EIGHTH-ANNUAL MVP QUALITY AWARD WINNERS.

Customer Inter@ction Solutions[TM] is pleased to announce the recipients of its eighth-annual MVP (Marketing Via Phone) Quality Awards. Each of these companies has demonstrated, through its MVP Quality Award application, a true commitment to high ethical standards, stringent policies and challenging goals. Each of the award recipients is involved in a quality process that stretches from its human resource development to its implementation of technology to improve quality to raking a leadership role in promoting a positive public image of teleservices, and more.

All 2000 MVP Quality Award applicants were rigorously judged by a 15-point set of criteria and given a score from 0 to 5 for each point. Entrants described a specific teleservices program and its results, and explained its overall policies and procedures, including human resources, technologies, customer services, ergonomics and public image that are used to establish, sustain and measure the program's quality. Applicants were also judged on the critical questions section of their application.

Judging the applicants was an arduous task, and scores were not given lightly. Judges were required to not only assign a numerical value to each evaluation point, but also cite a reason and evidence from the application for the score. Top-scoring companies were then divided into application categories, as determined by the application described in their essays.

It is also important for you to know that we learned through the winners' essays that there are countless individuals within these organizations whose combined efforts and teamwork have contributed to elevating their companies' marketing via phone practices to the forefront of the industry. To all of you, our congratulations.

ATS Call Centers Inc./TeleRep -- Gold Award -- Inbound, Business-to-Consumer

TeleRep is a business-to-consumer-focused inbound service agency. The company counts among the two most important parts of its mission statement the goal of providing the highest level of service to its customers and holding to the highest possible ethical practices. To accomplish this, the company maintains a highly proactive level of training and monitoring employees to ensure that the clients' needs are being met. Good ergonomic standards are in place to ensure the health and well-being of workers. Clients, in turn, are able to keep track of and rate the quality of service via monthly surveys and the ability to regularly monitor calls taken by ATS/TeleRep. The company's services are Web-enabled to the extent e-mail processing is offered. (800-638-2000 or www.telerep.com)

Colwell & Salmon Communications -- Gold Award -- Integrated Inbound/Outbound/Web, Business-to-Business

Colwell & Salmon Communications is a marketing services firm whose clients include industry leaders and a number of Fortune 500 companies. The managing partners have extensive backgrounds in direct response marketing and believe high-quality telemarketing is a key component of a successfully integrated marketing campaign. All programs are carried our in an automated environment designed to maximize productivity and cost-effectiveness for its clients. The company also pursues a philosophy of human resource management that optimizes the office setting for its sales associates, including competitive pay rates, flexible work hours and a system of program-specific incentives. The result is articulate, knowledgeable representation for clients that leads to mutually beneficial long-term partnerships. (800-724-5318 or www.colwell-salmon.com)

Consolidated Market Response -- Gold Award -- Integrated Inbound/Web, Business-to-Business & Business-to-Consumer

Consolidated Market Response, a subsidiary of McLeod USA, Inc., is an integrated marketing support organization that provides inbound teleservices for customer service and sales applications. Other services include outbound teleservices, database creation and management, customized literature fulfillment, online faxing, business reply cards processing and processing of Internet/e-mail requests. The company has been in business since 1988 and serves the telecommunications, financial services, tourism and technology industries. Through long-term, partnering relationships, Consolidated Market Response delivers its services with integrity and quality. Based in Charleston, Illinois, Consolidated Market Response also manages facilities in Mattoon and Champaign, Illinois. Consolidated Market Response is a founding member of TeleWatch, an American Teleservices Association organization. (800-500-6006 or www.cmresponse.com)

Convergys Corp. - Gold Award - Integrated Inbound/Outbound/Web, Business-to-Business & Business-to-Consumer

Convergys is a global leader in providing outsourced, integrated, customer care and billing services, bringing together world-class resources and expertise to help clients transform customer relationships into a competitive advantage. Convergys is committed to partnering with its clients to meet their business goals through the effective delivery of high-quality customer contacts. Through monitoring and agent feedback sessions, agents are given the information they need to continuously improve, providing clients' customers with the best interaction possible. Convergys software produces more than 1.3 million bills each day, and Convergys contact centers handle more than 1.2 million contacts each day. (800-344-3000 or www.convergys.com)

InfoCision Management Corporation - Gold Award - Outbound Business-to- Consumer

InfoCision Management Corporation is known for raising more money for nonprofit organizations than any other telephone fundraising company in the world. It also performs direct-to-consumer sales and business-to-business applications. InfoCision currently operates three inbound/outbound call-blended phone centers and fifteen outbound telephone centers in seven locations. Its motto is to the point:"Commitment to Excellence;" which was key in developing its patent-pending Q [3] Quality Assurance System. The system relies on three separate sets of evaluators: Quality Skills Assurance teams in each center; Supervisor Quality Assurance teams in each center; and the Independent Quality Assurance team that monitors calls for all 15 centers from corporate headquarters using InfoCision's online Strategic Evaluation Listening system. InfoCision has established practices to help its staff excel and has put a concerted effort into implementing the most state-of-the-art technologies. (330-668-1400 or www.infocision.com)

National Electronics Warranty Corp. - Gold Award - Inbound, Business-to- Consumer

NEW is a business-to-consumer integrated service provider that offers telephony and Webenabled outsourced services. The company aims to provide cost-effective, high-quality customer service programs and follows the "one-and-done" method to resolve each customer's issues in the first contact.

Attention is paid to improving the call-flow process for the benefit of customers, and call monitoring (both internally and by clients) and surveys help assist with adherence to standards. Advanced training aims to keep reps current with procedures and technology, and the company keeps to high ergonomics and community responsibility standards. (703-375-8100 or www.newcorp.com)

OnPoint - Gold Award - Integrated Inbound/Outbound, Business-to-Consumer

OnPoint provides comprehensive customer relationship management solutions using leading-edge telecommunications, technology and people. OnPoint's competencies include traditional inbound/outbound teleservices and customer care, reservation services, data entry and Web-based customer service via e-mail support and online chat for a variety of industries, including financial, healthcare, consumer products, high technology, travel and cargo. Onpoint has adopted the standard for customer service excellence in the call center industry mandated by the Customer Operations Performance Center (COPC) 2000 Standard, founded on the principles of the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality award. OnPoint's mission goals are to treat customers like gold, provide the highest quality in all it does, reward employees for outstanding performance,"havc fun, share new ideas and go the extra mile." (800-325-2580 or www.onpointcrm.com)

Protocall Communications - Gold Award -- Outbound, Business-to-Business

A dedicated business-to-business and business-to consumer outbound teleservices agency, Laurel, Maryland-based Protocall Communications customizes its programs to suit clients' needs. Thoroughly understanding what the client wants to achieve, and knowing how to achieve it, is Protocall's mission. As such, clients are encouraged to become full program participants. Protocall uses advanced technology and skilled personnel to achieve total client satisfaction while fostering long-term growth and development for all employees and business partners. It is a management-owned company and a Protocall owner-partner manages every account. The company's growth rate has been nearly 500 percent per year; however, early on, it concluded that growth alone is not the answer to achieving quality. At each stage of growth, it carefully evaluated the level of quality provided to each client before moving on to the next stage. As the company explains it, "quality is Protocalls backbone." (301-361-1111)

Ron Weber and Associates, Inc. -- Gold Award -- Integrated Inbound/ Outbound/Web, Business-to-Consumer

Ron Weber and Associates, Inc. provides business-to-business and business-to-consumer inbound and outbound telephone marketing and sales, customer service, database development and enhancement, market research and analysis, script-package development, product and literature fulfillment and in-house training. RWA also offers a "strategic brain trust." Its TeleThink Tank, comprised of key operations and marketing managers, provides ongoing strategic analysis as well as management of clients' day-to-day operations. Quality and quality control are important parts of RWA's corporate culture. Quality is maintained using "the right mix of training, call monitoring and order verification." Employees who demonstrate high levels of quality performance are recognized in ways that have resulted in low employee turnover, providing a high percentage of experienced representatives and management staff to its clients. More than 80 percent of its staff started with RWA on the phones and have advanced to their current positio ns as a result of its policy of promoting from within. (800-835.6584 or www.telethinking.com)

SR. Teleperformance - Gold Award - Integrated Inbound/Outbound/Web, Business-to-Business

Teleperformance is an international network present in 32 countries, with more than 13,000 workstations. The company has codified its more than 20 years of experience in an international database, which allows Teleperformance to make a-priori economic models with the permanent objective of achieving success for both Teleperformance and the client. The worldwide network of SR. Teleperformance's contact centers has as its mission the design and implementation of telemarkering and teleservices programs based around: sales and marketing - to better understand and address the needs of the market, thereby improving commercial performance; customer relationship management - to deliver an improved quality of service and enhance customer loyalty. For any complex problem, Teleperformance's contact centers can bring a workable and profitable solution. Teleperformance's key indicators are: the creation of value, the satisfaction of its clients and the enthusiasm of its personnel. ([phone] or www.teleperformanc e.com)

Transcom - Gold Award - Outbound, Business-to-Consumer

A multinational organization, Transcom operates contact centers in the U.S. and throughout Europe. Its vision statement is to establish and enhance profitable relationships between clients and their customers, one at a rime, around the clock and around the world, The company and its employees are passionate about viewing each customer as an individual, not just another name in the database. It designs each of its programs to be not an intrusion or irritation, but rather a convenience. Its goal is to provide a convenient, secure means for clients' customers to make a purchase, receive information or solve a problem at the moment of need. To achieve its goals, Transcom has instituted extensive and rigorous polices and procedures for quality control and staff development as well as being a company that is responsive and easy to conduct business with for its clients. (888-408-7267 or www.transcomusa.com)

Access Direct Telemarketing, Inc. - Silver Award - Outbound, Business-to- Business

With the goal of providing premium, stare-of-the-art, personalized telesales and customer-support services, Access Direct draws clients from Fortune 500 companies and has extensive experience in the financial services, publications, technology and telecommunications industries. It operates both a business-to-business unit and a business-to-consumer unit with six call centers located across Iowa. To provide value and successful long-term relationships for clients, Access Direct has a six-faceted program that encompasses Account Management, Human Resources, Technology, Quality Assurance, Client Reporting and Executive Management. Its two-pronged corporate philosophy is to control growth to provide the best-possible service to clients and to invest equally in all employees. The principals and management staff bring to the company extensive experience in all facets of the telemarketing industry and clients often cite this broad-based experience as one of the reasons Access Direct is able to maintain consistently high standards of quality, productivity and results. (319-390-8900 or www.accdir.com)

Advanced Data-Comm, Inc. -- Silver Award -- Inbound, Business-to-Consumer

Advanced Data-Comm is an inbound service provider that keeps to its mission of providing the highest quality services to clients by regularly monitoring the skills and competencies of agents to ensure clients' needs and expectations are being met. Training is emphasized among agents and includes activities such as mentoring, interactive/multimedia approaches and working in teams. Customized real-time reporting via a variety of channels helps clients keep track of their campaigns. Each time agents begin working on a new client program they are fully trained as to the goals and procedures of the program. The company maintains a healthy work environment and strives to promote agents from within. (319-582-9501 or www.advanced-data.com)

Meyer Associates Teleservices -- Silver Award -- Outbound, Business-to-Business

For 24 years, Meyer Associates Teleservices has built an unblemished reputation for performance, service and assured quality. Its goal is to reach our, in a friendly and personal manner, using the telephone to engage prospects in one-on-one conversations with immediate results. It uses its experience to develop some of the most innovative and creative programs in the telemarketing industry. The company blends the integrity, work ethic and direct marketing expertise of its people with next-generation technology to ensure results for its clients. Among its hallmarks are what it describes as "small-town warmth" and a commitment to TSR training and skill development. In fact, more than 95 percent of its supervisory and management staff in the telemarketing division were at one time TSRs. (800-676-9233 or www.callmeyer.com)

MSA Solutions -- Silver Award -- Outbound, Business-to-Business & Business-to-Consumer

MSA specializes in comprehensive customer care, loan servicing, strategic collections augmentation, telephonic customer selling and cross-selling and helping businesses start up and develop in each of these targeted arenas. MSA Solutions' mission is simple: to partner with its clients to provide innovative customer care and processing solutions. To achieve this mission, MSA provides customized customer relationship management and administrative services to the financial services, telecommunications and e-commerce industries. MSA has a 25-year history of success which is reflected in its motto that its commitment to quality will be reflected in the daily contributions of every MSA employee as it strives to add recognizable value and results to each client's business needs. (480-968-2900 or www.msasolutions.com)

Call Center Europe A/S -- Bronze Award -- Inbound, Business-to-Business

Call Center Europe is one of the largest outsourcing call centers in Northern Europe. It specializes in representing its clients to their contacts -- a sensitive task which Call Center Europe is determined to handle with the utmost degree of competence, service and efficiency. Its primary strength is to establish and develop a telephone dialog with its clients' customers. This increases the flexibility of its clients, who can make resources available in their own companies and concentrate their efforts on their core competence. All telephone products are covered by a continuous quality control, which ensures that Call Center Europe delivers the promised quality and that its customer service is continuously improved and developed. Call Center Europe was established in 1993 and presently employs more than 200 people. ([phone] or www.callcentereurope.com)

Young America Corp. -- Bronze Award -- Inbound, Business-to-Consumer

Young America Corp.'s mission is to be the company of choice in its industry. The agency, which operates as a business-to-consumer inbound service agency, strives to achieve its goal by supporting and training CSRs to meet and exceed their job requirements. The company is COPC-2000 certified and follows the "best-practices" standards that this certification entails. Client surveys are conducted semi-annually to measure performance and consumer satisfaction surveys are conducted quarterly to capture feedback. The result is a quality-versus-quantity philosophy that is implemented throughout the company. (952-294-6000 or www.young-america.com)