TouchStar (News - Alert), one of the fastest growing call center solutions providers in the industry, has been awarded the 2008 Collection Technology Excellence award from Collection Technology magazine.

The award recognizes “individuals and companies within the call center industry who have gone above and beyond to further collection technology and its associated community.” Winners are chosen based on nominations by industry executives and with careful consideration by the senior editorial staff of Collection Technology and the Collection Technology Summit Board of Advisors.

TouchStar was presented with the award during the Collection Technology Summit, held Jan. 29, in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

"It is an honor to be recognized again for our contributions in the collections industry,” said Steve Bederman (News - Alert), CEO of TouchStar, in a press release. “We earned this award for excellence because we are focused on providing world class products and services. Our core value of ‘honoring our clients’ trust in choosing us’ drives our continuous improvement.”

TouchStar claims to offer the “number one collections communications system” and plans to roll out additional products geared for the collections industry in 2008.

TouchStar has also received awards from Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine (www.cismag.com), INTERNET TELEPHONY magazine (www.tmcnet.com/voip), and Collection Advisor magazine for outstanding quality and innovation in its call center and unified communications technology.

TouchStar's COO, Rick Morris pointed out that throughout TouchStar’s meteoric rise in the call center industry during the past three years “we've listened to the needs of our customers and not only delivered breakthrough solutions for the collections industry, but also followed up with great service and support.”

The company -- which has acquired three direct competitors in the past three years, significantly expanding its portfolio and broadening its reach -- just recently launched its new 2008 Enterprise Call Center System, which provides enterprise scalability, redundancy and functionality to connect thousands of call center agents in multiple locations anywhere in the world. The introduction of this new platform marks TouchStar’s entry into the Tier One enterprise market. According to the company, the new system offers functionality which is critical to modern call centers seeking to expand their use of remote labor resources and unified communications. Interfacing options include a new Application Programming Interface (API), an updated Microsoft (News - Alert) SQL database structure, several new web services, and a scripting tool that can connect to multiple real time data sources. In addition it offers the security and regulatory compliance requirements that are essential for enterprise clients.

TouchStar also recently introduced its new TouchStar Unify product – and standalone module facilitating “affordable unified communications” for SMBs and enterprises. This standalone module can be used to unify all of an organization’s communications systems, regardless of type. In other words, a company can unify its call center system, IP-PBX, email system and Web chat into one single system. The Unify system delivers click-to-call, click-to-email and click-to-chat capabilities – and additionally it automatically logs any activity, regardless of which system the activity originates from. So, for example, a Fortune 500 company with 50 different locations and 50 different PBXs, can, by hosting Unify on a separate server, unify all of its communications, thus streamlining communications, boosting employee productivity, and saving a bundle on communications costs.

TouchStar is reportedly in the process of expanding its IP PBX product line and has several new product releases planned for 2008.

Privately held (and apparently well-funded) TouchStar made news on TMCnet earlier this week when it announced that it had secured additional financing from SVB Silicon Valley Bank, a leading commercial bank which lends to technology and life science companies.

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