131 terms defined
Modern phone vocabulary, finally clear.
From A2P to workflow: every term that matters when talking missed calls, voice AI, SMS and compliance — defined in a two-minute read.
A2P (application-to-person)
Messaging sent from software to a person — the official channel for business SMS.
Phone reception
Everything that happens between the moment a client calls and the moment their request is handled.
Shared calendar
A calendar shared across the team, where everyone sees each other's availability and appointments.
Conversational agent
Software that holds a written or voice dialogue to complete specific tasks: qualify, answer, book.
AI voice agent
AI that answers calls, speaks naturally, and drives the exchange to an outcome: qualification, booking, or escalation.
API
An interface that lets two pieces of software exchange data without human intervention.
Missed call
An inbound call that no one answered — not you, not a colleague, not an effective voicemail.
Outbound call
A call initiated by the business toward a client or prospect: callback, confirmation, or follow-up.
After hours
Calls received outside business hours: evenings, nights, weekends, and public holidays.
ASR (speech recognition)
The technology that turns speech into text — the ear of any voice AI system.
On-call duty
Organized availability to intervene outside working hours when a real emergency hits.
Barge-in
A caller's ability to cut off an AI agent mid-sentence and be understood instantly.
Closed knowledge base
A validated set of documents — prices, hours, areas, FAQs — the AI draws answers from, and beyond which it does not venture.
Voicemail box
The individual mailbox where your callers' voice messages pile up.
Calendly
Link-based scheduling tool: the client picks a slot from your availability on their own.
Caller ID
The number (and sometimes name) shown on screen before the call is answered.
Call center
An organized facility that handles high volumes of inbound or outbound calls, with queues, agents, and measured targets.
Chatbot
A program that simulates a written conversation on a website, app, or over SMS.
Encryption
Turning data into an unreadable form without the key — the baseline measure of IT security.
Churn rate
The share of customers lost over a given period — the silent thermometer of satisfaction.
One-click confirmation
Confirm (or cancel) an appointment with a single "YES" reply or a single tap on a link.
Timestamped consent
Proof of consent recorded with its date, time, channel, and exact wording.
Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
The total marketing and sales cost of winning one new customer.
Cost per lead
Marketing spend divided by the number of prospects generated — the entry price of a potential customer.
Time slot
The block of time reserved for an appointment or job in the calendar.
Sending window
The hours during which a text may legitimately go out — midnight sends cost you customers.
CRM
Software that centralizes customers, history, and the sales pipeline in one place.
Dashboard
A single screen that gathers a business's key metrics — calls, messages, appointments.
Local loop unbundling
The historic opening of the copper local loop to competition — the founding act of the modern French telecom market.
Telemarketing
Cold commercial prospecting by phone — the most heavily regulated activity in the sector.
Language detection
Automatic identification of the caller's language, from their very first words.
DNC (Do Not Call)
The registry of people who opted out of sales calls — screening against it before any campaign is mandatory.
Personal data
Any information relating to an identifiable person — including a plain phone number.
Call waiting
The subtle tone alerting you that a second call is coming in while you're already on the line.
Escalation
Handing an exchange to a more capable level — a human, a manager — when the first level is no longer enough.
Free trial
Temporary free access to a product to test it in real conditions before paying.
Alphanumeric sender ID
A brand name displayed instead of the number on a text — "DUBOIS PLUMBING" instead of a string of digits.
CSV export
Extracting your data into a universal file readable by any spreadsheet.
Outsourcing
Entrusting a business function — here, phone answering — to a specialized provider.
Failover
Automatic switchover to a backup system when the primary fails — the outage becomes invisible.
Decision window
The few minutes after a missed call, during which the caller is still choosing who to trust with their problem.
Customer record
The CRM's basic unit: one person, their contact details, history, and quirks.
Call queue
The orderly holding of callers when every line is busy — with music, position, and wait time.
Spam filtering
The set of mechanisms that identify and block suspicious calls and texts before they reach a phone.
AI hallucination
A fluent, confident AI answer… that's false — invented because the model fills in the gaps.
Business hours
The window when your business answers — published, expected, and rarely aligned with your clients.
Customer history
The complete timeline of exchanges with a customer: calls, messages, quotes, appointments, invoices.
Housecall Pro
American management software for home-service businesses: scheduling, quoting, invoicing, payments.
Voice latency
The delay between the caller finishing their sentence and the agent starting its reply — voice AI's heartbeat.
Lead
A person who has shown interest in your services without being a customer yet.
Qualified lead
A lead whose need, budget, timeline, and area are confirmed — a useful appointment, not idle curiosity.
Dedicated line
A number reserved for a single purpose — business on one side, personal on the other.
Busy line
The tone a caller meets when your line is already in conversation — and no forwarding is set up.
Whitelist
The list of explicitly allowed senders and numbers — the opposite of blocking.
Waitlist
A line of clients ready to take the first slot freed up by a cancellation.
LLM (large language model)
An AI model trained on vast text corpora to understand and generate language.
Greeting message
What the caller hears on arrival — the only word your business says when you can't speak.
Voicemail
The service that answers in your absence, records a message, and hands it back to you — the phone's century-old safety net.
Overage minute
Per-minute billing beyond the plan — the small figure that derails budgets.
Multi-line
Several simultaneous phone lines on one system — several calls at once without busy tones.
Hold music
What a caller on hold listens to — and a legal minefield if you play just anything on it.
No-show
A confirmed appointment where the client doesn't show — an empty slot billed at full price.
Push notification
An alert sent to a device without SMS — through an installed app or an authorized browser.
Voicemail notification
The alert that warns you the moment a voicemail lands — the end of the "let me check my messages" era.
10DLC number
A 10-digit number registered with US carriers to send A2P texts fully above board.
Short code
A 4-to-6-digit number for very high volume SMS — campaigns, votes, verification codes.
Geographic number
A number tied to a geographic area — 01 to 05 prefixes in France, area codes elsewhere.
Hidden number
A call placed with the number hidden — the distrust signal almost nobody answers.
Premium-rate number
A number whose cost exceeds the normal rate — the caller pays more, sometimes to you.
Virtual number
A cloud-hosted number, detachable from any physical phone — forward it wherever you want.
Average order value
The average transaction value — the figure that turns "one call" into "this many euros."
Phone coverage
A setup that guarantees a call always finds an answer, whatever the hour.
Pilot
A limited, measured, reversible rollout — a real-conditions test with success criteria written in advance.
Sales pipeline
The set of live opportunities, sorted by stage from first call to paid invoice.
Appointment booking
The full process leading from a request to a confirmed slot — by phone, text, or web.
System prompt
The invisible instructions setting an AI agent's role, tone, and boundaries.
PWA
A web app installable from the browser — an app's advantages without the App Store.
Callback
The call you place to someone who tried to reach you — the ancient art of not letting a missed call linger.
Appointment reminder
The message sent before an appointment to confirm it — the most cost-effective lever against no-shows.
Virtual receptionist
An outsourced human service that answers your calls in your name, remotely.
Opt-out registry
The internal list of people who said no — never to be contacted again, period.
Consent register
The internal document listing every collected consent, with its proof and date.
Follow-up
The second contact after silence — the gesture that turns a sent quote into a signed one.
Call forwarding
Sending calls from one number to another — the setting that decides where your phone really rings.
Answering machine
A device that answers in your absence and records a message — grandma's answering machine, now a cloud service.
GDPR
The European regulation governing all personal data — including your call data.
Robocall
An automated call broadcasting a prerecorded message — the scourge that makes your customers distrustful.
ROI (return on investment)
The ratio of what an investment returns to what it costs — (gains − costs) / costs.
No commitment
A subscription cancellable anytime, month to month — the freedom to leave the way you came.
Independent secretary
A freelance professional handling your phone reception and admin, for several clients at once.
Interactive voice response (IVR)
The voice menu asking you to "press 1" — first-generation phone automation.
ServiceTitan
The field management platform for large service businesses — powerful, integrated, heavy.
Setup fee
One-time onboarding fees — legitimate when they pay for real work, questionable when they lock you in.
SIP
The standard protocol that opens, manages, and closes voice communications over the internet — VoIP's common language.
SLA (service level agreement)
A contractual commitment on a service's quality — uptime, response times — with consequences when it's missed.
SMS marketing
Sending promotional messages by text — powerful, intimate, and strictly regulated.
Transactional SMS
A message tied to an ongoing transaction or relationship — confirmations, reminders, follow-ups.
Speed-to-lead
The delay between a lead appearing and first contact — the variable that conditions all the others.
Auto attendant
A business's first phone floor: a message greets and routes, with no receptionist.
Phone system (PBX)
The system managing a business's lines: forwarding, transfers, queues, voicemail boxes — a PBX in older books.
Switchboard operator
The person who answers, listens, routes, and remembers — a company's official voice.
AI receptionist
An AI that answers in your business's name, converses, qualifies, books appointments, and escalates when due.
STOP SMS
The keyword that opts a recipient out of your messages — and the mandatory mention that goes with it.
Overbooking
Accepting more appointments than capacity, betting on no-shows — a wager, not a method.
Missed call rate
The share of inbound calls reaching no one — the most profitable metric a small business can track.
SMS open rate
Marketing's most-cited reading figure — and its worst-measured.
Conversion rate
The share of prospects moving to the next step — call to appointment, quote to invoice.
Answer rate
The share of inbound calls actually answered — the exact complement of the missed call rate.
TCPA
The US law governing automated calls and texts — the guardrail to know before automating anything.
Remote secretarial service
A company of outsourced secretaries answering the phone for dozens of professions.
Text-back
The automatic text sent right after a missed call — reply in under ten seconds, conversation opened.
Voice transcription
Automatically turning speech into text — voicemails become readable, searchable, archived.
Conditional transfer
Forwarding triggered only in certain cases — busy, no-answer, unreachable — call recovery's Swiss knife.
SIP trunk
The virtual circuit that connects your internal phone system to the public network over the internet — the phone line without the copper wire.
TTS (text-to-speech)
Speech synthesis — turning text into audible speech, the output voice of an AI voice agent.
Customer lifetime value (CLV)
The total revenue a client will generate over the whole relationship — the unit that reprices a missed call.
Response speed
The delay between a client's first contact and your first reply — the criterion that decides before price does.
VoIP
Voice carried as internet data — the telephony that replaced the legacy switched network.
Webhook
The automatic notification one service sends another the moment an event occurs — the message that triggers everything else.
WhatsApp Business
The professional tier of the messaging app — client conversations, possible automation, and strict consent rules.
Workflow
A sequence of actions automatically chained from a trigger event — the script written before the phone rings.
Answered in under 10 seconds
Your next missed call can be the last one.
$149 credited on month 1. No commitment. Cancel within 30 days, no fees.