.
Hold Time - The length of time a caller spends waiting on hold to speak to an agent. Hold time is calculated from the moment the call is connected to the moment when an agent answers the call.
Home Agents - Agents that service calls from their home instead of an office or call center facility.
Hours of Operation - The hours that a contact center can accept calls.
Inbound Call - A call that is originated by an external source, or caller.
Inbound Number - A phone number designated to receive calls.
Integrations - The ability to connect to third-party tools and workflows.
IVR – Interactive Voice Response - A system responsible for interacting with callers by requesting they press numbers on their dial-pad or speak into the phone.
IXC – Interexchange Carrier - A long distance phone company.
Landline - A POTS (“Plain Old Telephone System”) telephone line that is made using copper wire. These phone lines are provided low voltage power from the phone station so that even during a power outage, phone lines still work. These are still in use today due to requirements for critical services like 911.
LCR – Least Cost Routing - The process of selecting the routing of a call traffic based on cost.
LEC – Local Exchange Carrier - A local telephone company.
Leg - A segment of the entire network-to-network path that a call is routed through. For instance when someone references an "outbound leg", they're speaking about the route from their system or platform to the end user. An "inbound leg" refers to the opposite, the route from the caller to their system or platform.
Line Busy - When a phone number has reached the maximum number of concurrent calls the line can handle.
Load Balancing - The process of optimizing how calls are routed based on capacity and/or performance.
Local Number - A type of phone number that is associated with a specific geographic location.
Local Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a local phone number to a different carrier. Types of porting: service provider portability, geographic portability, service portability
Misdials - Connected calls where the caller dialed an incorrect number.
MMS – Multimedia Message System - The technical term for a txt message that includes multimedia files such as pictures, audio or video.
Mobile Number - The phone number of a mobile phone or device that connects to the network wirelessly.
Mobile Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a mobile phone number to a different carrier.
No Connects - Calls that were initiated but dropped or unanswered by their destination targets.
No Target Answered - When a call is not answered by any of a campaign’s targets Ringba throws this error event.
No Target Found - When there are no targets found based on the routing criteria for a call Ringba throws this error event.
North American Numbers - Phone numbers for United States and Canada. It doesn’t matter whether a toll-free number is issued in the US or Canada, it operates the same way.
Number Format - The format used to display a phone number generated by a Ringba JavaScript tag. You can specify the format inside your account and Ringba will automatically format your dynamic numbers visually the way you prefer. For example, (nnn) nnn-nnnn
Number Lock - When a number from a number pool is assigned to a user, Ringba locks it for a specific period of time allowing the user to call.
Number Pool - A group of phone numbers used for caller analytics.
Number Pool Misses - All numbers inside of your number pool are in use by other sessions. When you start to see this warning we suggest increasing the size of your pool.
On-Site - Agents that service calls from an office or call center facility.
Optimizing Call Flow - The process of improving the return on investment of your efforts by changing settings and rules inside of your campaign configuration to better deliver calls to buyers. Also called Call Flow Optimization.
Outbound Call (Outbound) - A call originated by an agent to reach a customer outside of their contact center or location.
Overages - The additional cost that is charged over included usage.
Overflow - Excess call traffic that is greater than a call center's capacity.
Paid Call - A call that meets conversion criteria and pays commission.
Payout - The money paid to your publisher for every conversion that meets a campaign’s criteria.
Pay Per Call (PPCall) - An advertising, billing, and performance marketing model for connecting businesses with inbound customer calls.
Pay Per Call Network - A platform that manages Pay Per Call campaigns on behalf of advertisers and generates calls through the network of publishers.
Pay Per Callers - People involved in the Pay Per Call industry in some way call themselves “Pay Per Callers”. It is also the name of the industry’s only forum you can find at PayPerCallers.com.
PBX – Private Business Exchange - A private phone system that powers a business or a contact center. PBX Systems can be physical located on-premise, or remote in the cloud and provide a wide range of services. Some examples are transferring calls, IVR systems, voicemail and more.
Per Minute Usage - The associated cost for a single minute of voice traffic through a platform or provider.
Per Seat - A billing model used in the call center world that refers to billing a customer "per seat", which implies a concurrency billing model as multiple people may share the same seat. Example: A call center has 100 desks and seats for agents so they must license their CRM software on a per seat basis.
Porting (Number Portability) - The process of switching a phone number from one carrier to another.
POTS – Plain Old Telephone System - A traditional phone line that uses copper wire to deliver voice services to users. When you plug a phone into the wall using a standard phone cord you are connecting to a POTS telephone line.
Predictive Dialer (Dialer) - An outbound calling system that automatically dials from a list of telephone numbers. Also known as; robodialer, autodialer
Priority - A scoring variable used by Ringba to determine which target to send a call.
PSTN - Public Switched Telephone Network - The aggregate of the world's interconnected communications networks.
QA – Quality Assurance - The process of determining whether a call or agent’s performance meets specified requirements.
QoS – Quality of Service - A metric for measuring the voice quality on a call.
Raw Call - An inbound call, whether answered or not. This term is typically used to describe a billing method where the buyer is responsible for paying for every call, whether they answer it or not. Example: "$10 per raw call"
Recording (2-Channel Recording, Call Recording) - The act of recording and storing an audio file of a phone call. Two channel recordings record each party on a call inside of a separate audio channel in a single file and you can hear them separately on the right and left speakers.
Redials - When a caller who has previously called connects with an agent using the same phone number.
Repeat Call (Duplicate Call) - A call from someone who has previously called in.
Reporting - Analytics and tools for reviewing call traffic, call logs, caller details and recordings.
RespOrg – Responsible Organization - The company responsible for registering and provisioning individual toll-free numbers.
Ringba JavaScript Tag (Ringba Tracking Tag, Ringba Tag) - A snippet of code used by Ringba to track information about users and to display phone numbers on web pages.
Ringing - The period of time that a call is waiting to be answered.
Ringless Voicemail - A method of leaving pre-recorded audio messages in someone's voicemail without their phone ringing. Also known as a ‘voicemail drop’ or ‘Ringless Voicemail Drop’ (RVD or RVM).
Robocall - An automated call done by a computer that plays back a pre-recorded message to the user.
Routing Plan - A collection of targets for managing calls flows and routing call traffic inside of your call tracking platform.
RPC – Revenue Per Call - The gross revenue generated per inbound call to a call center. This is calculated by taking the gross revenue and dividing it by the number of calls it took to generate the revenue.
Schedule Adherence - A method of measuring how close an agent follows their schedule. Schedule Adherence is expressed by taking the total time a call center agent is available and dividing it by the time they are scheduled to work.
Seat - A position or availability in a call center for an agent to take calls.
Seat Fees - The cost associated with operating a single seat.
Self-Reporting - When a party provides reporting information about calls and conversions without full transparency for all parties involved.
Short Duration Calls - Extremely short phone calls that last for 5 seconds or less.
SIP – Session Initiated Protocol - SIP is a VOIP Protocol used by most cloud based phone service providers. Using SIP allows you to take a VOIP call and connect it directly without passing it through the offline telecom system preserving higher voice quality and reducing connection times. Every time a call is routed from a normal phone line to VOIP it will typically be compressed and lose quality.
SIP Endpoint - A SIP Endpoint is the connection address used to route a call using VOIP, without connecting to the telephone network. Also known as a “SIP Address”.
SIP Header - The header of a packet sent using the SIP protocol. This header can contain information about the call, unlike a traditional call, that allows you to attribute it to specific data similar to a traditional online marketing tracking link.
SIP Trunk - A VoIP technology based on SIP that provides the ability to deliver telephone and communications services online.
SMS – Short Message Service - The technical term for a text message (txt message). These messages have specific length restrictions based on country and carrier.
Speech-to-Text - Assistive technology that uses computers to translate spoken language into text. Also known as “Transcription”.
Sub-Account - Employee or team member account that is controlled by your main account to allow permission based access to different areas of Ringba.
SubID – Sub Identification - An identification variable that tracks specific information about a user. Typically used with keywords, traffic sources or some other kind of data to attribute the user’s actions to a specific source.
Tag Routing - The ability to dynamically route calls using tags or data points inside of Ringba.
Target - The receiving party of a call. Usually this is a sales person, call center, marketplace, or broker.
Target Number - The phone number or SIP address of a target that will be used to route calls to them.
Target Priority - The priority of a target determines what order a call will be routed if there are multiple targets that are open and have available concurrency.
Target Timeout - The amount of time that a target has to answer a call before it is routed to another target.
Target Weight - A sub-setting of the target priority, weight allows you to add a target to a campaign and adjust its relative priority within a group without re-organizing numerous other targets. Weight is calculated after priority.
Targets - A destination or phone number that inbound calls can be routed to.
TCL – Total Call Length - The total call length for a specific campaign is a total of the time spent on the phone for every call over a specific period of time. For instance if you had 10 calls that were each 30 minutes, you would have a total call length of 5 hours. To calculate this we take 30 minutes * 10 calls for 300 minutes, divided by 60 for a conversion to hours, is 5 hours of total call length.
Telco Providers (Carrier) - A company that provides telecommunications ("telecom") products and services.
Termination Point - Call termination refers to connecting a call to an end-user's mobile or landline phone. The termination point refers to the phone number of the end user that the call is being terminated.
Text-to-Speech - Assistive technology that uses computers to read text aloud.
TFN – Toll Free Number (Telephone Number) - Type of phone number where the receiving party pays for the telecom costs. This is mostly irrelevant now in the United States and Canada with the advent of unlimited calling plans, however we find Toll Free Numbers have a much higher conversion rate as they are associated with trust.
Time to Call - The time between when a user is shown a phone number and when they call. This is calculated by subtracting the time when the user was first shown the phone number from the time when they actually called.
Time to Connect - The time between when a call is accepted into Ringba and the moment it is connected with a target.
Toll-Free Number Portability - The ability to re-assign a toll-free phone number to a different carrier.
Transcription - The process of converting speech to text
Trunk - Individual channels or circuits that can be grouped. This is the smallest denominator for a network facility.
Trunking - The process of grouping individual channels or circuits.
Voice - A term used to describe a specific type of traffic over a network. For instance, someone may say: "we have 1,000 minutes per day of voice traffic"
Voicemail - A computer-based system that allows users to exchange voice messages via telephone.
VOIP – Voice Over Internet Protocol - Phone and voice services that happen over the internet without requiring a user to use traditional ‘copper wire’ phone lines. Many international calls are routed over VOIP to reduce the transport cost of the call. Services like Google Voice and Skype use VOIP to connect to the telephone network and allow their users to make calls.
VOIP Provider - A provider of VOIP services, including; infrastructure, billing and customer care.
Vox - The formal definition is 'vocals' or 'voice'. Vox is traditionally paired with some other form of name to create a brand in the VOIP industry. For instance, Voxbone is one of the largest VOIP companies in Europe.
Warm Transfer - A type of transfer where an agent speaks to the person they transferring their call to prior to handing off the call.
Welcome Message - The recording or text-to-speech message a caller hears when their call is initially answered.
Whisper Message - A message played back to the receiving party of a call before it is connected to give them information about the call or caller.
Wireless Provider - A provider of wireless telecom services, including; infrastructure, billing, customer care, provisioning computer systems and repair.
Workforce Management - The process of maximizing the performance, productivity and competency for an organization, including; staffing, scheduling, training, forecasting and monitoring.
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