MemberWorks Selects Lucent Technologies to Provide $4 Million Data and Voice Network and Customer Relationship Management Solutions

Business Wire, March 8, 2000

Business & Technology Editors

OMAHA, Neb.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 8, 2000

Lucent Enterprise Offerings Being Deployed At New Omaha

Operations And Customer Care Center with

Other Locations to Follow

Lucent Technologies (NYSE:LU) today announced that MemberWorks, Inc. (Nasdaq: MBRS) has selected Lucent's communications solutions to support its customer care, corporate, and operations centers.

Valued at over $4 million, Lucent's sophisticated customer relationship management (CRM), voice and data networking applications will enable MemberWorks to better serve customers and reach new levels in networking speed and intelligence.

MemberWorks, Inc., a leading provider of consumer and membership services, recently opened a new operations and customer care center in Omaha, Nebraska. The new site adds to an existing customer care center in Houston to support MemberWorks' growing business, with another new customer care center scheduled to open in Montreal in May 2000. Lucent will equip all three locations, in addition to the company headquarters in Stamford, Connecticut as well as MemberWorks' subsidiary locations.

"Our operations center is the technological core of our enterprise and our customer care centers keep us in business by helping us build and sustain close relationships with our customers," said Gary Johnson, President and Chief Executive Officer of MemberWorks. "It was important to choose a vendor on which we could depend for reliability and functionality. We know Lucent can provide that dependability with outstanding value in the long run."

Lucent's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Solutions portfolio provides MemberWorks with intelligent call routing via CentreVu(R) Advocate. Using predictive algorithms developed by Bell Labs, Advocate enables MemberWorks to match customer contacts with the resource best equipped to handle the calls. With Advocate, MemberWorks provides heightened levels of customer service, balances workloads in the customer care centers more effectively, and simplifies customer contact management.

For management tools that help keep call center performance at its peak, MemberWorks installed Lucent's CentreVu Call Management System (CMS). CentreVu CMS, an integrated analysis and reporting program, provides over 100 real-time and historical reports on all aspects of call center activity. Using CentreVu CMS, MemberWorks can monitor call center performance with a broad view of activity at individual or combined sites, or focus on a single agent or skill group.

MemberWorks selected Lucent's flagship DEFINITY(R) Enterprise Communications Server (ECS) as the communications platform at all company locations. The DEFINITY ECS enables MemberWorks to choose its preferred communications protocol, whether it's moving voice, video and data over the Internet, its intranet, the public switched network or ATM. DEFINITY helps MemberWorks meet the demands of e-business, while providing the dependability and reliability typically found in traditional communications.

Data Networking

At the core of MemberWorks' Omaha data network are three of Lucent's award-winning Cajun(TM) P550(TM) Routing Switches, fault-tolerant, modular chassis-based platforms that propel data at speeds up to 1,000 megabits, or one gigabit, per second. The P550 is a high-capacity, multilayer-capable (Layer 2 switching; Layer 3 routing) Ethernet switch designed for campus-wide backbones and high-density, high-performance wiring closets.

Also being deployed as part of this data networking infrastructure are 36 Cajun P333T Switches and six Cajun P333R Switches, both members of Lucent's Cajun P330(TM) Switching System family, a next-generation stackable switch line that enables customers to install sophisticated local area network (LAN) solutions at cost-effective price points. The P333T offers 24 ports of 10/100 Mbps Ethernet connectivity, and includes a front expansion slot that accepts a variety of optional modules that provide 16 additional 10/100 ports, two ports of Fiber Fast Ethernet, or either one or two Gigabit Ethernet ports. The Model P333R includes all of the same functionality as the P333T, and adds up to one million packets per second of integrated, standards-based, Layer 3 Internet Protocol (IP) routing plus advanced policy networking capabilities.

"After evaluating enterprise data networking products from all the usual suspects, we selected Lucent's Cajun Campus solutions for our operations center because their reliability, performance and overall value knocked all the others out of the ballpark," said George Vogel, Vice President, Customer Service of MemberWorks. "We put the Cajun switches through every possible configuration, and the results were simply outstanding. As a result, we have ourselves one fast, smart network, and we plan to go with Lucent's data networking switches at all our locations as we move forward."

MemberWorks, Inc.

Headquartered in Stamford, Conn., MemberWorks is a leader in bringing value to consumers by designing innovative programs that offer services and discounts on everyday needs in healthcare, personal finance, insurance, travel, entertainment, computing, fashion, and personal security. As of December 31, 1999, 5.8 million members are enrolled in MemberWorks programs, gaining convenient access to thousands of service providers and vendors. MemberWorks is the trusted marketing partner of leading consumer-driven organizations, and offers them effective tools to enhance their market presence, to strengthen customer affinity, and to generate additional revenue.