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Witness Systems Joins SmartForceConnect ProgramSmartForce and Witness Systems Partner to Enhance Customer Interactions Through Joint Contact Center SolutionREDWOOD CITY, Calif., July 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- SmartForce (Nasdaq: SMTF - News), the world's largest and most experienced e-Learning company, today announced that it has entered into a mutual sales and marketing agreement with Witness Systems (Nasdaq: WITS - News), a leading global provider of performance optimization software and services. The two companies have partnered to provide a joint solution, which includes SmartForce's Contact Center SolutionSet and Witness Systems' eQuality® software, for optimizing customer interactions, sales and service. This alliance is part of the recently announced "SmartForceConnect" openness and integration program designed to help customers "connect" their learning initiatives to other mission critical applications and to drive learning deeper into the core of their business.Contact centers are critical to organizations because they are the frontline of communication with customers and partners. They are often complex environments that involve advanced technologies that require agents to communicate across multiple channels and manage a high volume of telephone calls and e-mails. Additionally, while managing all communications effectively and reliably, call centers must, at the same time, increase revenue, decrease costs, combat inherent turnover, and provide consistent, high quality service. The partnership between SmartForce and Witness Systems will enable joint customers to enhance their customer relationships by quickly assessing skill gaps and providing targeted learning to agents. With Witness Systems' eQuality suite, companies can evaluate performance; analyze individual, group and center-wide performance; and quickly identify skill gaps and learning opportunities. By recording customer interactions, evaluating agent performance, and then using eQuality Now to prioritize and deliver segments of training directly to agents' desktops, contact centers benefit from an integrated, closed-loop solution for applying organizational learning. Through the partnership, Witness Systems' eQuality Now solution will deliver and track SmartForce's e-Learning content, specifically the Contact Center SolutionSet that focuses on addressing skill gaps, improving agent effectiveness and ensuring consistent, quality service for customers. By continually developing agents' skills, companies reduce costs and gain the customer satisfaction that increases revenue opportunities and loyalty among their customer base. Ongoing e-Learning also enables agents to hone their skills and benefit from a career path. The result is an effective environment for continuous performance improvement that helps companies ensure their customers receive consistent service across all channels. The SmartForce Contact Center SolutionSet features a pre-configured implementation of the SmartForce e-Learning infrastructure and content covering topics that are critical to the contact center function. For all contact center job roles, agents, supervisors and managers, the SolutionSet is comprised of core contact center skills, customer service skills, inside sales skills, technical support/help desk skills, contact center systems and desktop training, and client-specific and industry content. Witness Systems' eQuality solutions are used in the contact centers of Global 2000 customers that represent such vertical markets as automotive, financial services, healthcare, hospitality, insurance, outsourcing, publishing, retail, travel and utilities. The partnership between Witness Systems and SmartForce will bring to market a powerful solution that supports the critical sales and service process in customers' organizations. It is proven to generate significant business outcomes. "Capturing customer intelligence and optimizing workforce performance is critical to business success today," said Nancy Treaster, senior vice president of global marketing for Witness Systems. "But in order to achieve the greatest benefits for customers and agents alike, it must be linked with appropriate training. Witness Systems addresses this need with eQuality Now and a set of standard soft-skill sessions. By augmenting that with SmartForce's robust Contact Center SolutionSet, agent development can be impacted even more positively. This is an ideal match for our productivity and performance enhancement solution." "The partnership with Witness Systems will enable SmartForce to help organizations that are dependent upon contact centers as a key part of their customer relationship management strategy to achieve fast and tangible results," said Greg Priest, chairman and CEO of SmartForce. "Teaming with Witness Systems greatly increases both companies' ability to provide learning solutions that support such customer strategies and will enhance the market penetration opportunity for both of us." About Witness Systems Witness Systems provides the contact center industry's first integrated performance optimization software suite to help global enterprises capture customer intelligence and optimize workforce performance. Comprised of business-driven multimedia recording, performance analysis and e-learning management applications, the browser-based eQuality® solution is designed to enhance the quality of customer interactions across multiple communications media, including the telephone, e-mail and Web. The closed-loop suite enables companies to record, evaluate and analyze customer contacts, and then launch e-learning to develop staff, generate additional revenue, and achieve greater customer retention and loyalty. An integrated business consulting, implementation and training methodology provides services to support an effective, rapid deployment of eQuality that enables organizations to maximize their return on investment. For additional information about Witness Systems and its eQuality software suite, visit www.witness.com, or call 1-888-3-WITNESS. About SmartForce SmartForce, the world's largest and most experienced e-Learning company, provides integrated e-Learning solutions that enable enterprises to generate concrete, significant business outcomes by more effectively distributing knowledge around the extended enterprise. With more than 2,500 corporate customers, including many of the world's largest organizations, SmartForce e-Learning solutions bring the power of the Internet to business processes involving learning, skills development and knowledge transfer. SmartForce is quoted on the Nasdaq National Market under the symbol "SMTF." The company, which has more than 1,700 employees worldwide, has corporate headquarters at 900 Chesapeake Drive, Redwood City, Calif., 94063. Phone: 650-817-5900. Fax: 650-817-5061. Web site: www.smartforce.com. Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Information in this release that involves Witness Systems' expectations, beliefs, hopes, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include statements about Witness Systems' strategies in the marketplace, its market position and its relationship with customers. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to Witness Systems as of the date of the release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. The factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to, fluctuations in customer demand and the timing of orders; the company's ability to manage its growth; the risk of new product introductions and customer acceptance of new products; the rapid technological change which characterizes the company's markets; the risks associated with competition; the risks associated with international sales as the company expands its markets; and the ability of the company to compete successfully in the future, as well as other risks identified under the caption "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations" in the company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2001 and any other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission. NOTE: Witness, eQuality and the Witness logo are United States registered trademarks of Witness Systems, Inc., protected by laws of the U.S. and other countries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are the property of their respective owners. SmartForce, SmartForce e-Learning and the SmartForce logo are trademarks of SmartForce. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated. Editorial Contact: Shana Peterson Porter Novelli 404.995.4505 shana.peterson@pnicg.com top of page |
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