New Book Puts an End to 1-800 Customer Frustration - Shifting Focus to Improving People, Not Just Technology.

Business Editors

ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--April 30, 2003

Knowlagent's "Customer Service at a Crossroads" Provides Roadmap

for Building Best Performers Fast and Transforming

Customer Service Centers into Strategic Assets

Do you dread dialing 1-800?

Chances are, like most people, you do. A company's customer service center is the lifeline to its customers, but people have come to expect poor service from customer service centers - leading to low levels of customer satisfaction and loyalty. Despite significant efforts, corporate executives are still grappling with how to fix the problem in order to retain customers.

In recent years, companies have made major investments in technology to improve their customer service centers, yet the focus has been tactical, not strategic. Instead of focusing on the people involved - customer service agents - corporations have been obsessed with efficiency, handling each call in record time rather than making sure the customer's needs are met and that they are satisfied with the experience. This approach has created a gap between the performance a customer service agent delivers and customer expectations, ultimately impacting a company's bottom line.

Customer Service at a Crossroads--What You Do Next to Improve Performance Will Determine Your Company's Destiny, a new book by Matt McConnell, founder of Knowlagent, gives corporate executives decisive guidance on transforming their customer service center from a tactical, efficiency-focused environment to a strategic, performance-based culture. The book reveals how to build best performers fast to significantly improve the customer experience - increasing customer satisfaction and retention, and driving a company's profits.

Knowlagent provides solutions and services that quickly improve agent performance by enhancing skills, boosting confidence and eliminating agent variability.

"The simple process of serving customers has become overcomplicated," said Matt McConnell. "The way to a customer's heart lies not in software, systems and processes, but in people. Customer Service at a Crossroads speaks to a basic business principle: business is done between people, not computers. People - customers and employees alike - impact a company's bottom line. It's really that simple, and is the premise on which Knowlagent was built."

Co-authored by McConnell and renowned customer service center pioneer, Dr. Jon Anton, director of benchmark research at Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality, Customer Service at a Crossroads explores the current state of America's customer service centers, the crucial need for customer retention, and the critical connection between agent performance and customer satisfaction. The book contains tips on how executives can take a total quality management (TQM) approach to customer service centers. This includes an individualized learning program for agents that involves training, simulation and incentives, and leverages previous technology investments. The book is packed with valuable insight to help companies meet the challenges of today's economy by focusing on creating the optimal customer experience through customized agent performance enhancement.

"For the past 30 years, the customer service center has been the most maligned department in corporate America," commented Dr. Jon Anton. "With 70 percent of all business transactions occurring over the telephone, a shift towards a service-based economy and an increasingly frustrated consumer, it's time for executives to pay attention to their customer service centers. Management needs to do more than just try to automate their customer service centers, they need to deal with the root of the problem - agent performance. Our hope is that this book will enable executives to recognize the origins of their customer service problems and provide agents with the knowledge and skills they need to do their job effectively and be top performers."

Customer Service at a Crossroads is available from Knowlagent's Web site at www.knowlagent.com and the Purdue University Call Center Benchmark Research Web site at http://www.benchmarkportal.com/store/index.taf for $15.95.

About Knowlagent

Knowlagent focuses on making the people better--not the technology--in customer service centers around the world. Our proven, comprehensive Agent Performance solution is uniquely designed to automatically individualize strategies to improve agent performance. We help leaders in financial services, insurance, telecommunications and healthcare build and sustain best performers quickly 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, visit www.knowlagent.com or call 1-888-566-9457.