Telefonica Group Launched Its New Company Named Atento.

Business Editors

NOTE TO MEDIA: Photo available on BW PhotoWire/AP PhotoExpress,

PressLink Online, NewsCom, the AP Photo Archive

Topic Gallery and on Business Wire's Web site at

www.businesswire.com

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 16, 2000

Atento is a leading global company in customer relationship management. It announced that by the end of next year, it foresees to generate more than 3,000 jobs. The company is a branch of Atento Holding, being present in 14 countries.

Atento, belonging to Telefonica Group, is a global leading company in relationship management services with customers (CRM ("Customer relationship management")) which launched today its branch in Argentina. The company has at present a total of 550 operating positions in its communication center, going to 1,100 positions by the end of the year and that by the end of the next year, this figure will exceed 3,000 jobs. With Atento Argentina, Atento Holding is present in 14 countries, with more than 24,000 operating positions.

The launching of Atento Argentina at the Hilton Hotel was headed by the CEO of Atento Holding, Federico Sanchez and the General Manager of Atento Argentina, Walter Cogliati.

Atento, a company created to strengthen the relationships between the companies and their customers, helping them to develop their businesses, offers consulting, customers attraction and loyalty services and besides it contributes with integral solutions regarding surveys, market segmentation tasks, marketing strategies, advertisement polls, logistics, sale and post sale assistance.

These business integral services meet the requirements of the financial area (banks, finance and insurance), telecommunications, technology and multimedia, Internet (Internet access providers, portals), public services (passengers land transportation, airlines, tourism and travel agencies), trade, retailers and government.

Thus, Atento, dealing with more than 1.4 billion contacts per year, helps to the development of the companies' businesses, bringing companies with their customers to a close relationship, thus turning Atento in an essential strategic partner for the growth of businesses. With the purpose to facilitate the customers access, the new company has enabled the free of charge phone line 0-800-22ATENTO (0-800-22-8368) and a web page (www.atento.com.ar).

The Company

Atento is a worldwide global coverage holding which has already generate 24,000 operating jobs, therefore it has turned in the worldwide leader regarding operating capacity. It is present in more than 14 countries and 4 continents, in markets such as Spain, Italy, France, Morocco, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Guatemala and El Salvador, The local branch shall directly report to Atento Holding's offices based in Miami, U.S.A.

In this way, the local branch inaugurates its operations by offering products and services suited to specific needs, regardless the business volume involved by the companies and helping them to focus their operations and generating a closer, more dynamic and responsible relationship with their customers.

Regarding the operation in Argentina, the General Manager of the new company, Walter Cogliati stated that "with the significant scale economies generated by Atento, our customers shall be able to avoid great investments and optimize costs, as well as rationalize the management of their human resources, allowing them to concentrate in their core business.

Customized Solutions

Under the CRM "Customer Relationship Management") concept, Atento offers a series of product and services related to Internet phone access, Internet Call Center, Research, Consulting Services, Database Marketing and Data Mining, Loyalty Programs, Sales and Promotion, Customer Assistance, Collection Management, Fulfillment and Operations.

Therefore and through Internet Access, the companies can offer their customers or any individual - with a simple phone call and without the need to use a computer - the access to the WWW to make bookings, purchases, sending and receiving electronic mails and inquiry on every information. At the same time, the Internet Call Center helps to create a call center from any web page, facilitating the surfers to search of information and provide answers to doubts in real time and also allowing to have a direct communication with an operator of the company. Besides, it provides a complete online consulting service on this service, offering the design and optimization of a call center, including staff recruitment, training and search.

In order to be able to know the preferences, needs and lifestyle of the potential and actual customers, the services involved under the "Research" category help the customer to design and carry out market surveys, opinion tolls and advertisement tracking (follow up).

On the other hand, the Database Marketing and Data Mining categories allow the management of the consumers data through databases administered and updated with a complete and suitable structure and analysis. Besides, the setting up, assistance and follow up of customers are included in the Loyalty Program through "Sales and Promotions", therefore the customers can measure and evaluate actions and receive advise regarding the design of arguments, the schedule of visits, tele sale and e-commerce sales support.

In the "Customer Assistance" are, the services related to enquiries, faxes, information submittal, help desk and post sale support are included. "Collection Management" area helps to make the collections in a timely basis through analysis and intelligent collection services. "Fulfillment" supports the efficiency increase in the commercial actions through the arrangement of requests, follow up, storage, logistics and distribution. Finally, "Operations" category facilitates the communications of the company by arranging the reception and distribution of messages and calls.

Note: A Photo is available at URL:

http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/photo.cgi?pw.111600/bw4