R

RAN. see Recorded Announcement

Random Call Arrival. The normal, random variation in how incoming calls arrive. See Peaked Call Arrival.

Raw Data. The unprocessed data output from the telephone system. This data is passed to the Call Accounting Buffer box on an hourly, half-hourly or hourly on the half-hour basis. The periodic raw data reports are a summation of the telephone activity of your call center, and are processed into your historical database by the ACD Parser application.

Readerboards. Also called displayboards or wall displays. A visual display, usually mounted on the wall or ceiling, that provides real-time and historical information on queue conditions, agent status and call center performance.

Real-Time Adherence Software. Software that tracks how closely agents conform to their schedules. See Adherence to Schedule.

Real-Time Data. Information on current conditions. Some "real-time" information is real-time in the strictest sense (e.g., calls in queue and current longest wait). Some real-time reports require some history (e.g. the last x calls or x minutes) in order to make a calculation (e.g. service level and average speed of answer). See Screen Refresh.

Real-Time Management. Making adjustments to staffing and thresholds in the systems and network, in response to current queue conditions.

Recalled to Source. If a call Time Overflows while in the target ACD queue (because it previously Overflowed or Interflowed by number from a source queue), it will then be recalled back to the source ACD queue. The call is then linked to the source ACD queue’s Timed Overflow queue, and the Recall To Source number is increased.

Received Calls. A call detected and seized by a trunk. Received calls will either abandon or be answered by an agent.

Record and Review Monitoring. See Monitoring.

Recorded Announcement (RAN)
An option of the Northern telephone system, which plays a recorded announcement for callers waiting for an available agent. An example would be when a caller is waiting and hears 'Your call is important to us. Please remain on the line, and your call will be answered by the next available agent'. A call can only get one First RAN treatment and one peg against the 1ST RAN amount. Each time that a call receives second RAN treatment, it is pegged against 2ND RAN amount. The 1ST RAN and 2ND RAN peg counts do not necessarily equal the Accepted Calls peg counts for an ACD queue. It is possible for a caller to hear RAN both before and after a transfer. In this case, the Accepted Calls count would tally only one call while there are two RAN peg count increases.

Reengineering. A term popularized by management consultant Michael Hammer, which refers to radically redesigning processes to improve efficiency and service.

Response Time. The time it takes the call center to respond to transactions that do not have to be handled when they arrive (e.g., correspondence or e-mail). See Service Level.

Retrial Tables. Sometimes used to calculate trunks and other system resources required. They assume that some callers will make additional attempts to reach the call center if they get busy signals. See Erlang B and Poisson.

Retrial. A caller who "retries" when they get a busy signal.

Rostered Staff Factor (RSF). Alternatively called an Overlay, Shrink Factor or Shrinkage. RSF is a numerical factor that leads to the minimum staff needed on schedule over and above base staff required to achieve your service level and response time objectives. It is calculated after base staffing is determined and before schedules are organized, and accounts for things like breaks, absenteeism and ongoing training.

Round Robin Distribution. A method of distributing calls to agents according to a predetermined list. See Next Available Agent and Longest Waiting Agent.

Routed by CCR
The number of calls routed by CCR and given a Route To command by the CCR script (and no additional processing).

Routed by IVR
The Route By IVR field is incremented if the call is queued to receive IVR treatment and the IVR routing initiates a call modification to another field. This is the number of IVR controlled calls given a Route To command (and no additional processing).

Routing
The way a call is passed through the Northern telephone system. The telephone system handles the way a call is sent, and the route the call takes through the telephone system. Different version of the Northern telephone system can route a call in different ways, according to the available routing features.