Brigade Solutions Launches Internet-Based Customer Support Service; New Service Cuts Support Costs in Half.

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 8, 1998--Brigade Solutions, Inc., announces today the launch of its Internet-based customer support service. The outsource solution utilizes e-mail in place of the telephone to respond to customer support, technical support, and sales support inquiries. The Brigade approach is designed to reduce customer support costs by half. The company has already processed more than 10,000 e-mail inquiries on behalf of its corporate clients. With this new service, Brigade delivers comprehensive customer support by designing, implementing and managing a company's Internet-based support solution. Brigade guarantees that customer inquiries are answered correctly within 24 hours.

"Customers don't like to be ignored, whether via the phone or e-mail," says Russ Cohn, CEO of Brigade Solutions. "Nearly half of all companies on the Web either don't respond to their inbound  e-mail, or use `auto-response' tools which can create an impersonal  feel to the web. These companies are missing a unique opportunity to reduce call center costs and collect valuable information about customers. Most players just don't have the staff or budget to scale their support to overall Internet growth rates."

At Brigade, live operators, or "CyberReps" read and respond to each incoming e-mail message in any of 8 languages (including English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese). CyberReps receive specialized training, and draw upon databases of pre-written answers. Brigade employs a full time technical editing staff to manage the quality of outgoing messages. Brigade archives correspondence for client review and generates detailed reports summarizing inquiries and responses. Brigade's staff is trained to escalate more difficult support inquiries directly to designated subject matter experts within a client organization to ensure accurate and timely responses for even the most complex of inquiries. The skilled staff actively monitors its clients' Web sites and assists in the development and continuous updating of support sites to ensure that customers have immediate access to the most current support information.

During a three-week pilot program, Brigade assesses its clients' unique support issues to develop an effective customer support outsourcing program. The pilot is used to analyze, design, and debug a customized support program for each client, and to train CyberReps in the specifics of a client's business.

"Every support program is unique, which is why we rely so heavily on the pilot approach," says Brian Jeffries, Brigade's President and Chief Operating Officer.

Profit margins of traditional consumer products and Internet-related products are falling to levels where free support is no longer feasible. However, without support, customer loyalty suffers. Using Brigade's service, companies have the ability to deliver support as a paid service at a price point that is affordable to the customer and at the same time creates profit potential for the provider. Using online credit card verification, Brigade is able to design and implement customer support as a profit center. Support as a profit center opens new doors for low price and free products which have in the past relied on alternative revenue sources such as advertising.

Brigade uses the customer support process to collect valuable customer information. Every interaction can be used to feed outbound one-to-one marketing programs. Brigade's proprietary "Voice of the Customer" technology goes one step further by asking customers specific questions about their degree of satisfaction with support, and about other unrelated topics beyond that support.

Brigade Solutions, Inc., is a leading provider of Internet-based customer support solutions. With international operations  headquartered in San Francisco, Brigade works on a contract outsourcing basis to provide comprehensive e-mail management, including incoming message processing, knowledgebase creation and management and support site design and management. The innovative Brigade solution is delivered to the customer service industry through the implementation of proprietary software technologies, processes and metrics, specifically designed to create the optimal customer support environment.

Brigade was founded in by Russ Cohn, Brian Jeffries, Jose Laguna, and Anurag Jain, who together have launched and managed nine customer support centers on four continents for the telecommunications industry. Brigade is funded by a group of private investors.

For more information about the company and its services, visit Brigade's web site at www.brigadesolutions.com

   CONTACT: Media Contact:               Company Contact:
             Michelle Strykowski    -or-  Rachael Ratcliff
             S&S Public Relations         Brigade Solutions, Inc.
             847-291-1616                 415-217-7560