[September 07, 2011]

Merkle Response Management Group Earns ISO 9001 Recertification

Merkle (www.merkleinc.com), the nation's fastest-growing customer relationship marketing (CRM) agency, announced that its Response Management Group (RMG) has been recertified under the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 9001:2008 standard. The extension of RMG's certification demonstrates its continued commitment to its Quality Management System by applying stringent quality standards in its mail processing, contact center, and fulfillment services.

The three-year extension was granted in July after an independent accreditation/certification body, Smithers Quality Assessments, Inc, reviewed RMG's processes and verified that they are in compliance with the strict ISO standards of quality management and assurance. The standards include: development of procedures to cover all key processes in the business, monitoring processes to ensure efficiency, detailed recordkeeping, regular review of all procedures, and ongoing efforts to facilitate improvement of services. Merkle Response is the only remittance processor certified to ISO 9001:2008 in the United States. RMG has been certified since 2002.

"At Merkle Response, we strive to continuously improve our processes and we're always looking for ways to raise the bar on the service we provide to our clients," said RMG President, Bill Sayre. "ISO compliance is an important means for us to ensure first-rate quality management processes that deliver better than industry-standard quality in terms of accuracy, on-time delivery, and oter important service metrics."

RMG has an internal Quality Assurance Team that performs daily audits and implements quality improvement initiatives. To maintain its certification the company is required to go through a surveillance audit performed by an external independent auditor each year. Every third year companies wishing to retain their ISO certification must go through a rigorous recertification audit that is conducted by an external independent auditor and in the case of RMG takes five days to complete.

Dr. Mustafa Sefik, Merkle's director of quality assurance, oversees the company's ISO compliance and quality assurance initiatives. "Maintaining ISO standards requires a passionate commitment to quality for companies seeking to be the best in their industry. Through its certification and all that it represents, Merkle Response is showing that we are world-class in delivering exceptional donation and payment processing solutions," said Dr. Sefik. "A key to our success is that we have ISO compliant written procedures for each of our nearly 200 clients that documents the unique business rules and processes that we follow for each of them. Demonstrating compliance with the ISO 9001: 2008 standard is a clear differentiator for us in the marketplace."

About Merkle's Response Management Group

Founded in 1983, Merkle's Response Management Group is one of the largest direct response processing companies in the country. Last year Merkle Response processed over 36 million transactions through its modern 125,000 square foot facility in Hagerstown, Maryland. The Response Management Group is dedicated to providing complete direct response processing and fulfillment solutions, including caging, data capture, imaging, call center, email management, acknowledgment printing and mailing, and premium fulfillment services. The organization currently supports the donation processing needs of more than 170 nonprofit clients and also provides integrated payment processing, data capture, customer service, and fulfillment services to dozens of government and commercial clients. Learn more at www.merkleresponseservices.com.

About Merkle

Merkle is the nation's largest and fastest growing customer relationship marketing agency. For more than 20 years, Fortune 1000 companies and leading nonprofit organizations have partnered with Merkle to maximize the value of their customer portfolios. By combining a complete range of marketing, technical, analytical and creative disciplines, Merkle works with clients to design, execute and evaluate Integrated Customer Marketing^TM programs. With more than 1,400 employees, the privately held corporation is headquartered near Baltimore in Columbia, Maryland with additional offices in Boston; Chicago; Denver; Little Rock; Minneapolis; New York; Philadelphia; Seattle; Hagerstown, MD and Shanghai. For more information, contact Merkle at 1-877-9-Merkle or visit www.merkleinc.com.

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