Glossary

A2P stands for Application to Person messaging. These are messages that are sent from an application to a person, for example One Time Passwords, bank alerts or booking confirmations by means of API or Web App.

An acquisition chatbot can exist on any number of your channels. You might use an acquisition chatbot as a way to start a conversation with new visitors, or you could use it to share useful information and production suggestions with existing customers. 

An AI chatbot is a piece of software that interacts with a human through written language. It is often embedded in web pages or other digital applications to answer customer inquiries without the need for human agents, thus providing affordable effortless customer service.

The sender ID refers to the "from", so who has sent the message. This can be alpha (containing characters and numbers), numeric (only numbers) or a numeric short code.

An API, or Application Programming Interface in full, allows you to let systems interact with one another. By integrating one of CM’s API’s in your own software, you can use any of the CM features in your existing system. API integration is generally done by developers.

Call deflection is a method of relieving the strain on your customer service team. It focuses on resolving a large volume of queries without the need for human interaction, providing customers with the information they need quickly and effectively using automation to provide resolution.

Direct Carrier Billing is an online payment method which allows users to make a purchase by charging payments to their mobile phone bill. Carrier Billing is available for all consumers with a mobile device containing a SIM card.

Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) solutions describe SaaS applications that provide the functionality to replicate a traditional, fully-fledged contact centre. CCaaS software contains a host of communication features, enabling companies to communicate with customers via one solution.

A CDP or Customer Data Platform is a software that collects customer touchpoints and interactions with your product or service from various channels and sources. It aggregates all this data from multiple sources to create a unified profile of each customer.

Collaborative customer service is an approach that uses teams of agents to solve complex customer service cases. In this approach, customer service agents work with colleagues to solve complex issues in organised groups. 

Collections chatbots provide a one-platform solution to collect payments from your customers and can be set up to accept a wide variety of payment methods. Making payments simple and easy is the key to converting customers quickly and efficiently.

Conversational AI (artificial intelligence) technology enables computers to engage in natural-sounding text conversations with customers. When chatbot interactions seem natural, consumers feel like they are having an organic social interaction.

Cookieless data collection gathers user data and insights without using website cookies (data trackers that contain personal identifiers) either because the user rejects them or because they are not permitted. This method is growing given multiple tracking restrictions and privacy regulations.

 

A Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) is a a cloud based platform that provides enterprises’ developers with the ability to add communication services to their own applications. Because CM.com is a CPaaS, you can implement our products, such as SMS, Voice, Chat apps and One Time Passwords, without having to develop your own communication solutions.

A customer service chatbot can automatically respond to repetitive queries and even scrape your website for the information needed to answer more complex questions. Automating the process of responding to customer questions allows your team to deliver a better and more consistent experience.

Customer service software is the program or platform a business uses to manage its customer service channels. The best customer service software helps brands manage, prioritise, and handle requests and complaints from customers - from any location, at any time, via the customer’s preferred channel.

A dedicated short code is used to enable companies to send messages with a specific short code dedicated only for their business and enabling response for the end user to that same number (Sender ID). Though CM offers several shared shortcodes such as 3669 you can use, you can also request a specific shortcode for your business. An example of such a dedicated shortcode is the shortcode 3333 for Dutch radio station 3FM.

A digital signature guarantees that an electronic document is authentic. It is an encrypted digital code appended to an electronic document to verify that it was created by a known source and has not been altered.

Direct Inward Dialing (DID) or Direct Dial In (DDI) is a service of a local phone company or local exchange carrier that provides a block of telephone numbers for calling into a company’s private branch (PBX) or IP telephony system. Using DDI, a company can offer its customers individual phone numbers for each individual or workstation within the company without requiring a physical line into the PBX for each possible connection.

A DLR refers to a status of a sent message. Once the message has been received (or not) within the 48-hour retry range, the sender (company or aggregator) receives a Delivery Status Report with detailed information about the processed message.

Dual Tone Multi Frequency is a method often used in IVR systems to choose menu items or enter codes. DTMF is widely used for telecommunication signalling over analog telephone lines in voice-frequency bands, and is used in push-button telephones for tone dialling.

External Short Messaging Entities or ESMEs are external applications that connect to an SMS service for sending and receiving SMS messages. Examples of ESME’s are voting systems or automated marketing messages.

Fake DLR’s are a known problem amongst aggregators. In a fake DLR, the supplier of a connection falsely reports a successful delivery to an end-user device. This results in loss of money, because companies pay for messages that are never delivered on a handset.

An FAQ chatbot can be used to automate answers to some of the more common questions your organisation may be asked. These types of questions can be a huge drain on your customer service team and often involve repetitive, copy & paste answers that are more easily and efficiently managed by machine.

First-party data is customer data collected with consent and owned directly by your company (the data controller). It is a valuable source of customer insight in the age of data privacy, as regulations and security measures now make other types of data less secure, accurate, and reliable.

The General Data Protection Regulation is a EU-regulation that prescribes what precautionary measures companies must take to protect citizens from privacy and data breaches, including how to handle breach notifications.

Home Location Register (HLR) is an MNO database containing all information related to a mobile subscriber’s device. CM uses HLR for its Number Lookup feature, allowing you to verify number information and prevent fraud.

Hybrid messaging enables you to send push messages with SMS as fall-back. Mobile messages will be sent via the cost-effective push messaging. If the receiver doesn’t have your app installed or is offline, the message is sent via SMS. This way you’ll realise the highest reach at the lowest cost. If you don't have your own app, you can use CM's Notifire app.

International mobile subscriber identity, unique for every SIM card. The IMSI code is related to one SIM card, so even if the phone number is used again by another user, the sim card will be printed again and with that it will receive a new IMSI Code.

An internal knowledge base chatbot allows you to hold a vast amount of internal company information in one place for your customer service team. One of the benefits of an internal knowledge base chatbot is it can fast track new employee training and allow new starters to become more effective.

IVR or Interactive Voice Response is an automated phone system with call routing capabilities. It answers incoming calls and prompts customers to interact with a pre-recorded message or series of messages, taking them to the appropriate business department based on their response.

JavaScript Object Notation is one of the programming languages.

A live event chatbot allows customers to get quick answers to their questions before, during and after a live event. Live event chatbots can respond quickly and easily to the sorts of repetitive logistical questions visitors ask about live events.

Long code stands for a regular MSISDN number virtualised and enabled for usage in Two-way messaging. So, you have a regular number that is linked to a system which you can use for interactions with the end users. These can be dedicated or shared the way Uber does.

An easy to implement messaging solution with which you can send out SMS messages from your email account.

The dedicated code with which particular mobile operators are identified.

Mobile Network Operators such as Vodafone, China Mobile and Airtel.

MNP stands for Mobile number portability. A phone number registered on one network, moves the same number service to another Network (T-mobile to Vodafone NL). During the transferring process, the end user gets a new SIM card printed containing an IMSI code from the new network, which helps Telco companies do proper routing for traffic in voice, SMS, etc.

Mobile communication where the message is sent from an end user to an application.

Mobile communications where the message is sent from an application to an end user.

The Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number is a number used to identify mobile subscribers, and maps the mobile telephone number to a SIM card in a mobile phone.

An HLR based solution to help you optimise routing, to clean up a database of numbers for improved accuracy or to prevent ATM card cloning fraud.

These sender IDs consist of solely numeric characters.

OTP is the abbreviation of One Time Password and is a string of characters or numbers automatically generated to be used for one single login attempt. These can be sent to the user’s phone via SMS or Push messaging. OTP’s will minimize the risk of fraudulent login attempts and thus the risk of stolen data.

OTT or Over The Top refers to third party content that is sent directly to the end user, where the ISP facilitates the transport of the IP packets. Examples are Skype, WhatsApp and FaceTime.

Person to Person Messaging is SMS messaging between two people, including traffic that connects two people through an API. P2P messaging is used for, amongst others, customer care or order delivery messages.

A payment service provider (PSP) refers to a third-party solution that enables businesses to accept a variety of online payment methods by connecting them to the broader financial system. 

Push is a messaging solution with which you can send large batches of Push messages to your app(s). Our Push messaging solution by Certa allows you use filters and preferences to fine-tune your notifications for your audience.

Returns and WISMO chatbots allow customers to easily self-serve and find answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs). The process enables customers to seamlessly and quickly handle the laborious task of returning items or tracking orders without the need to speak to a human service agent.

A Software Development Kit (SDK) is a collection of tools that allow you to build your own software with implemented CM.

Self-service enables customers to find information they need without having to wait in a queue for customer service agents, or even having to speak to a human at all. It involves automating (and simplifying) elements of the customer service journey to relieve reliance on your customer service team.

This is an easy to use web app to send SMS/Hybrid messages to individuals or lists, and allow them to send replies.

Client and server-side tracking are two routes to collecting audience data. With client-side tracking, the user’s browser (client) sends data to the tracking platform’s server. Server-side tracking sends the user data to your website server first before being transferred to the tracking platform. 

Short codes are significantly shorter digit sequences than regular phone numbers, mostly 3 to 5 digits. Because such shorter numbers like 3333 are easier to remember, such short codes are often used by charities, television voting and other commercial purposes. CM can provide you with several short codes.

The Subscriber Identity Module presents the SIM card used to enable communication over a telecommunication network for a device (smartphone, tablet, etc.)

SIP trunking is a type of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technology that lets businesses make calls over a data connection rather than a traditional phone line.

Online mobile marketing solution to reach a large target audience with a personalised message. Our intelligent tracking tool allows you to see who converted to your message.

CM's SMS Gateway enables you to send text messages to mobile phones all around the world. To integrate this functionality into your application, you (or your developers) should implement communication with our API.

The SMS Center, usually the end party, that delivered the message to the handset.

An SMS test tool which lets SMS aggregators, MNO`s and MVNO`s check the quality of SMS routes, using live nodes, limiting the risk of whitelisting and grey routes.

The risk of fraud is drastically reduced if the user doesn’t only have to fill in his user name and password (something he knows) but also needs something he “has” -like his mobile phone- to complete the login. This second factor of authentication can be, for example, a One Time Password or CM Authenticator.

Enable replies so you can receive SMS message from your users via short codes, or long numbers. You can set automated actions for each message.

Verification chatbots are a simple and secure way to verify the identity of customers, allowing them to access and update their information online without the need to contact customer service teams directly.

Virtual phone numbers are not directly terminated, but rather forwarded to another number. With a Virtual phone number you can have a Dutch number which forwards to a US one, so a US company has a "virtual" number in the Netherlands. These virtual phone numbers can be provided by CM.

With CM’s Voice API, any developer can create and maintain call flows. You won’t need to integrate voice systems yourself to build IVR applications.

This voice API converts text to speech and is much used for notifications and Two-factor Authentication. Voice notification is available through API and our platform and consists of notifications (call, play and hang up), OTP and Get DTMF apps.

The CM Webtool to create simple IVR Inbound campaigns. Upload and sort voice prompts, design scenarios and get reporting.

A voicebot is a conversational agent that uses artificial intelligence and natural language understanding (NLU) to interpret the intent and meaning in the speech of its conversational partner. We also refer to this technology as 'Conversational IVR'.

VOIP, or Voice over IP, an IP network like the internet is used to transfer speech. This enables you to connect speech and data.

Besides API and SDK integration, CM offers most products as web apps as well. By using the web apps on our platform, you’ll gain easy access to all CM’s products for messaging, payments, voice and authentication.

WhatsApp Commerce provides brands with a means of connecting with users and selling their products and services directly to them. It does so by allowing companies to engage in two-way communication between themselves and their customers as a form of conversational commerce.

With the WhatsApp Business Platform, you can deliver exceptional customer service in real-time, ensure your customers have all the information they need in one familiar place, and ask questions regarding their order whenever they like.

WhatsApp Marketing is sending messages from a brand's WhatsApp Business account to a specific audience of customers for promotional purposes. In doing so, it allows businesses to establish a direct line of connection between themselves and potential consumers.

Testing SMS routes with the same numbers, as done with SIM boxes, results in Whitelisting. This means that algorithms will determine these numbers as priority numbers. Whitelisting of mobile numbers gives a distorted view of messaging delivery rates and route quality.