July 2003

CUSTOMER INTER@CTION Solutions' Magazine's
Fourth-Annual CRM Excellence Awards - Part II

3Com
www.3com.com
Product: 3Com NBX IP-based telephone system
The client reports, 'Thanks to 3Com, we've unified our voice communications across all of our locations. This lets us operate more efficiently and serve our customers more effectively. Our new voice solution ensures our ability to deliver consistent service to every location and to continue doing so as we grow.'

AltiGen Communications
www.altigen.com
Product: AltiGen IP telephony product family
'So far, the company has seen cost savings result in two areas. Interoffice calls (calls within the VoIP system to fellow employees across multiple company sites) now cost nothing since they travel through the existing data network. Also, the client was able to negotiate lower per-minute rates for incoming 800 and outbound calls, as all calls are now routed though the main Chicago hub. Additionally, they are now able to use call center resources in India, which was not an option before implementing a VoIP phone system.'

Amdocs ClarifyCRM
www.amdocs.com
Product: Amdocs ClarifyCRM product suite
'Amdocs ClarifyCRM improved the service delivered by the client to its customers by reducing the time it takes to resolve queries, enabling users to carry out their own simple support tasks, and automating many support functions. For instance, by automating the processing of 30,000 password re-set requests each year, Amdocs ClarifyCRM has reduced time and resources by 10 percent, which equates to U.S. $96,000 a year.'

Americall Group, Inc.
www.callmarcom.com
Service: Consolidation Program
'AGI has supported the client since June 2002. Over this time period, AGI has accepted 22,412 inbound calls, placed 140,645 outbound calls, sent out 34,699 applications and has delivered 11,525 complete applications back to the client. Applications generated have involved over $200 million dollars in loan consolidation. The most significant factor influencing application return has proven to be outbound follow-up calls by highly informative and helpful CSRs. Over 60 percent of the applications returned require three or more follow-up calls to the customer.'

Artisoft
www.artisoft.com
Product: TeleVantage
'All businesses grow by attracting new customers and TeleVantage has enabled the client to expand its customer base. Located in Southern California, the client uses the system's fully customizable menus to provide instructions, information and mortgage counseling in two languages ' English and Spanish. By meeting the language needs of more potential customers, the client has begun to cultivate a broader market, while providing an additional tier of customer service across its entire customer base.'

Best Software
www.usbestcrm.com
Product: SalesLogix
'With the rollout of SalesLogix, the client's customers received increased levels of responsiveness as well an increase in accurate information. Up-to-the-minute information such as order status is now readily available. The introduction of the CRM application also increased the level of communication between the client and its channel partners and customers.'

Call Compliance, Inc.
www.callcompliance.com
Product: TeleBlock Do-Not-Call Blocking System
The client reports, 'TeleBlock has been everything we hoped it would be. It has given us the power to perform our outbound calling campaigns without relying on our agents to take the necessary precautions to be in compliance, and it has allowed us to broaden our telephone marketing reach from solely inbound to include outbound calling as well.'

CCC Interactive Corporation
www.cccinteractive.com
Service: CCC Interactive Customer Care Services
'Responding to the urgency for our client to get an accurate understanding of the true benefits of this campaign, CCC Interactive assembled their top resources to form the implementation team. Our in-house application development team built front-end applications, designed databases, performed indexing and linked reporting to our client's legacy databases. Custom reports were designed and approved. Agents were hired, trained and setup for skills-based routing. Workstation phones were configured for Third Party Verification, desktop imaging and agent scripting was completed, and all systems were live-tested and verified within 45 days.'

Centerpost Corp.
www.centerpost.com
Product: SmartDelivery
The client, an airline, reported that over 200,000 customers have registered for EasyUpdate; millions of messages were delivered to customers in its first year; the client's market research indicated that 76 percent of EasyUpdate customers clearly noted that having this service would influence their decision to choose the airline for their next trip; EasyUpdate's impact on customer satisfaction was very positive: the percentage of EasyUpdate customers that were satisfied by the handling of a delay was 90 percent more than non-EasyUpdate customers; and 89 percent of customers who have used EasyUpdate found the service to be a highly valued tool.

ClientLogic
www.clientlogic.com
Service: Integrated Customer Care and Fulfillment
'In Q1 and Q2 of 2002, ClientLogic's support services achieved an impressive 97.3 percent and 91.3 percent customer satisfaction ratings from the client's customers. In general, customer satisfaction exceeds the target SLA of 90 percent and remains well above (typically 15 to 20 percent) the industry standard American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) level.'

Cross Country Automotive Services
www.crosscountry-auto.com
Service: Total Case Management
The client, an auto manufacturer, reported improvement of same-day case close rate from 75 percent at program inception to 80 percent YE 2002, with a 30 percent increase in call volume and only 10 percent increase in staffing. The client also experienced continual enhancement of timely, actionable issue reports and significant technology updates with no disruption and immediate benefits for both companies.

eAssist Global Solutions, Inc.
www.eassist.com
Product: eAssist Contact Center and eAssist Service Desk
'The customer service and support environment designed by eAssist ' leveraging eAssist Contact Center and eAssist Service Desk ' has had a positive affect on agent productivity in the client's Burlington, Ontario call center, and it has significantly enhanced the customer service and support experience for the company's customers. In a matter of six months, eAssist was able to implement and roll out a solution that has had a positive impact on the client's call center operations.'

Epicor Software Corp.
www.epicor.com
Product: Clientele CRM
The client reports, 'The new sales process has helped us establish best practices throughout our organization. With everyone in the company using the same process and the same milestones, sales forecasting has become a faster and more accurate process. Even more important, having a clear and up-to-date picture of the entire sales process gives our management the ability to respond quickly, identify and fix problems or spot opportunities and move to take advantage of them.'

Genesys
www.genesyslab.com
Product: Genesys Suite 6.5
'With Genesys, the average speed of answering a business-to-business phone call has gone from 41 seconds to 4 seconds. Before the installation, callers were on hold and hanging up after 1 minute, 18 seconds. The client has seen significant return on investment for both of its major contact centers. The operations group saved $988,000 in 2001, while the marketing group saved $975,000 in 2001 by implementing CRM technologies, including the Genesys 6 Suite of call center solutions and Genesys Framework. Under the old system, the company experienced an average of 2 minutes and 7 seconds of handling time, with an abandon rate of 17 percent. Today the agents, armed with screens that show customer information and history, are able to handle their customers' business in only 1 minute and 40 seconds on average. The abandon rate has plummeted to 2.6 percent.'

Linktivity, a division of SpartaCom Technologies
www.linktivity.com
Product: WebInteractive
'After the first three days in service, the cost of the WebInteractive implementation was offset by the revenue generated from the associated service level upgrades,' the client reports. 'By the end of the second week the implementation of WebInteractive had generated more than $2,500 in additional revenue from service level upgrades.'

Maximizer Software
www.maximizer.com
Product: Maximizer Enterprise
The client states, 'Maximizer Enterprise acts as the backbone for sales and marketing, providing a centralized hub for the collection and distribution of vital information between salesmen, customer service, marketing and management. When we first started looking for a CRM system, we realized that we needed a solution that had more functionality and that we could customize to our needs. We launched Maximizer Enterprise in 1999, have since upgraded to the latest version and have never looked back. We rely on it as the cornerstone to maintain our leadership position in the near and foreseeable future.'

Onyx Software
www.onyx.com
Product: Onyx Enterprise CRM Suite
'Streamlined processes have increased sales volume and significantly reduced administrative expenses. Costly paper processes and unnecessary handoffs between departments have been eliminated. Additionally, the ability to do instantaneous quotes is a significant competitive advantage for the business, allowing the client to compete in many more opportunities. But more importantly, what the client accomplished was a reduction in the size of their distribution channel and an increase in the channel's effectiveness while at the same time having a better educated, managed broker network. That has translated into more deal opportunities plus higher close rates, and it has allowed the company to more quickly turn quotes into contracts.'

Oracle Corp.
www.oracle.com
Product: Oracle E-Business Suite
'One of the client's biggest 'downstream' paybacks came in the form of a vastly improved customer service operation, which the company rolled out at the same time it launched its new contact management system. The client's new Client Service Center (CSC), based on Oracle Interaction Center and Service technology, replaced an outsourced call center that had mainly served to field customers' billing questions. The switch to Oracle was both a strategic move, since the company gained better control over customer relationships, and a cost-cutting initiative, since the company found it could now run the service center for less than what the outsourcer charged ' a $900,000 annual savings.'

ORCOM
www.orcom.com
Product: ORCOM E-CIS
'Since the enhanced training program was implemented, the retention of ORCOM's customer service representatives increased by 50 percent, resulting in an overall elevation in the skill level of the client's front line and achieving one of the client's highest priorities. In addition, the client, a natural gas company, has reaped the rewards from ORCOM's ability to sell value-added services, such as the Customer Appliance Protection Program (CAPP), an insurance program that offers monthly monitoring of major appliances, including furnaces, stoves and dishwashers, and provides a service technician for repairs when needed. In any given month, ORCOM's customer service representatives have been able to sell between 300 and 1000 CAPP plans. With ORCOM sales, the gas company has been able to fortify its program and combat customer drops, resulting in higher revenues.

Pegasystems
www.pega.com
Product: PegaINTEGRATED INVESTIGATIONS
The client, a cooperative of banks, reports, 'We chose to work with Pegasystems because they had the right technology solution to fit with our operational requirements and support our growing business. Pegasystems was able to demonstrate considerable experience in this market, and the functionality of its products met all our requirements. We now have a seamless and transparent investigations process, improved customer service, and reduced operational risk.'

Phase 2 Solutions, Inc.
www.phase2solutions.com
Service: Speech Recognition Program
'Through random samplings of live agents verifying the results of the speech recognition program, the identification success rate was 95.7 percent. The automation Phase 2 developed saves this client over $3.1 million per month in call processing and ultimately raised the level of service to their customers.'

Prosodie Interactive
www.prosodie.com
Product: RPM
The client states, 'What we were seeing was a large percentage of customers seemed to be zeroing out to our customer service reps. Through our analysis using RPM, we found that the information customers were looking to access was somewhat difficult to get to, so we pushed that information up to the front of the program and saw a huge drop in calls that transferred out to our customer agents.'

Pronexus, Inc.
www.pronexus.com
Product: Utilities OnCall
'The implementation of the automated IVR system resulted in a wide range of benefits. The new system led to a reduction of 80 percent in manual data entry, and to the automatic uploading of more than 95 percent of customer-communicated reads. In addition, the system eliminated significant workload issues that usually occurred following weekends and holidays, allowing for better work scheduling. Issues that previously caused meter reads to enter the system too late to be included on that month's billing have also been eliminated.'

Salesnet, Inc.
www.salesnet.com
Product: Salesnet Extended
The client was quoted as saying, 'Salesnet's focused CRM solution gives us the deep sales features we need to maintain consistency and effectiveness throughout our sales organization. Since using Salesnet, our sales team has a more defined pipeline, which allows us to forecast more accurately. In turn, this keeps sales goals in focus and helps us attain these goals faster. Ultimately, we sell more effectively and bring more revenue into the company.'

Siemens Enterprise Networks
www.icn.siemens.com
Products: HiPath ProCenter and HiPath Teleworking
'Since fewer calls are transferred, the abandon rate is down to 4 percent from 10 to 15 percent. Calls that used to be answered in 60 seconds or more are now picked up in less than 20 seconds, 'literally a world-class level,' reports the client. These results make customers happy, as has been indicated by customer surveys over the past year showing increased customer satisfaction with the call center.'

Telvista
www.telvista.com
Service: Telvista Customer Management System (TCMS)
'In addition to providing agents with the tools and data needed to quickly and effectively meet the needs of callers, Telvista implemented a fully automated post-call customer survey utilizing state-of-the-art IVR technology. Since this survey was initiated in July 2002, results show that customer satisfaction has consistently exceeded 90 percent. At the same time, first-call resolution has climbed to more than 95 percent. Although the total number of inbound calls increased from 684 to 5,411 between April and July 2002, the client's per-call costs fell by 45 percent during the same period and have since remained steady despite moderate growth.'

Unica Corp.
www.unicacorp.com
Product: Affinium
'Since its first year with Affinium, the client continues to realize return on investment on the total cost of projects (i.e., in-house labor), software upgrades, implementation and Unica consulting by having more data available for more effective targeting, as well as less manually driven processes and easier ways to suppress and segment its customer base. The client has also recognized significant savings by eliminating catalog mailings to unproductive customer segments.'

UniPress Software, Inc.
www.unipress.com
Product: FootPrints
'With FootPrints, the client provides faster service and support to its customers. More than 500 tickets were addressed within the first 4 months. With constant access to support, users have become more comfortable using the client's system, and are more self-sufficient by resolving most problems on their own. The client has also become much more proactive in responding to requests. At the same time, customers are equally proactive in answering their own questions, submitting requests and getting the information they need, when they need it.'

Upshot Corp.
www.upshot.com
Product: UpShot XE
The client reports, 'UpShot has excellent functionality, providing personalized views for every company representative in all of our lines of business. This is the type of customization that Siebel provides, but UpShot does so without the astronomical cost to maintain and modify the application as needs change.'

Voice Mail Broadcasting Corp. (VMBC)
www.vmbc.com
Product: IVM (Interactive Voice Messaging)
'The client, a financial services company, has achieved quarter over quarter record cross-sell and upsell growth. The contribution made by VMBC's CRM initiatives is a key component of that growth. The company's direct mail CRM efforts have had their response rates increase by over 100 percent by pre-calling with a voice message through VMBC's service. '

VocalCom
www.vocalcom.com
Product: Hermes Pro INTER@CTIVE
'HERMES INTER@CTIVE allows the client to make an instantaneous and automated link between the Web surfer and the company, which makes it an ideal convergence between call centers and Web sites. Thanks to HERMES INTER@CTIVE, the Web site shows a real commercial dimension, by offering a link in real-time. HERMES INTER@CTIVE is adapted to the company, there is no modification needed in the structure of the Web site, nor in the telephone installations.'