ANZDL Shipping Completes Global Installation of Interaction Management Platform by Interactive Intelligence.

Business Editors and High Tech Writers

INDIANAPOLIS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 12, 2000

ANZDL, One of the First Ocean Shipping Companies to Implement a

Call Center, Uses EIC to Link Its Distributed Offices in Australia,

New Zealand, and North America 

Interactive Intelligence(R) (Nasdaq:ININ), a leading developer of multi-channel customer interaction management software, today announced that ANZDL, an international shipping company headquartered in Santa Ana, CA, had completed global implementation of the Enterprise Interaction Center(R) (EIC) by Interactive Intelligence. EIC now links all three of the company's distributed offices located in Australia, New Zealand, and North America.

Interactive Associates managed the implementation in North America, and Call Time Solutions, a leading communications and interaction solutions provider serving Asia Pacific businesses, implemented the Australasian offices and finished the project last month with the rollout of EIC in ANZDL's New Zealand office.

In addition to linking ANZDL's distributed offices, EIC is used to unify the company's internal and external customer contact channels, which include phone, fax, e-mail, and the Web. EIC currently supports over 300 ANZDL call center and enterprise users dispersed among the company's three locations.

ANZDL staff use EIC's soft phone, Automatic Call Distributor (ACD), and unified messaging to reduce costs, improve productivity, and enhance customer service. EIC's ACD has been configured to manage the company's call flow using skills-based routing so customers are automatically connected to the most appropriate agent. The company is a leader in the shipping industry in providing E-commerce solutions to its customers and has also developed Web-based customer service applications using EIC. For instance, ANZDL customers can now book shipments, review and print shipping documents, and check shipment delivery status online.

The company is steadily increasing the percentage of business done through the Web, with plans to conduct 20% of its business via the Web by the end of 2000. "EIC is the right tool to seamlessly and economically integrate this new form of business with existing call center activities," commented Marc Boyer-Chammard, vice president, Information Systems, for ANZDL.

ANZDL had previously installed a traditional PABX system, but after one year of operation they found that the system was too limited to adapt to new applications such as the company's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and new shipping industry software. ANZDL was also frustrated with high maintenance costs due to contracts with multiple vendors.

ANZDL selected EIC after reviewing a range of products from vendors such as Lucent and Ericsson. They chose EIC largely due to the product's comprehensive functionality and open architecture, which easily incorporated existing software and multimedia applications. EIC also met ANZDL's standards for the highest level of customer service (as demonstrated by ANZDL's Australian Quality Award for Business Excellence), and support requirements which varied across geographic boundaries. In addition, EIC's single platform made for a much quicker implementation period, as demonstrated by ANZDL's Australia office, which had EIC up and running in under six weeks.

"EIC has helped us to maintain consistent standards both geographically and from a customer service perspective," said Patrick Mousseux, systems manager for ANZDL Australia. "For example, prior to EIC, we had set certain customer service standards such as answering a call within 10 seconds. Now we can use EIC not only to improve upon those service levels, but also to monitor and follow up on them. EIC's single vendor/single platform solution has also allowed us to better leverage our resources. Before, we had to pay vendors to come in for even the most minor system changes. Now, we can perform programming changes in-house using EIC's Java-based drag-and-drop interface. EIC has already saved us about $30,000 in maintenance costs since its original installation about a year ago."

"It's great to see a world-class company like ANZDL make use of EIC to provide a consistent `face' to customers located anywhere in the world," said Douglas Shinsato, vice president of Asia Pacific operations for Interactive Intelligence. "ANZDL customers can now be routed seamlessly across the Tasman Sea or the Pacific Ocean, and ANZDL staff can be relocated without having to undergo training on a new communications platform. All of this positions ANZDL as a true leader in its industry - and a role model for other companies targeting the highest customer service levels possible."

About ANZDL

ANZDL offers fixed-day, weekly services connecting major ports in North America with those in Australia and New Zealand. ANZDL is part of CP Ships, the container shipping business of Canadian Pacific Limited. CP Ships includes Canada Maritime, Cast, Contship Containerlines, Australia-New Zealand Direct Line, Montreal Gateway Terminals and Americana Ships. Americana Ships includes Lykes Lines, TMM liner division, Compania Trasatlantica Espanola and Transportacion Maritima Grancolombiana. ANZDL provides shipping services for prominent clients including Ford, 3M and Kimberly-Clark. ANZDL has offices in Sydney, Australia, Auckland, New Zealand and Santa Ana, California, US.

About Interactive Intelligence

With a worldwide customer base of more than 500 companies, Interactive Intelligence(R) (Nasdaq:ININ) is considered a leading developer of multi-channel customer interaction management software that allows e-businesses, enterprises, contact centers, and service providers to automate virtually every aspect of their business communications. The company's flagship product, Enterprise Interaction Center(R) (EIC), is an "all-in-one" Windows NT-based communications software solution designed to replace proprietary communication devices. Interactive Intelligence is headquartered in Indianapolis with European headquarters in France and Asia Pacific headquarters in Japan. The company was founded in 1994 and has received numerous accolades, including Microsoft's 1998 Fastest Growing Independent Software Vendor's (ISV's) Award and Red Herring's Top 100 Technology IPOs of 1999. Interactive Intelligence can be reached at +81.3.5469.1100 or +1 317.872.3000 or www.ININ.com.

This release contains certain forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. Among the factors that could cause actual results to differ materially are the following: rapid technological changes in the industry, volatility in the market price of the company's common stock; the company's ability to achieve profitability, to manage successfully its growth and increasingly complex third party relationships, to maintain successful relationships with its current and any new resellers, to maintain and improve its current products and to develop new products and to protect its proprietary rights adequately; and other factors described in the company's SEC filings, including the company's latest annual report on Form 10-K and its quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.

Copyright (c)1995-2000 Interactive Intelligence Incorporated. All rights reserved. Interactive Intelligence(R), I3(TM), Enterprise Interaction Center(R), EIC(TM), Interaction Recorder(TM), Interaction Dialer(TM), Interaction Director(TM), Interaction Web(TM), and e-FAQ(TM) are all trademarks or registered trademarks of Interactive Intelligence, Inc. All other products and company names should be considered servicemarks or trademarks of their respective companies.

View Interactive Intelligence, Inc. Press Releases at: http://www.ININ.com/news/pressreleases/pressreleases.asp