Glossary
The vocabulary of voice AI
32 terms, written to be read by someone who has just been handed a voice AI project and has a demo on Thursday.
This glossary defines the terms used when buying or building AI phone agents: how calls are recognised and spoken, how outbound campaigns are run and measured, and which rules apply to them. Each entry is a plain definition first, with the detail that matters in practice underneath.
A
- Abandon rateThe abandon rate is the share of answered calls where no agent was available to speak, so the call was dropped. US regulations cap it, typically at three per cent of answered calls.
- ACA subsidyAn ACA subsidy is a premium tax credit that reduces the cost of a health plan bought on the US marketplace. Eligibility depends on household size and income relative to the federal poverty level.
- AEPThe Annual Enrolment Period is the window each autumn when US Medicare beneficiaries can change plans. For Medicare campaigns it concentrates most of the year's volume into a few weeks.
- AMD (answering-machine detection)Answering-machine detection identifies whether a call was answered by a person or by voicemail, so the system can end the call rather than connect an agent to a recording.
C
- Caller-ID reputationCaller-ID reputation is how carriers and call-blocking apps score a phone number. A poor score means calls are labelled as spam or blocked before they ring.
- Calling windowA calling window is the range of local hours during which a telemarketing call may lawfully be placed. In the United States this is generally 8am to 9pm in the called party's own time zone.
- ChargebackA chargeback is the reversal of a commission when a policy lapses, is cancelled, or fails a carrier audit. Poor verification is one of the most common causes.
- CloserA closer is the licensed agent who takes a qualified transfer and completes the sale or enrolment. On insurance campaigns the closer must hold the relevant licence; the fronter does not.
- CMS marketing rulesCMS marketing rules govern how Medicare Advantage and Part D plans may be marketed in the United States, including required disclosures, recording obligations and what an unlicensed agent may say.
- ConcurrencyConcurrency is the number of calls a system can hold at the same moment. One concurrent line is equivalent in dialing capacity to one agent seat.
- Connect rateThe connect rate is the share of dialed numbers answered by a person. It is driven by list quality, calling time and caller-ID reputation.
- ConsentConsent is the permission a consumer has given to be contacted, and for what. Prior express written consent is the standard most US telemarketing campaigns are required to meet.
- Contact rateThe contact rate is the share of records on a list that were reached by a person at least once across all attempts, as opposed to the per-dial connect rate.
- ConvosoConvoso is a commercial cloud contact-center platform combining predictive dialing, omnichannel contact, compliance tooling and reporting.
D
- Dial ratioThe dial ratio is how many numbers a predictive dialer calls per available agent. A higher ratio raises agent utilisation and also raises the abandon rate.
- DIDA direct inward dialing number is an individual telephone number routed to a specific destination. Outbound campaigns use pools of DIDs as caller IDs.
- DispositionA disposition is the outcome code written against a call, transferred, not interested, answering machine, do not call, disqualified. Dispositions are what every downstream report is built from.
- DNC (do not call)A do-not-call list records numbers that must not be dialed. It includes national and state registries, plus the internal suppression list of people who have asked a specific business to stop calling.
M
- Medicare Part A and Part BPart A covers hospital insurance and Part B covers medical insurance under US Medicare. Enrolment in both is the standard qualifying condition for most Medicare Advantage campaigns.
- MVA leadA motor vehicle accident lead is a consumer who has been in a road traffic collision and may have a personal injury claim. Intake criteria vary widely between law firms.
S
- SIP trunkA SIP trunk is the connection that carries voice calls between a call center's systems and the public telephone network over the internet.
- STIR/SHAKENSTIR/SHAKEN is the US framework that lets carriers cryptographically attest that a caller ID has not been spoofed. Calls with weak or no attestation are more likely to be labelled as spam.
T
- TCPAThe Telephone Consumer Protection Act is the US federal law governing telemarketing calls, covering consent, calling hours, do-not-call obligations and the use of automated dialing systems.
- TransferA transfer hands a qualified caller who is still on the line to a live agent, with the caller introduced first so the agent knows who is calling and why.
V
- VerifierA verifier confirms a sale or enrolment after the closer has taken it, reading each required statement back to the customer on a recorded line and capturing an explicit answer to every one.
- ViciDialViciDial is an open-source contact-center and predictive dialer platform, widely used by outbound call centers because it is free to licence and can be self-hosted.