Common Answering Service Terms

If you are shopping around for telephone answering services, you will see a Google, Yahoo, or Bing search of the term yields many results. Before you begin the nuts and bolts research into each company looking for the right provider for your needs, there are a few "insider" terms you will need to become familiar with to make sense of the price quotes and the presentations from each provider.

Services: The terms services refers to the capabilities of the call center and range based on the call centers size, staff, and technology. At their most basic, services include call answering, text dispatch, and live receptionist services.
CSR: The term CSR is an acronym for "Customer Service Representative" and can be used interchangeably with "Call Center Representative". These are the staff members that will be answering your phones with your lines are forwarded to the service. Their jobs are specifically to follow your protocols.
Seats: This is the number of available CSR's that the call center is capable of housing. A "seat" is literally an available seat with a computer terminal that the customer service representative sits in to manage your calls.
DID: DID is an acronym for "Direct Inward Dialing" number. This is the number that is designated as your direct line within the call center. If you are forwarding direct to the center, you would forward to the DID number. If you are forwarding to a toll free phone number, the service would assign their own DID number to a toll free number. In the near future of call center equipment, the DID may be phased out for new equipment that can route calls based on inbound caller identification technology, not designated trunks.
Trunks: A trunk is the number of calls the answering service at one time before they are routed to the operators for a live answer or to be placed on a hold queue. If a service only has one inbound trunk, they could not handle many calls at once. If you are dealing with a service that has multiple inbound trunks, they can usually manage higher volume accounts such as those that advertise through direct to television advertising.
IVR: IVR or "Interactive Voice Response" is a type of front end automation where a back end computer can recognize spoken commands to route calls. IVR is also equipped with technology to "type" in the routing destination by inputting numbers.
Auto Attendant: An auto attendant is a basic front end automation on your line. It can play a recorded message and give the callers opportunity to go to voicemail or to be routed to an operator. With voicemail, the answering service can provide multiple mailboxes.
Busy Out: This is when the CSR's station rings busy not allowing any further phone calls in. This is the case if their station is tied up responding to a phone call. If you are choosing a service, always ask what the busy out percentage is which will give you a gauge as to how many reps will be answering your account.
While these terms will help you navigate the answering service world, you should still spend some time researching any unfamiliar terms that come up in your search.