Mustang Software Wins AFFINA Contract.BAKERSFIELD, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 17, 1999-- Internet Message Center Enables "The Customer Relationship Company" to Scale Its Outsourced Solutions to Meet Increasing Customer Demand Mustang Software Mustang Software, Inc. was a California-based corporation that developed telecommunications software products. Mustang was incorporated in 1988, became a public corporation (NASDAQ ticker symbol MSTG) in 1995, and was finally merged into Quintus Corporation in 2000. , Inc. (Nasdaq:MSTG MSTG Materiel Safety Task Group MSTG Material Safety Task Group ) today announces that AFFINA, The Customer Relationship Company, has entered into a licensing agreement with Mustang for its Internet Message Center(tm) e-mail management solution. AFFINA, a leader in providing intelligent solutions for customer relations, acquisition and management, offers a variety of Internet services to its clients, including its SpeedyMail(sm) E-mail Response Management system See e-mail response management. . Under the scope of the project, Mustang Services, Mustang Software's Professional Services (job) professional services - A department of a supplier providing consultancy and programming manpower for the supplier's products. group implemented Mustang's award-winning Internet Message Center (IMC (Internet Mail Consortium, Santa Cruz, CA, www.imc.org) An industry trade association founded in 1996 by Paul Hoffman and Dave Crocker that promotes Internet e-mail standards and features. ) e-mail management solution into AFFINA's SpeedyMail outsourced e-mail management offering. IMC's architecture makes it possible for AFFINA to manage multiple client programs on a single server, enabling the SpeedyMail platform to meet the expanding needs of present and future AFFINA clients. "We are pleased to work with Mustang on this project," said Debbie Baer, Internet product manager at AFFINA. "Mustang's experience in e-mail management, IMC, and continued support has provided us with tools that make SpeedyMail the premier outsourced e-mail management solution in the marketplace." With the explosive growth of the Internet and e-commerce, it is imperative that businesses develop a strategy to service the growing segment of their customers that use e-mail as their preferred method of communications. According to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the recently released Ziff-Davis Technology User Profile 1998 Mid-Year study, the number of PCs connected to the Internet soared 35 percent between January and August, from 45 million to just over 60 million. Additionally, the survey respondents cited e-mail as the number one reason to go online. "We are honored that AFFINA has partnered with Mustang for its Internet customer service initiative," said Jim Harrer, president and chief executive officer of Mustang Software. "AFFINA's outstanding tradition of customer service provides a very stable platform for the addition of Internet customer service. Working together, it is our goal to help AFFINA continue its leadership position in outsourced customer service and support." IMC provides the platform for AFFINA's SpeedyMail to manage individual clients' outsourced e-mail. IMC creates an orderly flow and record of e-mail correspondence. First, IMC acknowledges receipt of each customer's message and assigns it a unique tracking number for case management. Next, IMC routes the message into a message pool (queue) until an AFFINA NetRep is ready to respond. IMC also provides real-time reports, on a customer-by-customer basis, detailing the total number of messages waiting, the service levels provided (and service level adherence), NetRep activity (agents logged in, idle, responding) and average agent response time. This is the crucial information AFFINA needs to meet its clients' needs for timely, consistent and accurate e-mail response within 24 business hours BUSINESS HOURS. The time of the day during which business is transacted. In respect to the time of presentment and demand of bills and notes, business hours generally range through the whole day down to the hours of rest in the evening, except when the paper is payable it a bank or by a . "A big benefit of IMC is that it helps us manage NetRep productivity," added Ms. Baer. "Before IMC, we used Netscape's mail management system to store all predefined responses in the 'sent items' folder. Tracking performance was a manual task. IMC now lets us search our response library and accurately report NetRep response and message queue times on a daily, weekly, monthly, even yearly basis." She added, "IMC also helps us to evenly distribute the workload among our NetRep team so that all e-mail messages receive the same informative 'speedy' answers our clients expect." IMC is a Windows NT application designed to work with Microsoft's Exchange & Outlook (Nasdaq:MSFT MSFT Microsoft (stock symbol) MSFT Movimento Sociale Fiamma Tricolore (Italy) MSFT Multi-Stage Fitness Test MSFT Master of Science in Family Therapy MSFT Macalester Students for Fair Trade ), IBM's Lotus Notes (NYSE NYSE See: New York Stock Exchange :IBM (International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY, www.ibm.com) The world's largest computer company. IBM's product lines include the S/390 mainframes (zSeries), AS/400 midrange business systems (iSeries), RS/6000 workstations and servers (pSeries), Intel-based servers (xSeries) ), Novell's GroupWise (Nasdaq:NOVL NOVL Novell, Inc. (stock abbreviation, AMEX) ) and all other POP3 compatible mail systems. About Internet Message Center Mustang's Internet Message Center (IMC) is an intelligent e-mail management system that provides sophisticated management capabilities for e-mail workflow in mission-critical, high-volume call center operations. IMC enables companies to manage incoming corporate and customer e-mail as it manages its inbound phone calls -- with logic, responsibility, structure, real-time management, and detailed reporting. IMC is designed with a modular architecture to support seamless integration with back-office and front-office applications and databases, enterprise knowledgebases, workforce management solutions, and Computer Telephony Integration Computer Telephony Integration - Computer Telephone Integration (CTI (Computer Telephone Integration) Combining data with voice systems in order to enhance telephone services. For example, automatic number identification (ANI) allows a caller's records to be retrieved from the database while the call is routed to the appropriate party. ) Middleware applications for "screen pops" and multimedia blended queuing to customer service representatives. Internet Message Center was named "Best of Show" by both Call Center Service News and CTI magazine at ICCM ICCM International Conference on Chemicals Management ICCM International Call Center Management ICCM International Centre for Culture and Management ICCM International Committee on Composite Materials ICCM International Council of Catholic Men in September 1998, "Best of Show" by Call Center magazine at CT Demo in November 1997, "Best of Show" by Computer Telephony magazine at CT Expo in March 1998 and has been named "Product of the Year" by Computer Telephony, C@LL Center Solutions, Call Center, CTI, and ISP (1) See in-system programmable. (2) (Internet Service Provider) An organization that provides access to the Internet. Connection to the user is provided via dial-up, ISDN, cable, DSL and T1/T3 lines. Today magazines. About AFFINA -- The Customer Relationship Company In its 25 years of experience, AFFINA has grown from a telephone-service agency or outsourcer to become a leader in the customer service and support industry through its unique blend of people, processes and technology. AFFINA offers a wide array of Customer Access Solutions(sm), including inbound, Internet, order taking, fulfillment, IVR (Interactive Voice Response) An automated telephone information system that speaks to the caller with a combination of fixed voice menus and data extracted from databases in real time. , market research, relationship marketing, data mining, outbound, mail processing, and database management. These services form an extensive customer development and management process using AFFINA's Intelligent Call Center(sm) as the virtual hub. By becoming an integral part of its clients' marketing strategies, AFFINA helps its clients build and sustain customer relationships that, in turn, build brand loyalty and improve sales. AFFINA is proud to count many Fortune 500 and Fortune 1000 companies in its 140-plus client base. About Mustang Software Founded in 1986, Mustang Software, Inc. delivers creative e-mail management solutions through a combination of the company's unique products and services, its unparalleled e-mail management experience and expertise and world-class alliance partnerships. Mustang presently counts more than 150 IMC customers worldwide including 3Com, GTE GTE General Telephone & Electronics GTE Génie Thermique et Énergie (French) GTE Gas Turbine Engine GTE Global Tropospheric Experiment GTE Geothermal Energy GTE Gas Turbine Efficiency plc (Sweden & USA) , Lucent Technologies, Playboy, The U.S. Mint, Time Warner New Media and Victoria's Secret. Mustang Software's corporate headquarters is located at 6200 Lake Ming Road, Bakersfield, CA, 93306 with offices in Chicago, IL and Washington, D.C.. Inquiries can be addressed via voice, 661-873-2500; fax, 661-873-2599; and e-mail, info@mustang.com, or by visiting Mustang Software on the Web at http://www.mustang.com. Note to Editors: Microsoft, Microsoft Exchange and Outlook are registered trademarks of Microsoft, Inc. |
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