The AI front desk glossary.

The ways a business gets its phone answered, from a human receptionist to an AI one.

• After-hours answering serviceAn after-hours answering service answers a business’s calls outside its opening hours, such as evenings, weekends, and holidays.
• AI answering serviceAn AI answering service answers a business’s phone calls with voice AI instead of call center staff.
• AI receptionistAn AI receptionist is software that answers a business’s phone calls with a natural, conversational voice.
• Answering serviceAn answering service is a company or system that answers a business’s phone calls when the business cannot, most often after hours or during busy periods.
• Virtual receptionistA virtual receptionist is a receptionist who answers your business calls remotely instead of sitting at your front desk.
• Voice AI agentA voice AI agent is software that holds a spoken conversation and takes actions on someone’s behalf.

Numbers, forwarding, routing, and what happens to a call before anyone says hello.

• Auto attendantAn auto attendant is a phone system feature that answers calls with a recorded greeting and a menu, such as “press 1 for sales, press 2 for support,” then routes the caller to an extension, department, or voicemail based on the key pressed.
• Call forwardingCall forwarding is a phone feature that sends incoming calls from one number to another.
• Call routingCall routing is the set of rules that decides where an incoming call goes and who answers it.
• Call screeningCall screening is the practice of finding out who is calling and why before deciding how to handle the call.
• Conditional call forwardingConditional call forwarding redirects a call only when a condition is met: nobody answers within a set number of rings, the line is busy, or the phone is off or out of coverage.
• Full-duplex voiceFull-duplex voice means both sides of a conversation can speak and listen at the same time, as on a normal phone call.
• IVR (interactive voice response)IVR, or interactive voice response, is an automated phone system that interacts with callers through recorded prompts, keypad tones, and limited speech recognition.
• Live call transferA live call transfer moves an active call from whoever answered it, a receptionist, an agent, or an AI, to another person while the caller stays on the line.
• Local phone numberA local phone number is a standard number with an area code tied to a city or region, also called a geographic number.
• Missed callA missed call is an incoming call that ends before anyone answers, because nobody picked up, the line was busy, or the caller hung up while ringing or on hold.
• Number portingNumber porting is moving a phone number from one service provider to another so the business or person keeps the same number.
• Overflow callsOverflow calls are incoming calls that arrive when everyone who normally answers is busy or unavailable, so they would otherwise ring out, hit voicemail, or wait on hold.
• Toll-free numberA toll-free number is a phone number that callers can dial without being charged for the call, because the business that owns it pays instead.
• VoIP (voice over internet protocol)VoIP, or voice over internet protocol, is technology that carries phone calls over an internet connection instead of a traditional analog phone line.

How an AI assistant understands a request and where its answers come from.

• AI hallucinationAn AI hallucination is a response from an AI system that sounds confident but is false, made up, or unsupported by its sources, such as an invented price, policy, or appointment time.
• Chatbot personaA chatbot persona is the consistent identity an AI assistant presents to customers: its name, tone of voice, level of formality, typical answer length, and, on the phone, its spoken voice and greeting.
• Conversational AIConversational AI is technology that lets software hold a natural conversation with people by text or voice.
• Fallback intentA fallback intent is the response a chatbot or voice assistant uses when it can’t match a message to anything it knows how to handle, or doesn’t have the answer.
• Intent recognitionIntent recognition is the step where an AI system identifies what a person is trying to do, such as book an appointment, ask a price, cancel, complain, or report an emergency.
• Knowledge baseA knowledge base is an organized collection of information that people or software use to answer questions.
• Natural language understanding (NLU)Natural language understanding, or NLU, is the part of AI that works out what a person means from the words they use.
• Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)Retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, is a technique where an AI system first searches a set of documents for passages relevant to a question, then writes its answer using those passages.
• Slot fillingSlot filling is how a conversational assistant gathers the specific details a task requires, called slots, such as a name, phone number, address, service type, or preferred date.

The chat on your site and the shape of a conversation from greeting to resolution.

• Chat sessionA chat session is a single conversation between a website visitor and a chatbot or support agent, from the first message until it is resolved or goes inactive.
• Clarification questionA clarification question is a question an assistant asks when a customer’s request is ambiguous or a detail is unclear, instead of guessing.
• Conversation flowA conversation flow is the planned path a chatbot or voice assistant follows from the first greeting to an outcome, such as an answer, a booking, or a handoff.
• Conversation stateConversation state is everything a system knows about a conversation at a given moment: what the customer wants, which details have been collected, what has already happened, and where the conversation stands, such as handled by AI, waiting on the customer, needing a person, or resolved.
• Follow-up questionA follow-up question is a question that depends on what was just said in a conversation, such as “how long does that take?” or “what about weekends?” after an answer.
• Iframe embeddingIframe embedding is placing one web page inside another using an HTML inline frame, so content hosted elsewhere, such as a chat window, map, or booking calendar, appears as part of your page.
• Website chatbotA website chatbot is a chat window on a business’s website where an automated assistant answers visitors’ questions in real time.
• White-label chatbotA white-label chatbot is AI chat software that one company builds and another company rebrands and delivers to its own clients.

How your team shares customer conversations and steps in when a person is needed.

• EscalationEscalation is moving a customer issue to someone with more authority, expertise, or urgency than the first point of contact, such as from a chatbot to staff, or from staff to the owner.
• Human handoffHuman handoff is the point where an AI assistant passes a customer conversation to a person, along with everything said so far.
• Omnichannel communicationOmnichannel communication means a business serves customers across phone, website chat, SMS, email, and messaging apps as one connected experience.
• Shared inboxA shared inbox is one workspace where a team sees and answers customer conversations together instead of in separate personal inboxes.

The numbers that show whether customers get answered quickly and completely.

• Average response timeAverage response time is the average time a customer waits for each reply from a business across a conversation, not just the first one.
• Call abandonment rateCall abandonment rate is the percentage of incoming calls where the caller hangs up before reaching anyone, while ringing, during a phone menu, or on hold.
• First call resolutionFirst call resolution, or FCR, is the percentage of customer calls or contacts fully resolved during the first interaction, without a callback, transfer, or repeat contact.
• First response timeFirst response time, or FRT, is how long a customer waits between contacting a business and receiving the first real reply, whether by chat, email, text, or a returned call.
• No-show rateA no-show rate is the percentage of booked appointments where the customer neither arrives nor cancels in advance.
• Speed to leadSpeed to lead is the time between a new prospect reaching out, by calling, chatting, filling in a form, or texting, and the business’s first meaningful response.

Turning a first inquiry into a contact, a qualified lead, and a kept appointment.

• Appointment remindersAppointment reminders are messages a business sends before a scheduled appointment, usually by text or email, to remind the customer of the date, time, and location and make it easy to confirm or reschedule.
• Appointment scheduling softwareAppointment scheduling software is a tool that lets customers book, reschedule, or cancel time with a business based on its real availability.
• Lead captureLead capture is recording a potential customer’s contact details and request when they first reach out, so the business can follow up and win the job.
• Lead qualificationLead qualification is deciding whether a new inquiry is a good fit and how urgently to follow up, based on what the prospect needs, where they are, their timeline, and their readiness to buy.

The rules behind business texting, automated calls, and health information.

• A2P 10DLCA2P 10DLC is the US framework for business text messaging sent from standard 10-digit phone numbers.
• Business associate agreement (BAA)A business associate agreement, or BAA, is a contract required by HIPAA between a healthcare provider or health plan and a vendor that creates, receives, stores, or transmits protected health information on its behalf.
• TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act)The Telephone Consumer Protection Act, or TCPA, is a 1991 US federal law that restricts telemarketing calls, autodialed calls and texts, and calls using prerecorded or artificial voices.