IMA & CMVT Announce Product Integration & Strategic Alliance Partnership Delivers Integrated Voice and Data Recording for Call Centers
biz.yahoo.com
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Tuesday December 22, 3:09 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
IMA and Comverse Announce Product Integration
and Strategic Alliance Partnership Delivers
Integrated Voice and Data Recording for Call Centers
World's Largest Teleservices Outsourcer, SITEL, Uses Joint Solution
IMA (NASDAQ: IMAA - news), a global provider of enterprise customer interaction software for call center automation,
today announced a joint technology and marketing alliance with the Comverse Information Systems division of Comverse
Technology, Inc. (NASDAQ: CMVT - news).
As part of the agreement, IMA has built an interface from its market-leading EDGE® customer interaction software product to
digital voice and data recording products from Comverse. This creates an integrated solution that enables users to capture,
retrieve and verify inbound and outbound voice and data transactions conducted through their call centers.
To meet regulatory, financial and quality control requirements, call centers need to record and later verify important sales, order
and service information on-demand without having to record the entire telephone conversation. In the past, organizations were
limited to using bulky and inefficient analog audio recorders controlled manually by the agent that were subject to errors.
In the integrated IMA/Comverse solution, critical information from each call is automatically recorded by the Comverse system
in digital format using EDGE's powerful CTI links imbedded in the application residing on the call center agent's desktop.
Software triggers determine when recordings should start or stop based on pre-determined script or field changes on the
agent's workstation screen.
For example, in a telemarketing or telesales operation, the agent handling a call could place an order by moving to the EDGE
application screen that contains credit card authorization data entry fields. This action sets off triggers that start the digital
recording system, which automatically records the critical ''closing'' or order taking information.
The Comverse system records important call data such as campaign, agent ID, customer name, order information, number
dialed, or other user-definable parameters. Data fields from the application are transferred via the EDGE interface and stored
with the recorded conversation data to provide fast and easy retrieval and playback. Verifiers can rapidly review transactions
based on campaign, agent, customer ID, or call number.
''Users will enjoy the benefits of an integrated IMA and Comverse voice and data recording solution that can help increase the
quality and performance of their telemarketing and customer service operations,'' said Kian Saneii, vice president of worldwide
marketing for IMA. ''This is another example of IMA's commitment to partner with leading hardware and software vendors in
order to provide EDGE users with robust and open links to key technologies. IMA solutions provide unsurpassed ability to
resolve today's business issues, as we offer and integrate with innovative technologies to remove the barriers to effective
customer interaction throughout the enterprise.''
''Comverse has been a leader in call center recording and monitoring solutions for some time,'' said Dan Boder, president and
CEO of Comverse Information Systems. ''Many of the largest call centers in the world use our digital recording and IMA's
customer interaction software. It was a logical business decision to integrate with IMA's EDGE to provide an added value to
the recording solution. Comverse, through its open API, has become a leader in event and rules-based recording. The
integration with IMA is another example of desktop integration to improve the efficiency and profitability of the call center.''
Outsourcing Giant SITEL Leverages Joint IMA/Comverse Solution
SITEL Corp., the world's largest teleservices outsourcing provider, is using the integrated IMA and Comverse solution at its
660-seat call center in San Angelo, Texas. The center specializes in outbound and inbound telemarketing, customer service and
account retention campaigns for long distance, consumer and business products for the telecommunications industry. Voice and
data transactions are recorded for quality control, sales and order verification purposes.
''We expect our system to handle virtually any sales or service situation that might transpire during a call,'' said Dale Suter, vice
president of information technology for SITEL. ''The integrated digital recording solution provided by IMA and Comverse
allows SITEL to monitor the effectiveness of our campaigns, increase productivity, and deliver the high level and quality of
service required by our clients to be successful in the competitive telecommunications marketplace.''
About IMA
IMA is a global leader in front office customer interaction solutions for call centers used for sales, marketing and customer
service. The company's Web- and CTI-enabled software helps companies maximize the revenue- and loyalty-generating
potential of each customer contact. IMA is the choice of over 400 leading organizations including Bose Corporation, Lloyds
TSB Bank, Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern New England Telecommunications and Xerox. IMA has headquarters in
Shelton, Conn., offices in Atlanta, Chicago, Frankfurt, Irvine, London, Melbourne and Paris, and representatives worldwide.
More information about IMA's products and services can be found on the World Wide Web at www.imaedge.com, requested
via e-mail at info@imaedge.com, or by calling 1-800-776-0462.
NOTE: IMA and EDGE are registered trademarks of IMA. All other products or company names mentioned are used for
identification purposes only, and may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Except for the historical information contained in this announcement, the matters discussed in this announcement are
''forward-looking statements'' (as that term is used in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995) that involve risks
and uncertainties detailed from time to time in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC).
In particular, IMA draws the reader's attention to the ''Risk Factors'' stated in the Company's Registration Statement on Form
S-1 dated July 30, 1997 and its accompanying Prospectus, the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q dated August 14,
1997, November 14, 1997, May 15, 1998, August 14, 1998, November 14, 1998, the Company's Annual Report on Form
10-K dated March 30, 1998, as well as to the Company's periodic and current reports as they are filed with the SEC. |
