From ACD to eIDAS.

A

• Adherence

  Adherence measures how closely agents' actual activity follows the schedule, interval by interval and state by state.

• Agentic AI

  Agentic AI describes AI systems that break a given goal into steps on their own, use approved tools and systems to reach it, and adapt their approach based on interim results.

• AI agent

  An AI agent is software that understands a request in natural language, performs approved actions in connected systems and hands over to a person with full context.

• AI assistance

  AI assistance (agent assist) supports agents in real time during a customer contact with suggested replies, relevant knowledge, next steps and automatic summaries.

• Automatic call distributionACD

  Automatic call distribution (ACD) sends every incoming contact to the right queue and the right skill, by rules or AI.

• Average handling timeAHT

  Average handling time (AHT) is the mean duration of a contact, made up of talk time, hold time and after-contact work.

C

• Cloud Computing Compliance Criteria CatalogueC5

  BSI C5 is the criteria catalogue of the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) for secure cloud services; independent auditors confirm compliance in an attestation.

• Co-browsing

  Co-browsing is a shared session on a web page in which an agent sees the customer's view and guides her through forms, while sensitive input stays masked.

• Consent under section 7 UWG

  Under section 7 of the German Act against Unfair Competition (UWG), consent is the precondition for calling consumers for marketing purposes or sending them marketing emails and messages.

• Customer journey

  The customer journey is the path a person takes across every touchpoint with an organisation, from first interest through purchase and use to service requests and cancellation.

D

• Data processing agreementDPA

  A data processing agreement (DPA) sets out under Art. 28 GDPR how a service provider processes personal data on behalf of, and on the instructions of, the controller.

• Data protection impact assessmentDPIA

  A data protection impact assessment (DPIA) is the risk analysis required by Art. 35 GDPR for processing that is likely to result in a high risk to people's rights and freedoms.

• Data residency

  Data residency describes the geographic location where data and media are stored and processed, for example only in data centres inside the EU.

• Dialler

  A dialler calls numbers from a campaign list automatically. A predictive dialler calls more numbers than there are free agents, based on the expected answer rate.

• Digital Operational Resilience ActDORA

  DORA, Regulation (EU) 2022/2554, governs digital operational resilience in the financial sector: ICT risk management, incident reporting, resilience testing and the management of ICT third-party providers.

E

• eIDAS regulation

  eIDAS is Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 on electronic identification and trust services. Among other things, it governs electronic signatures, seals and the cross-border recognition of national eID schemes.

• EU AI Act

  The EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, governs the development and use of AI systems in the EU by risk class, with duties on transparency, human oversight and documentation.

F

• First contact resolutionFCR

  First contact resolution (FCR) is the share of requests resolved completely in the first contact, without the customer having to get in touch again.

• Forecasting

  Forecasting predicts how many contacts to expect per channel, skill and interval and how long they will take to handle. It is the starting point of every schedule.

G

• Gamification

  Gamification applies game elements such as goals, progress, badges and contests to real KPIs at work, to encourage motivation and learning.

• Generative AI

  Generative AI describes models that produce new content from an input, in customer service mostly text such as summaries, draft replies and translations.

• German Accessibility ActBFSG

  The German Accessibility Act (BFSG) implements the European Accessibility Act and, since 28 June 2025, has required many products and services to be accessible; the technical yardstick is EN 301 549 with WCAG 2.1 AA.

• GroundingRAG

  Grounding ties a language model's answers to verified sources; in retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), relevant content is retrieved first and given to the model as the basis of its answer.

H

• Hallucination

  A hallucination is an output of an AI model that reads as plausible but is factually wrong, unsupported or entirely invented.

I

• Identity resolution

  Identity resolution recognises that records from different sources belong to the same person and merges them into one profile with a shared history.

• Intent recognition

  Intent recognition is the automatic identification of the request (intent) behind a spoken or written utterance, usually together with the details it needs, such as numbers, dates or amounts.

• Interactive voice responseIVR

  Interactive voice response (IVR) guides callers by keypad or spoken language, resolves simple requests itself and hands the rest over to routing in good order.

K

• Knowledge management

  Knowledge management in customer service is the creation, review, provision and upkeep of a shared knowledge base from which agents, AI agents and self-service offerings draw their answers.

N

• Next best actionNBA

  The next best action is the response that best fits a person at a given moment of their journey, derived from context, rules and models and triggered through a suitable channel.

• NIS2 directiveNIS2

  NIS2 is Directive (EU) 2022/2555 on a high common level of cybersecurity. It obliges essential and important entities to manage risk, report incidents and secure their supply chain.

O

• Omnichannel

  Omnichannel means that every contact channel shares one queue, one contact history and one desktop, so a request survives a change of channel.

• Online ID cardeID

  The online ID is the eID function of the German identity card. With the card, a smartphone and a six-digit PIN, people identify themselves securely online to public bodies and businesses.

P

• Predictive routing

  Predictive routing uses a model to assign contacts to the agents with whom a chosen KPI, such as first contact resolution, is likely to be achieved best.

Q

• Quality managementQM

  Quality management (QM) in customer service evaluates conversations and cases against defined evaluation forms, calibrates the evaluators and turns the results into coaching and learning.

S

• Sentiment analysis

  Sentiment analysis is a method that automatically estimates the tone of a conversation or message, for example as positive, neutral or tense.

• Service level

  Service level is the share of contacts answered within a defined target time, for example 80 per cent of calls within 20 seconds.

• Speech analytics

  Speech analytics converts conversations into text and analyses them automatically for topics, requests, sentiment and adherence to required wording.

V

• Voicebot

  A voicebot is an AI agent in the voice channel that understands spoken requests, answers in natural language, completes tasks in connected systems and hands over to a person with context when needed.

W

• Web messaging

  Web messaging is asynchronous chat on websites and in apps whose history persists, so customers and agents can pause a conversation and resume it at any time.

• Workforce managementWFM

  Workforce management (WFM) plans and steers staffing in customer service as a cycle of forecasting, scheduling, intraday adherence and agent development.