What is Screen Pop?

When your company is adopting a new technology, there can be a learning curve for understanding all the associated terminology. It goes without saying that when your business implements a new system, of any kind, both management and staff should be well-versed in exactly what that system can do. If they’re not, then what’s the point of buying a new fancy tool?

Call center software has a barrier to entry when it comes to terminology. The good news about this particular technology is that most people are familiar with the upshot of call center software from the consumer end. This means that team members likely already understand the concepts, they just need to pair them with the terms.

For instance, most people are familiar with the automated call center software system that greets callers and asks them to make selections to direct their call. As in, “Press 1 for English, Oprima numero dos para Espanol.” The technical term for this is an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system. Call center managers and agents need to learn this term so that they can figure out how to customize it to meet the needs of their customers.

In this post, I’ll be going over the call center software term I think has the most fun name. What could that be? Why, screen pop, of course.

What is screen pop?

Screen pop – not to be confused with pop rocks, ring pops, pop and locking and ‘Nsync’s infamous dirty pop – is a call center software feature that automatically displays caller information on call center agent screens when a call rings into the system. It is also known as automatic screen pop, automated screen pop and Computer Telephaony Integration (CTI), which is a technology that allows for communication between a computer and phone system.

Here’s the simple version: A customer or prospect reaches out via phone. When the call center software receives the call, it alerts the agent. This alert includes not only the fact that there is a caller on the line, but also any relevant caller information found in the system.