AccountNow Raises the Bar on Customer Service With Echopass On-Demand Services

Business Wire, July 29, 2008

Hosted Contact Center Improves Agent Efficiency, Handling of Fluctuating Call Volumes

PLEASANTON, Calif. -- Echopass Corporation, the number one provider of hosted contact center services to the enterprise market, today announced that its hosted Contact Center On-Demand solution has been deployed by AccountNow, Inc., the financial services company for people turned away by traditional banks. The use of Echopass technology has dramatically improved AccountNow's customer service by making AccountNow call center agents more efficient, enabling cost-effective handling of seasonal and weekly fluctuations in call volume, and supporting remote agents to enable AccountNow's rapid, seamless growth. To view a video on AccountNow, visit http://www.echopass.com/finservices/accountnow.wmv.

"AccountNow doesn't have brick-and-mortar bank branches," said Vincent Deschamps, CEO at Echopass. "Customers interact with their call center agents, who become the voice of AccountNow. That means agents must deliver the best service possible. And it means the underlying Echopass call center solution must deliver a reliable, always-on service, from our skills-based call routing to multi-site, multi-sourcing management and reporting."

Matt Montes, founder and COO of AccountNow, said, "Our goal is to raise the customer service bar so high that even if our customers could go somewhere else, our service would bring them back. Our call center is mission-critical, and Echopass gives us everything we need to handle our customer calls in a quick, efficient and friendly way. We've found this to be the case regardless of call volumes, callers' specific needs, whether our agent is here in the call center or working remotely, or any other variable."

AccountNow Calls on Echopass

To ensure its customers receive the best possible service, AccountNow runs a multi-site call center with 80-plus available agents using on-demand hosted contact center services from Echopass.

The Echopass solution lets AccountNow answer hundreds of thousands of calls per week. Approximately 90 percent of calls are resolved through Echopass' interactive voice response, which provides customer self-service for inquiries such as account balance, recent transactions, and pending deposits. For customers that need to speak with a live person, the Echopass skills-based routing ensures that those customers are automatically routed to the most appropriate agent.

AccountNow relies on Echopass to deliver customer information along with customer calls to agents at the same time. "When our agent picks up the phone, the customer's account details immediately appear on screen. Armed with customer account information pulled from previous calls, emails, chat sessions, and faxes, our agents come across as more familiar with each customer and, in turn, more friendly," said Montes.

Taking advantage of Echopass' multi-site, multi-sourcing capabilities, AccountNow has approximately two-thirds of its agents onsite. The remaining agents work from remote locations throughout the U.S. Regardless of location, all agents share the same hosted Echopass technology and AccountNow systems. Echopass lets AccountNow manage remote agents as if they were working within the call center. Supervisors can see statistics, monitor calls, and track the activities of all agents -- both remote and onsite -- in real time.

With the Echopass solution in place, AccountNow answers most customer questions on the first call and answers those questions more quickly, thereby reducing the overall time customers spend on the phone with agents. Collectively, this enhances AccountNow's customer service while reducing costs through higher call center and agent efficiency. AccountNow's Montes says, "Echopass provides us a 30-percent increase in efficiency for our agents."

Moreover, Echopass' on-demand contact center service lets AccountNow quickly and cost-effectively adapt to weekly and seasonal fluctuations in call volumes. To handle these spikes, AccountNow seamlessly adds agents to its call center staff. With Echopass, AccountNow has this flexibility to modify or grow its agent pool on demand, thereby meeting customer service goals while only paying for agents that are actually being deployed.

For more information on AccountNow, please visit www.accountnow.net. For more information on Echopass, please visit www.echopass.com.

Recent Echopass News and Resources

AccountNow Video: http://www.echopass.com/finservices/accountnow.wmv

News release: Financial Services Companies Optimize Customer Service and Lower Costs by Implementing Echopass Hosted Contact Center Services; http://www.echopass.com/about_press/2008/4-30-2008.php

Commentary: From Meltdown to Breakout: Financial Services Prepares for Customer Service Overhaul; by Echopass CEO Vincent Deschamps; http://www.echopass.com/finservices/customeroverhaul.html

About AccountNow, Inc.

AccountNow, headquartered in San Ramon, California, is a leading provider of financial solutions for the 40 million U.S. consumers who do not have established credit or traditional banking relationships. AccountNow's money saving offers give consumers an alternative to traditional checking accounts by providing access to financial products and payment systems, including MasterCard and Visa prepaid cards, Pay Anyone Bill Payment, and FDIC-insured deposits. AccountNow's prepaid MasterCard cards are issued by MetaBank: (NASDAQ NM: CASH) and AccountNow's Prepaid Visa Cards are issued by Palm Desert National Bank. Visit AccountNow online at http://www.accountnow.net or www.accountnowvisa.com. For investor relations, please call 1-925-498-1827.