CORRECTING and REPLACING Knowlagent Strengthens Commitment to Agent Performance Best Practices to Help Companies Successfully Manage and Certify the Adoption of Change.

Business Editors

CORRECTION...by Knowlagent

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 4, 2004

In BW5023 issued Feb. 4, 2004: Seventh graph of original release "Knowlagent Strengthens Commitment to Agent Performance Best Practices to Help Companies Successfully Manage and Certify the Adoption of Change" should be omitted.

The correct release reads:

KNOWLAGENT STRENGTHENS COMMITMENT TO AGENT PERFORMANCE BEST PRACTICES TO HELP COMPANIES SUCCESSFULLY MANAGE AND CERTIFY THE ADOPTION OF CHANGE

Co-Founder Matt McConnell Leads Initiative to Drive Business

Transformation With Focus on CRM Change Management

and Service-to-Sales Cultural Shifts

Knowlagent(R), the exclusive provider of software solutions that build best performers fast in customer service centers, announced today that it has strengthened its commitment to provide thought leadership expertise with the formation of a new team dedicated to providing agent performance best practices. Matt McConnell, Knowlagent co-founder and author of "Customer Service at a Crossroads," will lead this high-profile initiative. McConnell will continue his work with top technology analysts, market leaders and senior-level executives from the industry's top customer service centers to share and deploy agent performance best practices.

Knowlagent's heightened focus on agent performance best practices is a direct result of market demand to help leading companies successfully manage and certify the adoption of change in support of strategic business transformation initiatives that include CRM change management, service-to-sales cultural shifts, and customer relationship deepening. Knowlagent's patented agent performance management solutions are adopted by companies who have concluded that customer service is strategic and that their future rests in the hands of the employees who hold primary responsibility for the customer experience - the customer service center agent.

"Our clients have determined that customer service is strategic and customer service agents are mission critical," said McConnell. "These companies are leading our industry across a very real crossroads. They seek guidance in the area of agent performance best practices, and because of Knowlagent's leadership in this area, we are uniquely positioned to provide this to them. I am very excited to get the opportunity to more directly help them achieve their business objectives by leveraging the best practices from our experience and from leading companies around the world."

Direct Connection Between Agent Performance and Customer

Satisfaction

Recent research into what makes or breaks business transformation/CRM initiatives shows that focusing on improving customer relationships by altering how business is conducted and changing employee behavior is often the difference between success and failure. According to numerous industry analysts - Gartner, META Group, AMR Research and Yankee Group - organizations have spent billions on customer relationship management (CRM) initiatives in order to provide better service and build stronger connections with customers only to find that 55 to 65 percent of the CRM projects fail to meet their objective. A 2001 Bain and Company survey of more than 400 executives found that 20 percent thought their CRM initiatives actually damaged customer relationships. While this inability to achieve expected benefits from CRM initiatives is an ongoing problem, it is not the technology that is failing. CRM is typically defined as change in people, process and technology, yet its focus is usually on changing the technology and the process, not the people. According to the research, CRM success should be built on a foundation of people - employee performance, shared goals and objectives, and a customer-centric process and culture.

"Changing the behavior of the people who must use the new CRM applications to better serve their customers is typically viewed as an afterthought in many CRM deployments," said McConnell. "Unless the technology and process change required for CRM success cascades all the way down into the trenches--to the customer service agents who must interact with customers--the CRM effort will likely fall short of its goals. We typically see agent development focusing on change management as too little, too late. Customer service agents tend to only hear about an upcoming CRM rollout by learning the 'what' without the 'how' or the 'why'-- key components missing to drive adoption," he said.

Customer Service Centers are Key to the Vision of Customer Service

According to Gartner, the dominant channel for customer interactions is the customer service center. Giga Research predicts that calls to customer service centers are on the rise, increasing almost 30 percent each year. As a result, the future of any business depends greatly on the customer service experience.

Ensuring that contact center agents have the skills and knowledge needed to execute on an organization's vision of customer service is a critical link towards improving loyalty, profitability and lifetime customer value. "Matt has successfully helped hundreds of companies rethink their view of the customer service agent and the impact these individuals have on corporate goals," said Dr. Jon Anton, director of benchmark research at Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality. "His passion for the business, leadership and technology expertise are unmatched in the industry," he said.

In addition to authoring a book about agent performance, McConnell hosts a monthly interactive web talk program with Dr. Jon Anton. "ON with Matt and Dr. Jon" covers the hottest topics facing the customer service industry. McConnell plans to publish a quarterly customer newsletter on agent performance best practices and will host the first annual Agent Performance Best Practices Seminar concurrent with the Knowlagent User's Group Conference in 2004.

About Knowlagent

Knowlagent is recognized by industry analysts as the market and thought leader for improving agent performance. Uniquely focused on improving the performance of the people who are most responsible for shaping customer relationships - customer service agents - the Knowlagent Agent Performance solution leverages existing call center technologies to improve the performance of every agent, every day - providing the tools and services to understand, instruct and proactively deliver the skills and knowledge required for optimal customer service. Knowlagent has helped leaders in financial services, insurance, telecommunications and healthcare build and sustain best performers fast in a rapidly changing environment. As a result, our customers have achieved tangible business results fast: improved profitability, increased revenues and enhanced customer retention. For more information, call 888-566-9457 or visit www.knowlagent.com.