August 2002

Part II

EDITOR'S NOTE: Because of the volume of awards applications we received, the CRM Excellence Awards will be presented in two parts. Go To Part I...

We, the editors of Customer Inter@ction Solutions', have been gratified to discover that our CRM Excellence Award, given annually in a summer issue, has become so sought after an accolade, entries came pouring in from all sides of the call center, CRM and teleservices markets. As a result, we have found it necessary to expand our winners' list to honor all the companies we judged worthy to bear our mark of excellence.

On the following pages, you will find the second part of the winners' list (part one was presented in the July 2002 issue), complete with company contact information and a sampling of the results we used to judge the winners as CRM Excellence recipients. Congratulations to all.

Active Decisions
Rick Maddox
[email protected]
Ph: 650-762-2536
Web: www.activedecisions.com
Product: Active Sales Assistant
Client reports, 'We expect our investment in Active Sales Assistant to generate returns in one year of more than 10 times what we spent.'

APAC Customer Services, Inc.
Susan M. Millspaugh
[email protected]
Ph: 847-374-1983
Web: www.apaccustomerservices.com
Service provider
Results to the client included labor arbitrage reducing all ongoing operating costs by creating more competitive salary structures, a savings of nearly $3.7 million dollars annually in facility costs alone, and a reduction of total operating expenses for the client by nearly $7 million annually.

Aspect Communications
Karla Di Grazia
[email protected]
Ph: 408-325-2914
Web: www.aspect.com
Aspect Enterprise Contact Server
The return on investment is in line with the client's expectations, with Web sales hitting initial sales goals within three months of deployment, self-service capabilities delivering efficiencies and reductions in overhead, and cost per sale expected to decrease.

CenterForce Technologies, Inc.
Manuela Hensman
[email protected]
Ph: 301-272-2244
Web: www.cforcetech.com
Product: CenterForce Optimizer
'Our agents are thrilled with CenterForce Optimizer,' the client reports. 'We involved them in our discussions before we installed the system, so they knew we were investigating ways we could help them be more successful. Now all of our agents are meeting their goals, which means more money in their pockets as the result of productivity incentives. That helps us remain competitive in a tight labor market.'

Clarkston Consulting
Sara Sondecker
[email protected]
Ph: 919-484-4442
Web: www.clarkstonconsulting.com
Consulting services
'In only a few weeks, Clarkston had built a pilot program that greatly improved the efficiency of the client's sales force, providing them with immediate access to data that previously took them up to four hours to retrieve. The new system gave the sales force the ability to access real-time information on customer order status and tracking, which they previously could only access by contacting support staff in multiple departments within the company.'

ClientLogic
Channing Rollo
[email protected]
Ph: 615-301-7145
Web: www.clientlogic.com
Service provider
For one of its clients, ClientLogic reversed the company's answering metrics. After implementation of ClientLogic services, less than 7 percent of calls are abandoned; over 93 percent are answered. Eighty percent of calls are answered within 30 seconds and customer satisfaction rating is consistently 70 percent or higher.

Entel Call Center
Juan Carlos Lorca V
[email protected]
Ph: 305-717-0437
Web: www.entelcallcenter.com
Service: Americatel
'Today the average call times are being significantly reduced based on historical data now available to agents. Additional call-backs into the center have also been reduced based upon the agent's ability to service customers across disciplines and service functions.'

EnvoyWorldWide, Inc.
Nancy Liberman
[email protected]
Ph: 781-482-2132
Web: www.envoyww.com
Product: EnvoyXpress
'ROI has been significant: By automating this once-manual communications process, the client is now regularly able to reach three times as many customers regarding late or non-payment and has freed trained and licensed customer service representatives for more complex inbound customer inquiries. Additionally, the number of customers whose policies have been cancelled due to non-payment is 29 percent less than the previous year.'

E.piphany, Inc.
Kim Stocks
[email protected]
Ph: 650-356-5863
Web: www.epiphany.com
Product: E.piphany Real Time
The client reported a 75 percent increase in campaign velocity ' by integrating campaign creation, segmentation and execution workflow within a single Web-based application; an 18 percent increase in top users' sales per hour; and a 16 percent increase in sales revenue.

Escotel Mobile Communications, India
Mr. Srivalsan Pillai
[email protected]
Ph: +91-11- 695-9364, ext. 272
Web: www.escotelmobile.com
Service provider
'When results were analyzed, over 90 percent of customers who were advised, enrolled. The revenue from these customers increased dramatically, and the churn rate of these customers dropped from the normal 1.2 percent per month to below 0.05 percent.'

eTelecare International
Natalie Fischer
[email protected]
Ph: 626-256-7584
Web: www.etelecare.com
Service provider
Due to eTelecare's lower pricing structure and powerful data reporting, the client reduced costs by 54 percent, saving $100,000 per year by deploying 20 customer service agents through eTelecare.

IEX, a Tekelec company
Nancy Zimmermann
[email protected]
Ph: 972-301-4847
Web: www.iex.com
Product: TotalView Workforce Management
Prior to implementing TotalView, turnover was a big issue for the client and from 1999 to 2001, the company has reduced resignations by 42.6 percent. Over the last two years, the client company has avoided hiring and training 47 employees at a cost $6,000 per new employee, which amounts to an overall cost savings of $282,000.

Interactive Intelligence Inc.
Christine Holley
[email protected]
Ph: 317-872-3000
Web: www.inin.com
Product: Customer Interaction Center (CIC)
The client uses CIC's IVR to support approximately 130 agents processing, on average, 10,000 inbound and outbound interactions per day. The company cites a 24 percent reduction in live agent call handling ' a 24 percent increase in capacity ' resulting from the new system's ability to effectively match IVR criteria with the appropriate routing destination. When this percentage is calculated based on agent cost, the company cites a savings of approximately $1.4 million in 2001 alone.

interlinkONE, Inc.
Michael Lewis
[email protected]
Ph: 978-694-9992, ext. 32
Web: www.interlinkone.com
Product: ilinkCRM Gateway
Users comment, 'The great thing about this is that even in its non-fully functional form, [ilinkCRM Gateway] is a thousand times better than what we had before.'

Intraspect Software
Erin Bingham
Ph: 650-246-5200
Web: www.intraspect.com
Product: Intraspect 5 Applications
Client saved $60,000 by capturing knowledge from seasoned employees before they left, eliminating the cost of hiring a consultant to fill the knowledge gap. The system helps new employees get up to speed faster, reducing ramp-up time by as much as 75 percent.

KANA
Sales dept.
Ph: 800-737-8738
Web: www.kana.com
Product: KANA IQ
Based on the success the client has experienced with KANA IQ, the company recently deployed several knowledge bases for internal use and has already experienced a significant increase in usage. The client attributes much of the success to the product's functionality and plans on additional KANA IQ deployments in the coming months.

Knowlagent
Caran Snitz
[email protected]
Ph: 678-356-3465
Web: www.knowlagent.com
Product: KnowDev/Virtual Customer
The client reported, 'Within the first six months of using the Knowlagent platform, monthly sales almost doubled, increasing from $2.45 million to $4.41 million per month.'

KnowledgeBase Solutions Inc.
Jill Lindenbaum
[email protected]
Ph: 415-305-1626
Web: www.knowledgebase.net
Product: KnowledgeBase.net Hosted Edition v2.6
With KnowledgeBase.net, the client's support team reduced call-backs by 25 percent in the first two months of use. Now, customer issues are resolved more quickly, bringing the team closer to the goal of 100 percent accuracy.

Primus
Kate Ord
[email protected]
Ph: 206-834-8438
Web: www.primus.com
Product: Primus eServer, Primus eSupport
Client estimates a six-month payback period and pre-tax earnings per share increase of 15 cents due to the Primus deployment.

SAS Institute
Diane Lennox
[email protected]
Ph: 919-531-7401
Web: www.sas.com
Product: SAS Customer Relationship Management Solution
SAS CRM enabled the client to save more than $1 million in the first year alone by reducing the need for data-conversion outsourcing. It has also helped to increase sales through effective product bundling to the customers it has gained or retained.

Talisma Corporation
Jerry Johnson
[email protected]
Ph: 425-897-3281
Web: www.talisma.com
Product: Talisma CRM Suite
Last quarter, the client reported a 5,000 percent increase in sales and at least 40 percent of those sales have been directly attributed to using the Talisma CRM Suite.

Telephony@Work
Lance Fried
[email protected]
Ph: 858-410-4389
Web: www.telephonyatwork.com
Product: CallCenter@nyhwhere
'The business has certainly prospered by becoming more cost effective and customer friendly with the addition of CallCenter@nywhere,' reported the client. 'It is now believed to be an integral component in our customer service and relationship management strategy.'

Teradata, a division of NCR
Beth Ann Konves
[email protected]
Ph: 937-445-5000
Web: www.teradata.com
Product: Teradata CRM
Client reports that its primary sources of ROI are cost savings through more effective, targeted marketing programs and increased revenue and profitability by making relevant, timely offers to customers through their preferred channel.

Unica Corporation
Carol Meyers
[email protected]
Ph: 781-259-5900
Web: www.unicacorp.com
Product: Affinium
Client reported that in total, 180 percent more targeted customer contacts were generated from marketing campaigns compared to the previous 12-month period, resulting in almost nine million customer contacts. The client's campaigns continue to yield response rates of over 20 percent and have produced an average return on investment of over 100 percent.

UpShot Corporation
Paul Gross
[email protected]
Ph: 650-623-2251
Web: www.upshot.com
Product: UpShot InVision Forecasting
Client reports, 'UpShot's InVision Forecasting helps us determine exactly where all our deals are in the sales pipeline, recognize positive or negative patterns, and change selling strategies accordingly.'

Vertical Solutions, Inc. (VSI)
Ron Wegmann, Jr.
[email protected]
Ph: 513-891-7997, ext. 322
Web: www.vertsol.com
Product: PowerHelp Millennium
Client reports, 'By implementing the Powerhelp CRM system for our 150 agents, we were able to reduce our total call handling time by over 5 percent during a period of increasingly complex issues for our clients. The system also allowed us to expand our offerings to current and future customers.'

Vytek Messaging Services Division (formerly Telamon)
Susan Trout
[email protected]
Ph: 510-987-7700, ext. 105
Web: www.vytek.com
Product: TelAlert Urgent Messaging System
The client, an airline, estimates that TelAlert UMS paid for itself in less than three months ' reducing revenue losses caused by downtime in the reservation system and Web booking system. It cut the airline's telephone connection charges by sending multiple messages in a single dial-up connection to the airline's paging service providers. In the year following the implementation, the airline received the lowest number of customer complaints of any major U.S. airline.

Witness Systems
Anne Patton
[email protected]
Ph: 770-754-8656
Web: www.witness.com
Product: eQuality
After just six months, the client, an airline, has seen significant returns on its eQuality investment, including an eight percent increase in e-ticket sales and a 22 percent increase in vendor transfer programs (i.e., car rentals). The airline wants to implement similar QA processes to guide agents who interact with customers via e-mail and the Web.