Siebel Performance Solutions to Increase Contact Center and Sales Effectiveness (email this article)

SAN MATEO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 8, 2003-- Siebel Systems (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), Inc. (Nasdaq:SEBL - News), a leading provider of multichannel eBusiness applications software, today announced the availability of the Siebel Contact Center Performance Solution and the Siebel Sales Performance Solution, which are designed to measure and improve the effectiveness of contact center and sales organizations, respectively. With Siebel Contact Center Performance Solution, contact centers can now increase cross-selling and up-selling of products and services during inbound customer calls to counteract possible future revenue losses caused by recent legislative limitations on outbound telemarketing.

"The bottom line is that companies must improve performance by increasing employee satisfaction, reducing costs, and building competencies within sales organizations and contact centers," said Wendy Close, CRM Research Director, Gartner, Inc. "These are basic necessities for improving overall business performance through cross-selling and up-selling, while reducing the typically high turnover rates associated with these organizations. And, given recent legislative activity curtailing outbound telemarketing, the ability of contact centers to cross-sell and up-sell to existing customers on inbound service calls will become critical."

Using Siebel Systems' performance solutions, companies can evaluate cost structures and organizational competence, communicate organizational business goals, provide training to minimize employee churn, and measure employee performance to reward successes. In addition, companies can effectively manage individual employee competence, creating customer-driven organizations in which contact center and sales representatives are highly skilled and well-equipped to offer personalized customer service and support.

In the current economic climate, companies face the continuing challenge of growing revenue, controlling costs, and increasing customer satisfaction -- all while developing and retaining high-performing employees. Drawing from the expertise it has developed by completing more than 3,500 CRM deployments, Siebel Systems is addressing these challenges by offering a set of best practices designed to align employees with contact center and sales organizations' objectives. Offered separately as solution bundles, Siebel Contact Center Performance Solution and Siebel Sales Performance Solution each encompass five key areas -- scorecarding and analytics, communication, performance management, training, and employee service.

Siebel Contact Center and Sales Performance Solutions improve contact center and sales organization performance through:

Scorecarding and analytics that provide all employees with a role-based view of relevant Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) -- indicators that help an organization evaluate its level of success
Communication and productivity tools that keep sales representatives and contact center agents engaged and current on the latest corporate strategy and processes
Performance management and compensation management that ensure employees clearly understand individual and organizational goals and objectives
Training and competency management that continually tracks and improves upon workforce skills so that employees operate at peak levels at all times
Employee service capabilities that enable employees to quickly and efficiently complete administrative tasks and obtain support from internal operations, IT, and product groups, increasing productivity and significantly reducing support costs
"In 2001, FleetBoston wanted to increase multiproduct sales by engaging in more consultative selling," said Dean Athanasia, Executive Vice President and Managing Director, Business Development and Strategy Group, FleetBoston Financial Corporation. "To do this, we deployed Siebel Finance to 2,000 sales and service personnel; this improved cross-selling and reduced administrative costs. The rollout was so successful that our employees were asking for more. To meet their expectations, we deployed Siebel Call Center and Sales Performance Solutions, which serve as the single information portal for our customer-facing employees. With consolidated, personalized information at their fingertips, FleetBoston relationship managers have dramatically improved their efficiency and effectiveness when interacting with customers. Siebel applications helped us to increase our cross-sell revenue by 15 percent despite a severely down market."

"The next iteration of CRM recognizes that systems alone will not create a truly customer-centric enterprise. Users ultimately determine the success of CRM systems," said David Schmaier, Executive Vice President, Siebel Systems. "Sales and contact center agents must be well trained and supported as part of any successful CRM initiative so that technology and human capital are working in tandem to deliver the highest levels of customer service."

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.

Except for the historical information contained herein, this press release contains forward-looking statements that involve risk or uncertainties. 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 customer relations, such as the availability of Siebel Systems' products and services, customer implementation of products and services, relationships with customers, third-party vendors and systems integrators, concentration of revenues in a relatively small number of customers, existence of errors or defects in products, ability to successfully manage growth, 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.

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.