ICT GROUP Renews Strategic Alliance With ALLTEL; Extended Partner Agreement Expands Joint CRM Services Offering

Business Wire, Dec 20, 2000

Business Editors/Hi-Tech Writers

LANGHORNE, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 20, 2000

ICT GROUP, INC. (NASDAQ:ICTG), a leading global provider of customer relationship management (CRM) services, and ALLTEL Information Services announced today that they have renewed their strategic alliance agreement.

Since becoming alliance partners in 1997, ICT GROUP and ALLTEL have jointly provided CRM services for nine major clients within the financial services, lending, mortgage and telecommunications industries.

Together, ICT GROUP and ALLTEL have served mortgage servicing providers among the top 20 in the United States and several of the world's largest national and international banks as well as local exchange telecommunications carriers and business-based digital communications and application service providers.

Clients have experienced improved service and quality as well as reduced operating costs for their CRM customer care solutions, using the alliance offering.

"We are pleased to extend our alliance with ALLTEL," said John D. Campbell, President of Sales and Marketing for ICT GROUP. "Together, we have been able to offer highly targeted CRM solutions with industry-specialized contact center and technical consulting services, a powerful combination that has proven to be successful in terms of both satisfied clients and increased revenues."

ICT GROUP and ALLTEL jointly manage CRM programs using interconnected host systems, which significantly reduces operating costs and minimizes the upfront capital investment required for implementation.

Additionally, because each company's training, operations management and quality assurance personnel are specialized in using these systems, clients experience increased productivity and improved service levels and customer satisfaction.

ICT GROUP and ALLTEL can jointly support full outsourced CRM initiatives as well as select inquiry handling, managing a client's entire customer sales or service application or responding to Level I and Level II calls only.

Programs managed jointly through the alliance draw upon the industry's best practices, including ALLTEL's TEMPO (Technology, Environment, Management, People, Operational Alternatives) methodology as well as ICT GROUP's standardized ISO-9002 procedures, ensuring consistent quality and service performance.

About ICT GROUP:

ICT GROUP, headquartered in Langhorne, Pa., is a leading global provider of customer relationship management (CRM) services. The company helps clients identify, acquire, retain, service, measure and maximize the lifetime value of their customer relationships.

The company manages CRM service operations in the U.S., Europe, Canada and Australia from which it supports domestic and multinational corporations and institutions, primarily in the financial, insurance, telecommunications, healthcare, information technology, media, energy and hospitality industries as well as a growing base of e-business providers.

ICT GROUP also offers a full suite of hosted CRM services, for use by clients at their own in-house facility or on a co-sourced basis in conjunction with ICT GROUP 's fully compatible Web-enabled customer contact centers. To learn more about ICT GROUP, visit the company's Web site at www.ictgroup.com.

About ALLTEL:

Forty-eight of the top 50 U.S. banks rely on ALLTEL's products and services. ALLTEL provides loan servicing automation for more than 20 million mortgage loans, with balances exceeding $2 trillion. Additionally, more than 34 percent of the total dollar volume of outstanding U.S. consumer loans, including mortgages, is processed on ALLTEL Information Services' software applications.

ALLTEL, with more than 10 million communications customers, almost $7 billion in annual revenues and more than 26,000 employees, is a leader in the communications and information services industries. ALLTEL has communications customers in 24 states and provides information services to telecommunications, financial and mortgage clients in 55 countries and territories.

ALLTEL, NYSE: AT

www.alltel.com

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements that are subject to substantial risks and uncertainties. Whenever possible, forward-looking statements are preceded by, followed by or include the words "believes," "expects," "estimates," "anticipates," or "plans," or similar expressions which speak only as of the date the statement is made.

ICT GROUP assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statements. For such statements, ICT GROUP claims the protection of the safe harbor for forward-looking statements contained in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

Actual events or results of operation and financial condition may differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements as a result of various factors, including without limitation, those discussed in ICT GROUP's annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1999, and other documents such as Form 10-Q and 8-K reports filed by ICT GROUP with the Securities and Exchange Commission.