Astute Solutions Bolsters British Airways' Customer Service Proposition; Company Announces Success of Integrated Passenger Compensation Solution.

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Leading the charge to help consumer based companies differentiate through service excellence, Astute Solutions today announced the success of its customer compensation service solution implemented for British Airways (BA), the United Kingdom's largest international scheduled airline.

Astute was the logical choice to help BA roll out advanced passenger compensation capabilities to its 145 airport locations. The implementation of Astute's ePowerCenter(TM) in 2004 integrated BA's 29 global customer relations centers on a single-system platform, providing contact center agents and employees, worldwide, with immediate visibility into consumer interactions. Astute developed a compensation solution to integrate with the ePowerCenter platform, further enhancing BA's consumer service responsiveness to include rapidly compensating passengers if the need arises - whether it is through a representative on the phone, or an agent at the gate.

"At British Airways, continually improving our ability to measure and act upon what our customers are saying is a top priority. We were confident that Astute could help us develop and integrate a world-class compensation solution. And they did," said British Airways Global Customer Relations Manager, Richard Stabbins.

BA identified the need to improve its customer compensation procedures, so it put forward a request to Astute to develop a solution. Astute developed an integrated compensation card solution capable of being issued from ePowerCenter, BAs global service recovery system.

To arrive at the optimal solution, Astute partnered with global leaders in the card services, currency exchange and travel money services industries to create an integrated compensation platform. Based upon three core currencies--pounds, U.S. dollars and euro--this platform enables card activation and fund loading in real time. When there is a need to issue compensation, a BA representative simply activates the card, which simultaneously creates a record of the transaction in the service recovery system. From there, they are able to give the compensation card to the customer over the counter. The card is ready to use at thousands of ATM or Point of Sale (POS) locations worldwide.

"Customer satisfaction is a key priority for British Airways," said Stabbins. "Our objective is to avoid service disruption, but when it is unavoidable, our state-of-the-art compensation solution allows us to offset the impact to the customer for a service disruption."

A major advantage of Astute's solution is that it provides BA with a comprehensive record of any compensation claim. Once unattainable, this information is easily viewed within a case record or through a variety of detailed card activity reports. An added benefit is that BA can now avoid duplicating compensation.

"At Astute Solutions, we focus on delivering consumer-centric solutions," said Astute President and CEO, Joseph Sanda. "British Airways is continually raising the bar on service for the airline industry through its responsiveness. And our work with them is all about supporting those exceptional service standards."

About British Airways

British Airways is one of the world's longest established airlines and has always been regarded as an industry-leader. Last year, more than 36 million people chose to fly with the airline. British Airways' worldwide route network covers some 216 destinations in 94 countries with a fleet of 294 aircraft. The group employs more than 46,000 people in around 100 countries worldwide. British Airways is one of the founding partners of the oneworld alliance. The company has turnover of GBP 7.6 billion.

About Astute Solutions

Through its consumer interaction and case management solutions, Astute enables consumer-focused companies to differentiate through service excellence. Its award-winning PowerCenter(TM) product family is the number one user-endorsed solution for optimizing operations through immediate, actionable feedback to better address the consumer need for more personalized experiences. Engineered to solve day-to-day consumer interaction challenges, while meeting the complex technical requirements of the enterprise, PowerCenter(TM) integrates best-of-breed consumer contact center software with advanced telephony offerings. The choice of leading Global 1000 companies, Astute's customers include McDonald's, British Airways, Levi Strauss & Co., L'Oreal USA, Scott's, GlaxoSmithKline, Neutrogena, Abbott Labs, Dunkin' Brands, and Sara Lee Branded Apparel. For further details, visit www.astutesolutions.com or call [phone]. Astute Solutions' London office is located at 450 Bath Road, Longford, Heathrow UB7 0EB. The main phone number is [phone].