Witness Systems Helps Customers Comply with Financial and Operational Regulatory Requirements  (email this article)

ATLANTA (December 15, 2003)  -  Witness Systems (NASDAQ: WITS) (Company Profile, Past Stories, Case Studies), a leading global provider of performance optimization software and services, today announced extended enterprise-wide archiving capabilities to support compliance recording requirements in a variety of vertical industries.  Increasingly, customers are investing in the company's recording solutions to address the stringent security and confidentiality requirements of compliance, regulatory and liability recording.  

Witness Systems' eQualityâ customer interaction recording solutions provide an open interface to industry-standard storage solutions, such as storage area networks (SAN) and network attached storage (NAS).  The rules-driven software provides users the flexibility to determine what, when, where and for how long recorded interactions should be archived to disk.  In addition, eQuality can serve multiple sites, thereby reducing administrative costs through centralized storage and tapes.

Certain businesses are required to capture all customer interactions, such as those involved in financial services, liability and regulatory environments.  Serving as a single solution for capturing customer intelligence, eQuality ensures companies are meeting their regulatory, compliance and sales verification recording obligations, while also providing the ability to create user-defined business rules that record specified types of contacts defined as important to specific areas of the business.  

In addition to capturing calls, these organizations are benefiting from the capabilities that enable them to search and review, categorize and share those interactions enterprise-wide to identify opportunities, track new trends, and gauge customer satisfaction and loyalty.  Reviewing and replaying a selection of contacts on a regular basis can demonstrate and verify that an organization is complying with the appropriate regulations.  Where there is a query or dispute regarding a transaction, reviewing the recording can provide a rapid and accurate conclusion.  Users can even "pause" a recording to avoid capturing sensitive parts of an interaction.  

Companies today that leverage eQuality for its traditional compliance recording capabilities include those in financial services, healthcare and other regulated industries, as well as those with requirements tied to sales verification.  For instance, a leading healthcare supplies provider uses eQuality to capture all interactions associated with credit or legal escalations, as well as order verification for expensive and strictly controlled products.  

A mortgage loan financing company ensures that customer accounts are documented properly by monitoring agent keystrokes.  If a customer calls in with a specific question, the company wants to ensure that the call and any related notes are recorded on the account for regulatory and financial accuracy.  Should the customer call back, the company has a complete record of the problem, solution and any necessary follow-up.  

One leading banking and credit card company leverages eQuality for fraud prevention.  Most recently, it was able to quickly identify and halt the processing of a fraudulent credit card application by having the entire call captured.  The same business also records all serious customer complaints, as well as those that pose threats to public safety.

A contact center outsourcing business that represents clients in the financial services and travel sectors uses eQuality in a security capacity.  Addressing the specific needs of contact center outsourcers, eQuality's archive capabilities support DVD-RAM drives.  Outsourcers can archive a campaign, for instance, onto a single DVD-RAM drive or store multiple campaigns on other single drives, making the captured contacts portable and accessible to their clients from a disk.  Users also can export a stand-alone Web-based replay application onto each DVD, allowing outsourcers' customers or other third parties to replay the recorded customer interactions.

"Today's global financial and operational regulatory issues demand a higher level of compliant products and services than ever before in the corporate world.  Witness Systems is committed to supplying the performance optimization software and services needed to assist customers in meeting these requirements," said Nancy Treaster, senior vice president of global marketing for Witness Systems.

About Witness Systems

Witness Systems (NASDAQ: WITS) 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 and/or full-time customer interaction recording, performance analysis and e- learning management applications, the browser-based eQuality® solution is designed to enhance the quality of customer contacts across multiple communications media, including the telephone, e-mail and Web.  The closed-loop suite enables companies to record, evaluate, analyze and learn from customer contacts and the touch points they use to develop staff, generate revenue, reduce costs, and achieve greater customer retention and loyalty - all by sharing captured customer and business intelligence throughout the entire organization.  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.

Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements:  Information in this release that involves Witness Systems' expectations, plans, intentions or strategies regarding the future are forward-looking statements that are not facts and involve a number of risks and uncertainties.  They are identified by words such as "anticipates," "expects," "intends," "plans," "believes," "estimates," and similar expressions.  These statements are based upon information available to Witness Systems as of the date of this release, and the company assumes no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement.  Forward-looking statements believed true when made may ultimately prove to be incorrect.  These statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to risks, uncertainties and other factors, some of which are beyond our control and may cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations.  Some of the factors that could cause actual future results to differ materially from current expectations include 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 international sales as the company expands its markets, including the risks associated with foreign currency fluctuations; the ability of the company to complete and integrate successfully any acquisitions or investments it may make; 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, 2002, and any other reports filed from time to time with the Securities and Exchange Commission.