Concepts

Before You Begin

Reporting Concepts are a foundational element of Gladly reports. To fully grasp and understand the data in your reports, you must understand Key Concepts. We suggest that you also take time to get familiar with Metrics in Detail and Metric Attribution.

About Reporting Concepts 

Reporting Concepts allow you to understand the definitions behind activities or moments directly related to interactions made with your Customers. For example, knowing the definition of “Accepted” in a Voice report context can help you quickly understand that a report is showing you the number/percentage of calls that have been offered and accepted by an Agent(s).

Conversations

What is a Conversation?

A Conversation is a grouping concept for one or many Contacts between the customer and a company. Read more about the definition of a Conversation in the Key Concepts.

Below are some events that are recorded for Conversations.

Created

Created is the moment when a Conversation is created. This can be done in a variety of ways:

• When new or unidentified Customers first contact in.
• When Customers initiate Inbound Contacts outside the Conversation reopen window.
• When Agents manually choose to start a new Conversation instead of reopening a previous one.

Closed

Closed is the moment when a Conversation is closed. Conversations can be closed and reopened 0, 1, or many times. Conversations cannot be closed by Customers but can be closed automatically (through Rules) or manually (through Agent action).

Reopened

Reopened is the moment when a Conversation is reopened. Conversations can be reopened 0 to many times. This happens in two main ways:

• When the Conversation is Closed, and Customers initiate a Contact within the Conversation reopen window.
• When the Conversation is Closed, and an Agent chooses to reopen the Conversation.

Topic Added and Removed

Topic Added is the moment when a Topic on a Conversation is added. Topic Removed is the moment when a Topic on a Conversation is removed.

Contacts

What is a Contact?

A Contact is a grouping concept for an exchange that takes place on one Channel. This could be a phone call, an email exchange, or a chat session, for example. Read more about the definition of a Contact in the Key Concepts.

Below are some events that are recorded for Contacts.

Initiator Types

The Initiator is the entity that starts the Contact (when it is either Initiated or Queued). Initiators are grouped into the following Initiator Types:

• Customer – The Contact is started by the Customer.
• Agent – The Contact is started by the Agent.
• Internal or External – The Contact is started on the Customer's Profile by someone other than the Customer. Internal refers to initiators who have an email address from your company. External refers to initiators who don't have an email address from your company.
• Application – The Contact is started via the API.
• System – The Contact is started by the Gladly system.
• Automation – The Contact is started by Gladly Rules.

Initiated

Initiated, or Started, is the moment when an Outbound Contact is started.

• Outbound Contacts are initiated when the Agent sends the message or email or when they start an outbound phone call.

Contacts are started only once.

Queued

Queued, or Started, is the moment when a Contact is placed in an Inbox and is ready to be routed. Below are descriptions of when the first Queued moment occurs for various Channels:

• Phone Call – The moment when the Customer makes a selection in the IVR that puts them in an Inbox.
• Chat – The moment when the Customer sends their first message. If Chat Onboarding is enabled, the Customer enters their name, email address, and then their first message. If Onboarding is not enabled, the Customer enters their first message without entering their name and email.
• SMS, FB, Twitter, WhatsApp – The moment when the first message arrives in Gladly.
• Email – The moment when the email first arrives in Gladly.
• Voicemail –  The moment when a Voicemail message recording is completed and saved to Gladly.

Contacts are started only once.

Offered

Offered is the moment when a Contact is offered to an available Agent. Depending on the configuration of Voice and/or Messaging Channels, the Agent will be able to Accept or Decline the offered Contact. In other configurations, and for Mail channels, the Agent will be automatically assigned the Contact.

Contacts can be offered more than once, for example, when an Agent declines the offer, and the Contact is offered to a different Agent.

Outbound Contacts are not initially offered (they are instead directly assigned to the Agent who initiated them), though they can be in the case where the Contact is reassigned.

Accepted

Accepted is the moment when an Agent accepts a Contact that has been offered to them, or the Contact is auto-accepted upon offering.

Declined

Declined is the moment when an Agent declines an offered Contact. In the case of some voice and messaging configurations, when Agents are routed a Contact, they are given the option to accept or decline the Contact. They can also ignore the Contact, in which case it may be considered Missed.

Missed

Missed is the moment when an Agent does not accept or decline an offered Contact in the allotted time. In some voice and messaging configurations, when Agents are routed a Contacts, they have a short window to accept or decline the Contact. If they do neither, that is considered “missed.”

• For voice, the window is 60 seconds.
• For chat, the window is 30 seconds.
• For SMS, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, and WhatsApp, the window is 60 seconds.

Due

Due is the moment when a Contact is targeted to be fulfilled, to meet the company’s Service Level Agreement (SLA). The due date is set when the Contact is initially queued and is determined by the Channel and Inbox SLA settings. Once set, it is not updated.

Outbound Contacts do not have a due date (or an SLA).

Fulfilled

Fulfilled is the moment when an Inbound Contact’s SLA is considered fulfilled. This is generally the first response to the Customer’s action but can also happen in a variety of other ways.

Below are the various ways a Contact can be fulfilled.

Contact is Fulfilled by Response:

• Voice – The moment when the Agent first accepts the phone call and is connected.
• Messaging – The moment when the Agent sends their first reply message.
• Email, Voicemail, Abandoned Call Followup – The moment when the Agent initiates an outbound Contact on any Channel.
  • Note – Emails sent from the Customer Profile that does not include the Customer as a recipient do not fulfill the Contact’s SLA.
• If an Agent fulfills the SLA on a Contact or initiates an outbound Contact, any unfulfilled Contacts in that Conversation will also be fulfilled.

Contact is Fulfilled by Cancellation:

• When an Agent or an automation Rule marks the latest Inbound Message as “No Reply Needed” or Closes the Conversation instead of replying, the Contact is considered "canceled."

When are Contacts not Fulfilled?

• Auto-Reply messages do not fulfill the Contact’s SLA.
• Phone calls that are abandoned, forwarded, or where the customer leaves a voicemail before being connected with an Agent are not considered fulfilled.
• Chat, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp messages that are automatically ended before an agent can reply are not considered fulfilled. 
  • For Chat, this window is 24hrs because most Customers do not leave their chat session open for more than 24 hours. 
  • For WhatsApp, the window is 24hrs because this service does not permit companies to send outbound messages unless the Customer has contacted them within the past 24hrs.
• Outbound Contacts do not have an SLA and so will not have a fulfilled event.

Ended

Ended is the moment when communication on a Contact is deemed to have ended.  There are multiple ways a Contact can end:

• Customer or Agent hangs up the phone.
• Agent clicks “end chat.”
• Agent marks the latest Inbound Message as “No Reply Needed” or Closes the Conversation.
• Customer is unresponsive (for messaging and mail Channels) after the Agent has replied for a configurable amount of time.
• Agent does not respond before the Contact times out (on Chat, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp).
• Customer abandons the phone call by hanging up before connecting with an Agent.
• Customer's phone call is forwarded outside Gladly's voice system.
• Customer leaves a voicemail.

Answered

For outbound Contacts, Answered is the moment when a Voice Contact connects to a Customer or reaches their voicemail.

Hold Started and Ended

Hold Started is the moment when a phone call is placed on hold, and Hold Ended is when the Customer is taken off hold. This can happen multiple times throughout a phone call, and each hold segment has a type associated with it, depending on the reason the hold was started. The types include: 

• Manual (Agent chooses to put the call on hold).
• Warm transfer (Agent starts the process of finding another Agent to transfer the call to).
• Cold transfer (Agent places the Customer in a queue to be answered by the next available Agent).
• Conference (Agent is conferencing in a third call participant).

Transferred

Transferred is the moment when there is a transfer attempt (to another Agent, a different Inbox, external transfer) or a Conversation is reassigned. Conversations can be reassigned during an active Contact or outside one, but the Conversation cannot be Closed.

• An "attempt" is counted as a transfer event only if an Agent/Inbox is selected and Gladly tries to connect.
• Does not include conference calls where the Agent leaves the call but the Customer and 3rd party continue with the call.

Joined

Joined is the moment when an Agent who is not assigned joins the Contact.

• This does not apply to Voice Contacts.
• For Messaging and Mail Contacts, the Agent joins by sending their first message in an ongoing Contact. This can be either an unassigned Conversation or when the Conversation is assigned to another Agent. In the former situation, the Agent will also be assigned to the Conversation due to joining, while in the latter situation, the current assignee will not change.

Tasks

What is a Task?

A Task is a work item to help a Customer and is separate from the Conversation. Read more about the definition of a Task in the Key Concepts.

Below are some events that are recorded for Tasks.

Created

Created is the moment when a Task is created. Depending on the Task routing window, not all Tasks are immediately routed upon creation.

Closed

Closed is the moment when a Task is closed. Tasks can be reopened and closed more than once.

Reopened

Reopened is the moment when a Task is reopened after having been closed. Tasks can be reopened and closed more than once.

Assignee Updated

Assignee Updated is the moment when a Task's assignee is updated after the Task was created. This could be the assigned Inbox, the assigned Agent, or both.

Comment Added

Comment Added is the moment when a Comment is added to a Task.

Content Updated

Content Updated is the moment when a Task's content (its description) is updated. Any content change—from fixing a typo to rewriting the purpose of the Task — is considered.

Due Date Updated

Due Date Updated is the moment when a Task's due date is updated.

Follower Added and Removed

Follower Added is the moment when a user starts following a Task, whether explicitly or automatically. Follower Removed is the moment when a user unfollows a Task.