Loews Cineplex Boosts Sales by 17 Percent Using Siebel eBusiness Applications (email this article)

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 5, 2003--Siebel Systems (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL - News), a leading provider of multichannel eBusiness applications software, today announced that Loews Cineplex Entertainment Special Products Group has increased sales by 17 percent using Siebel eBusiness Applications.

Loews has deployed Siebel Sales in its business-to-business sales division, which handles the organization's more than 16,000 business customers in the U.S. and Canada. The company sells movie tickets at a discount to businesses that resell them or use them in promotional campaigns, customer reward programs, or employee incentive programs.

"Siebel Sales has helped boost the productivity of our sales representatives, particularly in customer communication," noted Mary Dufresne, Marketing Analyst at Loews. "For example, sales representatives used to manually gather and fax collateral. Now they can email it through Siebel Sales, which has saved 20 percent of representatives' time."

Loews has experienced dramatic sales growth since the company's founding in 1989 and had outgrown its current homegrown sales software. The legacy system provided no tools to help sales representatives track and manage their opportunity pipeline, so they resorted to manual methods. In addition, the homegrown software did not provide data with which to measure event effectiveness or tradeshow attendance. These shortcomings hindered Loews' ability to manage sales opportunities effectively and grow its customer base.

Now, with Siebel Sales, sales representatives and management have a comprehensive view of all customers and sales activities. Siebel Sales' activity-tracking capability helps sales representatives ensure proper follow-up on all account activities, and the calendaring feature has enabled close coordination within the business-to-business sales division.

As a result of using Siebel Sales, sales representatives are more productive, make more outbound calls, and can collaborate more effectively on large accounts. In addition, management can forecast sales accurately, gauge the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and promotions, and quickly zero in on problem areas and initiate corrective action.

With Siebel Sales' patented mobile synchronization technology, sales representatives also have the ability to work remotely, resulting in more effective activity tracking and faster response to customer requests. Loews sales representatives spend about 20 percent of their time out of the office, and prior to using Siebel Sales, they manually logged activities and noted customer requests when they were away from the office. Loews is also taking advantage of the Siebel campaign capability to develop hot leads uncovered by an external telemarketing service that follows up on marketing mail campaigns.

"Perhaps the greatest benefit is that Siebel Systems has helped us improve our customer service significantly," said Stephen Pitcher, Operations Manager at Loews. "Our customers tell us that, relative to others in the business, we are much more organized, much friendlier, and much more knowledgeable about our customers. And that means more sales for us."

About Siebel Systems

Siebel Systems, Inc. is a leading provider of eBusiness applications software, enabling corporations to sell to, market to, and serve customers across multiple channels and lines of business. With more than 3,500 customer deployments worldwide, Siebel Systems provides organizations with a proven set of industry-specific best practices, CRM applications, and business processes, empowering them to consistently deliver superior customer experiences and establish more profitable customer relationships. Siebel Systems' sales and service facilities are located in more than 28 countries.

Siebel is a trademark of Siebel Systems, Inc. and may be registered in certain jurisdictions. All other product and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned for identification purposes only.

Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The success of the agreements and products described above and the future operating results of Siebel Systems may differ from the results discussed or forecasted in the forward-looking statements due to factors that include, but are not limited to, risks associated with new versions and new products, the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, implementation of products and services, existence of errors or defects in products, rapid technological change, dependence on the Internet, significant current and expected additional competition and the need to continue to expand product distribution and services offerings. Further information on potential factors that could affect the financial results of Siebel Systems are included in Siebel Systems' Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q and its other filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which are available at www.sec.gov. Siebel Systems assumes no obligation to update the information in this press release.