Empirix and BenchmarkPortal Team To Measure Best Practice Performance of Customer Service Call Centers.

Business/Technology Editors

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2001

Empirix Hammer IT Solution Collects Call Center Performance Data;

Critical Tool In Establishing Quality Standards

Today, Empirix Inc., an innovative provider of testing and monitoring products for business-critical Web, voice and data applications, announced a partnership with BenchmarkPortal, Inc. to provide best practice information for BenchmarkPortal's member customer service call centers. BenchmarkPortal will use Hammer automated test systems from Empirix to place test calls and collect actual performance data for customer-facing systems and applications in member call centers. This will allow participating call centers to compare the performance of their systems and applications with benchmark data collected from other similar call centers.

Empirix Inc. and Benchmark Portal, Inc., the company that warehouses the world's largest database of call center best practices information, are both committed to helping call centers improve the Quality of Experience (QoE) for customers by providing tools for performance measurement, comparison, and optimization.

"Customer service call centers need to be focused on the total quality of the customer's experience," said Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality. "The real-time performance data provided by Hammer automated test systems is a perfect complement to the rich best practices data from BenchmarkPortal. Together, these tools can help customer service call centers ensure that they are meeting the performance standards customers expect."

"BenchmarkPortal and Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality are recognized as leaders in helping call centers improve the quality of their customer service performance," said Drew Knowland, Director of Marketing, Empirix Contact Center Test Group. "Through the use of Empirix automated systems, the capturing of best practices has been taken to a whole new level."

Already in its sixth year of operation, BenchmarkPortal is a well-known pioneer in identifying best practice standards for call centers, utilizing the latest in data warehousing, data mining and analytical tools. With a database of over 4,000 contact centers this year, BenchmarkPortal's research, led by Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University, has become the worldwide source for best practice standards for the customer call center industry.

By logging onto BenchmarkPortal's website, call centers can submit performance data and instantaneously see how their center compares to others. Call centers benefit from critical, industry-wide performance statistics including average length of call, percentage of calls dropped from the system and average wait time before reaching an agent. Access to best practice standards allows call center managers to continually evaluate their processes and make sure they are always providing their customers with the best quality information possible.

About BenchmarkPortal

BenchmarkPortal, Inc., based in Orcutt, California, in conjunction with Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University, hosts, surveys, analyzes and reports the call center performance data that fuels the industry's most quoted research studies. Through BenchmarkPortal's reporting and Dr. Jon Anton's research, the Purdue database has become the industry standard for call center performance benchmarking.

For more information about BenchmarkPortal, please contact Dr. Jon Anton of Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality at [e-mail].

About Empirix

Empirix develops and markets innovative testing and monitoring products for business-critical Web and voice applications. Its portfolio of software technologies ensures that e-business and networked systems provide high-quality, robust, and reliable service to customers and partners alike. Formed by the combination of Hammer Technologies and RSW Software and funded by Matrix Partners, Empirix currently delivers and supports products and services to more than 1,500 customers worldwide, including leading telcos, call centers, Fortune 1000 organizations, switch manufacturers and major dot.coms. Empirix is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts and has offices in Europe, Asia-Pacific and Japan. For more information, visit Empirix on the Web at www.empirix.com.