SalesForce Expands Customer Service Platform with Genesys to Support Additional 1,000 Agents

  • SalesForce works with Genesys to consolidate operations following merger with Salmat; More than 2,000 agents to use Genesys platform once completed
Wokingham – August 22, 2005 – Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, an Alcatel company (NYSE: ALA, Paris: CGEP.PA), today announced an expansion of its contract with SalesForce, one of Australia’s leading outsourced contact centres, to provide contact centre software and services to support an additional 1,000 agents across its e*smart call centres in Australia. The centres provide outsourced sales, after sales and customer service solutions to a range of clients within the telecommunications and financial services sectors.

Following the merger of SalesForce and contact centre provider Salmat earlier in the year, SalesForce will work with Salmat to replace currently installed call centre solutions with Genesys software to enable the companies to offer consistently high levels of customer service across their businesses.

“With the merger, we needed to evaluate our technology platforms to ensure we could deliver consistent, quality service at the right price to our customers,” said Kevin Panozza, CEO of SalesForce. “As the leading provider of outsourced customer service solutions, we require a technology partner who can help us meet our objectives.

“Our existing relationship with Genesys has demonstrated that it delivers a comprehensive contact centre portfolio with best-of-breed technology and a complete understanding of our business regardless of the underlying telephony. We operate on a variety of telephony systems, and Genesys integrates with each system to deliver the business outcomes our customers demand of us.”

Genesys will provide software that enables SalesForce to roll out multi-media, IVR/speech capabilities as well as in-bound call management across its e*smart call centres. The implementation will help ensure that SalesForce can optimise its customer interaction by categorising caller requests and matching them with appropriate agents. SalesForce will be able to monitor levels of call activity and scale its systems and resources according to peak and off peak periods. Once completed, more than 2,000 SalesForce agents will be supported by a Genesys technology platform.

“SalesForce’s continued commitment to Genesys is a testament of our ability to provide the best call centre technology and support to businesses that rely on delivering high levels of customer service,” said Jason Stirling, managing director, Genesys for Australia and New Zealand. “SalesForce is a key customer of Genesys in the region and we look forward to working with it as it consolidates its customer service platform and evolves its call centre portfolio.”

The Genesys suite of products involved in the implementation will include the Genesys Voice Platform that simplifies and enables voice self-service as well as its Genesys Inbound Voice software that routes and prioritises calls to the best qualified agents according to customer requests. SalesForce will also upgrade with the Genesys Workforce Management solution that balances incoming call and e-mail requests, identifying appropriate available agent resources to best satisfy customer demands quickly and efficiently.

About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel company, is 100 per cent focused on software for contact centres. Leading companies in the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use Genesys to deliver interactions that drive better business. With 3000 customers in 80 countries, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys allows enterprises to achieve key business objectives by tying together customer interactions, people, and customer information in both traditional telephony and IP environments. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, e-mail, documents and Web interactions, coupled with integrated self-service, ensure that customers are quickly connected to the right resource - the first time. Genesys solutions stop customer frustration and allow enterprises to deliver superior customer satisfaction and improved business results. For more information visit us at www.genesyslab.com.

About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks; applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 12.3 billion and 56,000 employees in 2004, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com.

About SalesForce
SalesForce Australia is one of Australasia’s largest providers of outsourced contact centres and direct sales organisations with more than 2,500 employees engaged in holding over 20 million customer conversations each year.

Using a range of media, SalesForce provides its customers ranging from small enterprises to top 100 ASX organisations with sales, after sales and customer service solutions. Their diverse client portfolio provides them with experience in a wide range of markets and business environments.

Previously nominated amongst the top ten best employers in Australia in 2001 and 2003, SalesForce was the 2004 winner of the Hewitt Best Employer Survey of Australian businesses sponsored by the Australian Financial Review and the Australian Graduate School of Management. More information can be found at www.salesforce.com.au.

Media Contact:
Paul Roberts, Genesys UK, 0118 974 7144, proberts@genesyslab.co.uk