American Home Mortgage Networks Web-Enabled Contact Centers With Alcatel's Omni Solutions

Business Wire, July 29, 2002

Business Editors & High-Tech Writers

CALABASAS, Calif. & MELVILLE, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 29, 2002

Alcatel Helps Nation's Leading Mortgage Banker Deliver Better

Customer Service, Greater Productivity and Increased Efficiencies

Alcatel (NYSE:ALA) announced that American Home Mortgage Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ:AHMH), an independent retail mortgage banking company, is upgrading its three MortgageSelect.com call centers with Alcatel's OmniPCX 4400 IP-PBX and integrated contact center package to create a networked virtual contact center with multimedia support capabilities for efficient handling of customer contacts.

American Home originates and sells mortgage loans through its MortgageSelect.com Web site. American Home's "bricks and clicks" strategy combines convenience of online loan application with the personal contact with traditional loan officers to deliver better customer service and greater productivity in the workplace.

"A distributed virtual contact center based on Alcatel's product suite will provide us with redundancy to ensure maximum uptime for our customers. We can overflow calls from one center to another in the event of a volume spike, natural disaster or power failure," said Chris Cavaco, chief information officer, American Home Mortgage. "With the virtual contact center, we can also spread call center agents across different time zones to more effectively increase our hours of service."

American Home currently uses the Alcatel Contact Center Interactive Voice Response (CCIVR) to provide callers with fast and easy access to information and services. The IVR system integrates with a Microsoft SQL customer database so callers can be routed to an agent they have talked to previously or an appropriate agent by entering their account information or telephone number. With skills-based routing, new callers can be routed to agents with the right skill requirements based on language skills and location.

"In a high-touch industry such as mortgage banking, it is important for customers to reach live agents regardless of the method of communication -- telephone, email, text chat or Web collaboration," said Tom Wilburn, general manager, Alcatel North America enterprise business. "Alcatel's contact center solution allows companies like American Home Mortgage to easily extend customer service to the Internet with its multimedia capabilities and expand customer support with a flexible contact center platform."

By utilizing the automated email distribution component, American Home offers consumers the convenience of contacting a live agent from its MortgageSelect.com website. Consumers can request for the appropriate agent to follow up by email or by telephone. An intuitive management tool allows supervisors to have a global view of the email contacts along with other media to monitor service level and productivity.

Alcatel and New York-based COMFORCE Telecom, a division of COMFORCE Corporation (AMEX:CFS), worked together to deploy the OmniPCX 4400 network for American Home.

About Alcatel enterprise networking solutions

Alcatel delivers standards-based IP communications solutions to a global customer base of over 500,000 small, medium and large enterprises, government agencies, healthcare facilities, and educational institutions.

Alcatel's award-winning Omni family of IP Communications solutions consists of an extensive portfolio of network switching infrastructure, security appliances, and IP telephony applications built to provide long-term value.

About Alcatel

Alcatel (NYSE:ALA) designs, develops and builds innovative and competitive communications networks, enabling carriers, service providers and enterprises to deliver any type of content, such as voice, data and multimedia, to any type of consumer, anywhere in the world. Relying on its leading and comprehensive products and solutions portfolio, stretching from end-to-end optical infrastructures, fixed and mobile networks to broadband access, Alcatel's customers can focus on optimizing their service offerings and revenue streams. With sales of $22 billion in 2001 and 99,000 employees, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. In 2001, the United States was the largest single market served by Alcatel. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com

About American Home Mortgage

American Home Mortgage Holdings, Inc. is an independent retail originator of residential mortgage loans both online and offline. Its online operation, MortgageSelect.com is a leader in online closed loan volume, and has outperformed its online competitors in terms of profitability. Offline, the company has grown organically and by acquisition and now has 131 community loan offices across the country. For additional information, please visit the company's Web site at www.americanhm.com.