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 using 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.

Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) are a set of routines, protocols and tools that allow software programs to communicate with each other. APIs can be used by developers to make their own applications or by companies who want to share data about their products or services with others.

Within the Mobile Marketing Cloud, you'll find CM.com's Campaigns: the perfect tool to build and manage your mobile SMS campaigns, both manually and automated.

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 software that collects customer touch-points 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.

Conversational commerce is the idea of enabling consumers to shop and communicate with brands through messaging channels, voice, and chat. Brands can implement conversational commerce using technology like chatbots, social messaging or virtual assistants.

Conversational Marketing is the practice of engaging in real-time, personalised conversations with potential customers to guide them through the buyer’s journey. It is an effective way to build relationships with customers, understand their needs, and improve their consumer experience.

CPaaS stands for Communications Platform as a Service. It is a cloud-based delivery platform that enables businesses to add real-time Communication Channels (SMS, Voice and Conversational Channels) to their applications with the use of APIs.

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).

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.

An electronic signature, also known as an e-signature, is a digital version of the paper-based method of signing signatures. It allows a person to electronically add a signature to a digital contract or document, thereby removing the need for ink and paper.

Within the Mobile Marketing Cloud, you'll find CM.com's Email Campaigns tool: the perfect tool to create and personalise newsletters and transactional email campaigns. A/B-test email campaigns and send email campaigns in bulk.

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.

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.

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 that can be used 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.

Marketing automation refers to the use of software and technology to automate and enhance marketing activities, such as email campaigns, SMS campaigns, social media ad campaigns, chatbot conversations, tracking, A/B testing, and more.

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 commerce (also known as eCommerce or m-commerce) refers to shopping, banking, or making payments online through mobile devices like smartphones or tablets. Mobile commerce is the new form of eCommerce (electronic commerce), which refers to sales transactions conducted online via the internet.

CM.com's Mobile Marketing Cloud is an omnichannel customer engagement solution build for B2C marketers. It's the only solution that includes all mobile messaging channels like WhatsApp. This empowers marketers to create superior customer experiences that increase conversion rates and sales.

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.

Omnichannel marketing is the integration and cooperation of the various channels that an organisation uses to interact with consumers, to create a consistent brand experience and seamlessly interact with consumers.

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 minimise the risk of fraudulent login attempts.

Online identification refers to any bit of information associated with a specific individual found on the internet. While online identification is most often connected with entire personal accounts, such as banking profiles, it can consist of any personally identifiable information.

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.

The POPI Act is a new all-inclusive piece of legislation that safeguards the integrity and sensitivity of private information. Companies are required to carefully manage the data capture and storage process of Personal Information within the lawful framework as set out in the Act.

CM is an internationally operating Payment Service Provider (PSP), which means its payments branch CM Payments offers connectivity to multiple payment methods including VISA, MasterCard, Paypal, iDeal, Microincasso and Bancontact.

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 software with implemented CM.

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

A short code is a specialised 5 or 6-digit number ideal for marketing campaigns, lead generation, and promotions where you want people to easily remember your number. Short codes are used for sending and receiving SMS (and MMS) messages to mobile phones.

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

The Session Initiation Protocol enables you to use multimedia communication like voice and video calls using VOIP. Using SIP instead of traditional telephony means you’ll cut down on your communication costs.

An SMS API is a type of API that allows your business to integrate SMS (Short Message Service) messaging into your existing software platforms. SMS APIs enable you to send or receive SMS messages quickly and easily through any website or application.

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.

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2FA) is a technology that provides the identification of users by means of the combination of two different components. In other words, 2FA adds a second level of authentication to an account log-in.

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.

A WhatsApp Chatbot is a computer program that simulates text-based human conversation via the WhatsApp messaging platform. WhatsApp Chatbots can automatically respond to various customer communications, from customer service to sales, and can be integrated via the WhatsApp Business Platform.

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 refers to the practice of sending promotional messages from a brand's WhatsApp Business account to a specific audience of customers. This allows businesses to establish a direct line of connection with potential consumers and promote their products or services.

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.