[June 08, 2004] Customer Care Users Name Astute as Best Contact Management Solution for the Fourth Consecutive Year; Astute Wins Gold Best-In-Class Award from CRMAdvocate COLUMBUS, Ohio --(Business Wire)-- June 8, 2004 -- Astute Solutions(R), a leading provider of customer interaction solutions, has been named a winner in the Sixth Annual Users Choice Awards, sponsored by CRMAdvocate. End users chose Astute's PowerCenter (TM) as the best contact center management solution. This is the fourth consecutive year Astute has received this Gold Best-in-Class Award. The Users Choice Awards is the only awards program in which customer relationship management (CRM) products are judged by the end user. The awards are presented in multiple categories throughout the year including contact center, sales, marketing, service/support and CRM suites. "Being selected by the end users for this honor four years in a row is a strong indicator that we are providing the best customer care product on the market," said Joseph M. Sanda, chief executive officer of Astute Solutions. "We've made significant investments in our technology to help our customers attain the highest quality of customer service to increase satisfaction and loyalty." Astute's customer care solutions, including PowerCenter, integrate multiple communications channels and provide powerful data and reporting collection capabilities to help organizations resolve issues quickly, provide high levels of service, and provide valuable data to the organization. With Astute, customer-focused organizations have a complete view of their customers, empowering them to improve relationships and increase retention. "We help the companies we work with become the standard for quality customer care in their respective industries," Sanda said. "We do this by offering them the right mix of best practices, expertise, technology and continuously evolving our solutions to meet their needs. Consistently winning honors from our users is validation that we are fulfilling our promises to customers." In its sixth year, the Users Choice Awards were the first CRM awards in which end users served as judges to identify the products offering the most value. RealMarket was the founder of the awards and now serves as the program administrator. "In these days where providing ROI is imperative, there is no greater testimony than this," said Gary Lemke, president of RealMarket. "These winners are obviously doing a number of things well to receive such high praise from their customers." About Astute Solutions Astute Solutions, a leading provider of customer interaction solutions, helps companies leverage Internet and telephony solutions for a completely integrated customer relationship and information management solution. Astute works with several key industries, including retail, food, financial, automotive, transportation, medical, pharmaceutical, travel, and durable and non-durable goods manufacturers. Clients include Global 1000 companies such as McDonald's Corporation, Levi Strauss & Co., Georgia Pacific Corp., GlaxoSmithKline, Michelin, Clopay Corporation, The Toro Company, The Scotts Company, Porter-Cable Corporation, Nestle' USA, Kraft Foods, and L'Oreal USA Products, Inc. The company has been awarded the Customer Inter@ction Solutions Magazine's 2001 Product of the Year Award and has received the Real Market's Users Choice Award for four consecutive years beginning in 2001. Astute Solutions is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, and may be reached at 1-877-POWER50, [email protected] or on the Web at www.astutesolutions.com. About CRMAdvocate CRMAdvocate (www.crmadvocate.com) represents a group of forward-thinking individuals who, along with their companies, share a commitment to help grow and mature the market through leadership in education and research. In short, the CRMAdvocate program seeks to create a more receptive and larger market for CRM solutions by focusing on success via case studies, success stories and best-in-breed CRM strategies. Currently, CRMAdvocate has more than 1,100 success stories than can be searched by vertical industry, application, geography, size of installation and keyword. CRMAdvocate includes an elite list of industry stakeholders: industry analysts, associations, publications, event producers, solution providers, and leading Web destinations including Advanstar, FSMI, Consortium for Service Innovation, CRM Association, CRM Magazine, CRMXchange, DCI, Help Desk Institute, STI Knowledge Help Desk Community, Integrated Solutions Magazine, Peppers and Rogers Group, RealMarket and SearchCRM. About RealMarket RealMarket is the definitive and most complete source of information concerning technologies, strategies and trends for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Contact Centers. Providing real-time and on-demand industry news, web casts, case studies, white papers, research and product information, RealMarket allows end-users, editors, research analysts, system integrators, consultants and others to stay current on industry trends. RealMarket is headquartered in Indianapolis, Indiana (www.realmarket.com). [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]