LUCENT INTROS CLIENTCARE CONTACT CENTER ENTERPRISE EDITION.

Lucent has announced the availability of ClientCare Contact Center Enterprise Edition (EE), a network-based contact center solution that enables enterprises to tap into the massive switching fabric of the public telephone network and provide true network-to-agent, skills-based routing as well as next-generation contact center capabilities.

ClientCare Contact Center EE enables corporations to reduce contact center costs, increase efficiencies and improve customer care. It supports multi- channel customer interactions via telephone, e-mail, Web chat, co-browse and Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP) -- in one centralized platform. Due to its unique carrier network interface architecture and switch-independent platform, corporations no longer need to duplicate and integrate hardware and software at each location, or provide private trunking between locations in order to manage and unify all their contact centers.

The previously released ClientCare Call Center Deluxe Edition, which targets large-scale call center operations and service providers who offer hosted call center solutions, supports up to 24,000 active agents. ClientCare Contact Center EE targets enterprises with 250 or more agents dispersed across multiple locations.

"The Enterprise Edition is ideal for internal call center operations, who through consolidation, mergers or acquisitions, are currently operating with disparate technologies and who also need an economical alternative to premise-based call center solutions," said Ken Arndt, vice president of marketing and sales support at the Lucent Technologies subsidiary AG Communication Systems. "It provides a compelling return-on-investment and is a competitively-priced, total contact center solution for enterprises wishing to support virtual and multi-site call centers or to enhance their teleworker and work-from-home capabilities."

With ClientCare Contact Center EE, enterprise customers get universal queuing and routing for inbound and outbound calls, and a comprehensive Internet Suite of services. The Internet Suite enables call center agents to simultaneously handle voice, e-mail, Web-chat, Web call-back, call-through, co-browse and to provide the same level of customer support to e-commerce customers as traditional customers.[sections]