The AI voice calling glossary

Appointment setting

Appointment setting is the outbound sales process of contacting prospects, qualifying them against a fit criteria, and booking a confirmed meeting on a closer's calendar.

Average handle time (AHT)

Average handle time (AHT) is the mean total duration of a call, adding talk time, hold time, and after-call work, then dividing by the number of calls handled.

Barge-in

Barge-in is the ability of a caller to interrupt an AI voice agent while it is still speaking, so the agent stops, listens, and responds to what the person just said.

Connect rate

Connect rate is the share of dialed phone numbers where a live person actually answers, expressed as a percentage of total dials. On cold B2B lists it commonly sits in the 8 to 15 percent range.

Do-not-call (DNC) list

A do-not-call (DNC) list is a registry of phone numbers whose owners have opted out of telemarketing, and which sellers are legally required to scrub against before dialing.

Local presence dialing

Local presence dialing shows the recipient a caller ID with their own local area code, so an outbound call looks local and familiar instead of like an out-of-area cold call.

Predictive dialer

A predictive dialer is an automated system that dials several numbers at once and uses statistics on answer and call-length rates to connect live answers to an available agent the moment they pick up.

Spam-likely labeling

Spam-likely labeling is when a carrier or call-screening app tags an incoming number with a warning like "Spam Likely" or "Scam Likely", based on a reputation score built from how that number behaves.

STIR/SHAKEN

STIR/SHAKEN is a set of telecom standards that cryptographically sign the caller ID on a call, so the receiving carrier can confirm the number wasn't spoofed before the phone rings.

Voicemail drop

Voicemail drop is a feature that instantly deposits a pre-recorded message into a prospect's voicemail when a call goes unanswered, so the rep or agent moves on without waiting through the greeting.