Akibia Gives Customers a Lot Of `TLC'; `Think Like a Customer' Philosophy and New Customer-Facing Roles Ensure Exceptional Service.

Business/Technology Editors

WESTBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 25, 2001

Akibia Inc., a leader in IT support and CRM services, today announced it has formalized its long-time philosophy of providing exceptional customer service by creating two new roles within the company's IT Support Services (ITSS) Division: customer relationship managers and customer advocates.

Akibia has practiced its customer-centric philosophy - known as TLC, or `Think Like a Customer' - since signing its first customer twelve years ago, but has recently rolled out a formal TLC program to its ITSS employee base. All ITSS employees - whether they touch the customer in sales, customer support, engineering or even accounting - are charged with adopting the customer's perspective in order to provide the best service possible.

"In today's uncertain economy it's more important than ever that companies take extra good care of their customers," said Cathy Daigrepont, director of customer relationship management at Akibia. "With dedicated people to manage the day-to-day relationships with each customer, we can be sure the client gets an exceptional level of service."

Akibia is initially introducing the new customer relationship manager role to its 25 largest customers, and will continue to roll out the program to additional clients throughout the year. Unlike a typical sales-focused account manager, a customer relationship manager will become the single point of contact for a client regardless of the need. Whether a client requires help with a technical problem or is graduating to a new level of service, the customer relationship manager will make sure that all of the client's questions are answered.

Akibia's new Customer Advocacy Group will operate independently of the customer relationship managers and will be called upon on the rare occasion when a customer has an unresolved issue. A customer advocate will become the voice of the customer and take a proactive approach on their behalf to solving any problems that may arise and making sure that changes are made so that the problems don't happen again.

The Customer Advocacy Group also performs trending and analysis to make sure that Akibia is striving for continuous improvement with its customers. Customer relationship managers and customer advocates work together to continuously improve and adjust service delivery programs based on client needs - in contrast to other companies in the industry which focus instead on establishing a level of service and maintaining the status quo. Once an Akibia advocate identifies a process improvement for one customer, the group then figures out how to leverage it to benefit the entire customer base.

"Akibia has always strived to be a business partner that is `always there' for its customers," said Dane Donaldson, Akibia's vice president of operations. "In our 12 years of providing IT services, we've established a record of retaining long-time clients and building new relationships using the TLC philosophy of providing exceptional customer service."

About Akibia

Akibia, Inc. is the leading provider of technology support services for mission-critical UNIX and NT environments. As a strategic partner of Sun Microsystems, Akibia delivers tailored infrastructure management solutions that ensure the absolute availability of its clients' technology environments. Formed by the merging of Polaris Service and Polaris Solutions, Akibia is also a leading provider of CRM consulting services. Headquartered in Westborough, Massachusetts with principal offices in New York, Dallas, Chicago, Silicon Valley and Amsterdam, the company employs more than 450 multi-talented people worldwide. Clients include Cisco Systems, Inc., Bell & Howell, PTC, Bose Corporation and AT&T Corp. For more information, call 800-818-8070 or visit the Akibia website at www.akibia.com.