SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 6, 2000--
Home Shopping Network (HSN) to Unite 3,000 Call Center and Telesales Representatives through One Customer Information System
Siebel Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL), the world's leading supplier of eBusiness application software today announced that Home Shopping Network has standardized on Siebel eBusiness Applications. HSN, America's pioneer electronic retailer, chose Siebel eBusiness Applications to create a single source of customer information for its 3,000 customer service and telesales representatives across HSN.
"The nature of the electronic retailing and e-commerce interaction is changing," said Norman Wright, senior vice president of sales and service at HSN. "Early on, the focus was on speed, efficiency, and convenience--making it easy for customers to do business with HSN. In today's world, customers expect quick and easy access as a price of entry; it is no longer a means of differentiation. We believe the competitive edge in today's world is in managing segments of one: making each customer feel like they are unique. Enabling this customer care strategy requires a powerful eBusiness capability that brings together customer data, product information, and sales and marketing strategies in a dynamic way to produce customized, targeted, and ultimately highly effective customer interactions that increase customer satisfaction, build loyalty, and ultimately enhance sales."
"Our mission is to make it easy and convenient for people to purchase products from HSN. The combination of our traditional telephone sales plus the website has provided our customers with access to HSN anytime," said Sal Luongo, Operating Vice President of Order Management and Retail at HSN. "We have vast amounts of customer and product data and need an information system to help us better capture, organize and share it to provide even higher levels of customer satisfaction."
HSN's unique call center environment required a highly-scalable and reliable application. Because HSN operates 24 x 7, 364 days a year, its call center application needed to easily handle consistently high call volumes, frequently managing up to 1,000 immediate and simultaneous customer calls.
After a thorough evaluation, HSN chose Siebel eBusiness Applications, including Siebel Call Center, Siebel Marketing and Siebel eSales, to create its highly-scalable, integrated customer service and sales system. Siebel eBusiness Applications will allow HSN to build and manage customer information in one place, regardless of the channel the customer prefers -- the call center, interactive voice response (IVR) systems, and over the Web. Siebel Systems will help HSN in the eBusiness space.
Uniting the Sales and Service Departments with Siebel Call Center
With Siebel Call Center, HSN's telesales and customer service representatives will be able to see a complete view of each customer. This will allow customer service and telesales representatives to see each customer's history and purchasing preferences in one location, regardless of the customer's preferred channel of communication.
Reaching Customers via the Web with Siebel eSales
HSN quickly recognized the opportunity to sell to and service customers over the Web, and built systems to allow customers to purchase products and obtain service online.
Reaching Customers with Siebel Marketing
Siebel Marketing will allow HSN to leverage its rich customer information to enhance its targeted marketing campaigns. HSN will use Siebel Marketing to analyze and segment customer information to create direct email campaigns, provide special promotions, target specific customers, and measure the effectiveness of each marketing campaign.
"Siebel Marketing will be invaluable to our business," said Luongo. "With all of our customer information now at our fingertips, we can quickly determine how to reach individual customer segments and provide them with special offers on products most likely to interest them."
About Home Shopping Network (HSN)
Home Shopping Network (www.hsn.com) a USA company (Nasdaq:USAi), pioneered the electronic retailing industry in 1977. Its live 24-hour programming reaches over 70 million U.S. households through broadcast, cable and satellite dishes. HSN continued its tradition of innovation in 1998 with the launch of Short Shopping, a division which produces direct selling commercials for various broadcasting partners. The Company holds interests in shopping channels in Germany and Japan; and produces Home Shopping en Espanol, a joint venture with Univision.
About Siebel Systems
Siebel Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL) is the world's leading provider of eBusiness applications software. Siebel Systems provides an integrated family of Web-based sales, marketing and customer service applications that help organizations build and manage relationships with their customers around the world. Siebel eBusiness Applications are designed to meet the needs of small, medium and large businesses. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are deployed locally in more than 28 countries. For more information, please visit our Web site at www.Siebel.com.
Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties. The success of the acquisition and future operating results of Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with acquisition, such as the potential difficulties in the assimilation of operations, strategies, technologies, methodologies and products of the acquired company, the risk of loss of key personnel of the acquired company, diversion of management attention from other business concerns, business risks including the risk of variations in quarterly operating results, significant current and expected additional competition and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1998 and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only. |
