L

Law of Diminishing Returns. The declining marginal improvements in service level that can be attributed to each additional agent, as successive agents are added.

Load Balancing. Balancing traffic between two or more destinations.

Loading Factor. Also known as "shrinkage." These are unavoidable exceptions or planned use of time in addition to the hours spent handling calls. In the long term planning, forecasting, and budgeting process, we may have to take into account all of the following (& possibly more, depending on the call center):

• Meetings
• Coaching
• Paid Breaks
• Schedule Adherence
• Sickness
• Training
• Vacation

These hours are added to the base requirement to arrive at a loaded or total requirement.

Loaded Staff Required

The number of agents required to handle the workload once all loading factors are taken into account.

Local Area Network (LAN). A group of computers connected via a networking protocol (such as Ethernet, Novell, etc.), that can communicate and share resources with each other.

Local Exchange Carrier (LEC). Telephone companies responsible for providing local connections and services.

Log In IDs. When an agent wants to receive ACD calls at their telephone, they first must log into the telephone system. Depending on how the telephone system is programmed, there are two different methods an agent can use to log in. The first method uses a Log In ID. When the agent wants to take ACD calls, they enter a (usually four-digit) number. The Northern telephone system then tracks their telephone activity according to that log in number. The other method uses a Position ID. When the agent wants to take ACD calls, they hit their ACD button twice. The Northern telephone system then tracks their telephone activity according to the position ID of the telephone that they used to log in. The major difference between the two different methods is that Log In IDs track the telephone activity of a number (which may appear at different telephone locations) and Position IDs track the telephone activity of a particular telephone (regardless of whose using it). If your agents always sit at the same telephones, then the Position ID method will track the telephone activity of the agents (because the activity of the telephone is always the same as the activity of the agent). If your agents sometime sit at different telephones, then, in order to track the telephone activity of the agents correctly, the Northern telephone system needs to be configured to use Log In IDs.

Logged On. A state in which agents have signed on to a system (made their presence known), but may or may not be ready to receive calls.

Long Call. For staffing calculations and traffic engineering purposes, calls that approach or exceed thirty minutes.

Longest Available Agent. A method of distributing calls to the agent who has been sitting idle the longest. With a queue, Longest Available Agent becomes Next Available Agent.

Longest Delay (Oldest Call). The longest time a caller has waited in queue, before abandoning or reaching an agent.

Longest Wait before Answer. The longest time a call had to wait before being answered by an agent in the ACD queue. This excludes Time Overflow calls answered by a target agent, but includes Recall to Source calls answered by a source agent

Look Ahead Queuing. The ability for a system or network to examine a secondary queue and evaluate the
conditions, before overflowing calls from the primary queue.

Look Back Queuing. The ability for a system or network to look back to the primary queue after the call has been overflowed to a secondary queue, and evaluate the conditions. If the congestion clears, the call can be sent back to the initial queue.

Lost Call. See Abandoned Call.