Aspect Communications Unveils Web Interaction for eBusiness; Enables companies to increase revenues by integrating eCommerce and eCRM with the contact center

Business Wire, April 11, 2000

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Business/Technology Editors

SAN JOSE, Calif.--April 11, 2000--(BUSINESS WIRE)

Aspect Communications Corporation (Nasdaq: ASPT), the leading provider of customer relationship portals, today unveiled Aspect(R) Web Interaction, an interactive customer contact solution designed to help businesses with eCommerce Web sites increase revenue and improve customer satisfaction. Web Interaction gives customers browsing a Web site new options for communicating with contact center agents and conducting business online. In addition, through integration with the Aspect Customer Relationship Portal, the software allows for the application of business rules to Web interactions and allows integration with existing front- and back- office systems and customer databases. Web Interaction also queues Web transactions to the same agents handling phone and e-mail queries.

Web Interaction enables online customers to browse Web sites unassisted and, as support is required, interact directly with service representatives. Customers who require assistance while shopping on the Web can request it at the point of interest on the site. This results in fewer abandoned transactions, higher buy-transaction completion rates and improved customer loyalty. The software enables the customer to request assistance via IP telephony, voice over IP, callback request or text chat. Web Interaction incorporates Internet standards to provide shared browsing and collaborative capabilities such as page markup, many-to-many conferencing and joint form completion.

"The hardest part of any customer Web interaction is reacting in real time to a buy request or a service request," said David Puglia, Aspect vice president, Product Marketing. "Customers abandon roughly two-thirds of all Web transactions due to lack of on-line assistance. On the Web you've got to be able to react in real time to the customer eBusiness life cycle of `see it - want it - buy it - use it' and handle this customer context accordingly. Apect Web Interaction and the Aspect Portal provide the foundation for handling both eCommerce and eCRM customer requests with one seamless solution."

"As eCommerce continues to grow, businesses cannot afford to lose customers due to poor customer service," said Dieter Durr, managing director of Ascena Communication Services. "Web Interaction allows us to offer customer assistance at exactly the right moment. Our customers have the power to purchase online coupled with the option to obtain help from a service representative at their convenience."

"There are new requirements for customer service over the Internet today," said Ralf Thomas, managing director, Sales & Innovation, ConTakt Marketing im Dialog. "With so many options for online shoppers, a company needs to implement a system that gives customers the freedom to search by themselves as well as the ability to receive support on demand. Web Interaction gives us the opportunity to provide additional assistance to close a transaction before it's lost to a competitor somewhere in cyberspace."

Just as Web Interaction provides a new way for customers to contact businesses, multimedia-enabled contact centers make Web commerce more effective. The Aspect Portal Multimedia application and the CMI(TM) software capabilities of the Aspect Customer Relationship Portal extend CTI functions -- such as screen pop, advanced skill-based routing and queuing -- to Web transactions and e-mail. The Aspect Portal also enables application of business rules to the routing and prioritizing of multimedia contacts. Agents responding to Web contacts have access to customer data from other applications so they can deliver more personalized service. Web contacts can be routed based on skill sets, workload distribution strategies, customer profiles or other criteria important to the business.

Aspect Web Interaction supports call center systems from Aspect, Lucent and Nortel.

The Aspect Customer Relationship Portal

The Aspect Customer Relationship Portal allows companies to build eCRM applications that integrate front- and back-office systems, eCommerce applications and multimedia contact centers into one centrally managed eBusiness system. The Aspect Portal Multimedia application unifies and personalizes customer interactions across Web, phone, fax and e-mail to identify, qualify, cross-sell, up-sell and route customers in real time. The Aspect Customer Relationship Portal was named a Best of Show award winner at the Fall '99 Communications Solutions Expo (formerly CTI Expo) and received Product of the Year in the "Multimedia Customer Contact Portal" category from C@LL CENTER CRM Solutions magazine.

Aspect Communications

Aspect Communications Corporation is the leading provider of customer relationship portals, a software platform for building and deploying eCRM applications that enable businesses to ensure consistent interactions with their customers from one centrally managed eBusiness system. Aspect's leadership position in customer relationship management solutions is based on its 14-year history and more than 7,300 customer contact center implementations. Aspect is headquartered in San Jose, Calif., with offices in major cities worldwide. For more information about Aspect call 1-888-412-7728.