Barge-in a term entrenched in the realm of voice technology and Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems, especially contact centres. 

Barge-in within a contact centre setup allows a supervisor to listen live to agent calls and barge-in if necessary.

Applications that enable barge-in can also allow supervisors to whisper to agents without the customer hearing. Sometimes this is useful in training or as a precursor to a barge-in. This feature is useful when customers request a supervisor or when agents need assistance with a customer’s query. 

However, barge-ins can easily confuse callers, so we recommend that clear protocols for when and how barge-in is used are established across the organisation.