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NORTHERN TRUST RETIREMENT CONSULTING SELECTS BLUE PUMPKIN PRIMETIME FOR AUTOMATED WORKFORCE MANAGEMENTPrimeTime Enables Contact Center Managers to Fully Optimize Existing Staffing ResourcesSunnyvale, Calif. – October 23, 2000 – Blue Pumpkin Software, a leading provider of workforce management solutions, announced today that Northern Trust Retirement Consulting (NASDAQ: NTRS), a wholly-owned subsidiary of The Northern Trust, has selected the company’s PrimeTime forecasting and scheduling solution to automate scheduling and improve operations at their Atlanta, Georgia participant service center. Northern Trust Retirement Consulting (NTRC) represents the retirement services provided by The Northern Trust. Agents at the participant service center answer questions and perform transactions for participants in the various retirement plans that NTRC services. As the contact center experienced steady growth and call volumes increased, NTRC managers knew they needed a workforce management solution that would increase agent efficiency and enable them to reach even higher service levels. "We selected Blue Pumpkin's PrimeTime because of its ease of use," said Terry Allman, Operations Manager. "Blue Pumpkin offers us the functionality we need to handle higher call volumes and increase our service levels. By providing us with real data that more fully describes the times during the day when our challenges are the greatest, PrimeTime enables us to easily blend the different workshifts to have appropriate staffing during our busiest hours." The Blue Pumpkin solution immediately revealed that the participant service center was understaffed to handle the number of calls it received. As a result, NTRC managers are in the process of training a new group of representatives to assist with incoming calls. "Blue Pumpkin will allow us to proactively schedule representatives in a more efficient manner than we have previously been able to do, without having to hire additional staff," continued Allman. "The application provides meaningful scheduling recommendations that enables us to fully optimize our existing staffing resources. Historically we have been reactive to changes in call volume. Blue Pumpkin will help us increase productivity and allow management to act more strategically to other needs." About Northern Trust Retirement Consulting NTRC is a division of Northern Trust Corporate & Institutional. Northern Trust is an established leader in providing trust, custody, investment, retirement and treasury management services to clients worldwide, with credit used to support selected client relationships. Corporate and Institutional Services (C&IS) has a commitment, unique in the industry, to an integrated approach across client servicing, operations, technology and product development that delivers to clients a high tech service in a high-touch way. A consultative relationship with clients drives their product enhancements and new services as they meet increasingly complex requirements for investment and risk management solutions worldwide. Northern serves the sophisticated financial needs of corporations, governments and Taft-Hartley funds, financial institutions, fund managers and not-for-profit organizations in 35 countries around the world. Many of these client relationships extend over two decades or more, and most employ multiple Northern Trust products. C&IS reported outstanding results in 1999 with record new business. Trust assets under administration increased 22% to $1.4 trillion and managed assets exceeded $200 billion, growing by 28% from a year earlier. For more information, visit http://www.northerntrust.com About the Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime Product Line The Blue Pumpkin PrimeTime family of products helps contact centers of all sizes incorporate skill-based forecasting, scheduling, analysis and workflow into their contact center operations. PrimeTime and PrimeTime Enterprise serve businesses with small centers managing customer interactions over a single channel as well as multi- site, multi-channel operations. PrimeTime Exchange, Blue Pumpkin’s open integration platform, based on Java and XML technologies, provides a foundation for both PrimeTime and PrimeTime Enterprise to communicate with other contact center technologies. Together with pre-packaged software integration plug-ins, PrimeTime Exchange allows contact centers to consolidate information and operations by integrating customer and agent data seamlessly with ACD, CTI, CRM and eCRM applications. About Blue Pumpkin Software Blue Pumpkin Software is the market leader in workforce management solutions designed to help customer contact centers leverage their skilled resources to provide excellent customer service. Blue Pumpkin provides the tools necessary to efficiently schedule and manage contact center personnel, ensuring that the right person with the right skills handles customer interactions. These solutions help maximize the human potential to guarantee superior customer service across a variety of contact channels, including phone and email. With a family of flexible applications integrated with leading contact center technology partners, Blue Pumpkin gives contact centers the freedom to choose how to run their businesses. Blue Pumpkin Software is headquartered in Silicon Valley, with offices around the world. Blue Pumpkin's customers span a number of industries and include ADP, Apple Computer, Airborne Express, AOL/CompuServe Europe, AT&T, Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Drugstore.com, JetBlue Airways, KitchenAid, TimeWarner Cable and Verio. For more information about Blue Pumpkin and its products, please visit the Blue Pumpkin website at http://www.blue-pumpkin.com Editorial Contact: renee maler blue pumpkin software 925 968 9495 rmaler@blue-pumpkin.com top of page |
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