Fineco Transforms Customer Service with Genesys Dynamic Contact Centre

Italy’s Top Online Bank Recognised with Genesys Customer Innovation Award for Customer Service

LONDON – July 18, 2007 – Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel-Lucent company (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU), has recognised Fineco, Italy’s top online bank, as one of the world’s leading customer service organisations. Fineco was selected from more than 240 applicants for the second annual 2007 Genesys Customer Innovation Awards. Fineco attained perfect scores in several of the 17 scoring categories, receiving strongest marks for leveraging IP brilliantly, using new modes of delivering customer service and setting innovative new performance metrics.

Using technology innovatively to streamline and optimise customer service, Fineco partnered with Genesys to transform its customer contact centre into a Dynamic Contact Centre (DCC), increasing customer satisfaction as well as improving the contact centre’s alignment with company business goals. Finalists strive to provide excellent customer service through the innovative use of technology in highly dynamic environments. Furthermore, the DCC showcases how customer service can be elevated to a strategic business asset designed to increase overall customer loyalty and business value. A DCC stops customer frustration, drives contact centre efficiencies and accelerates business innovation.

“The goal of the awards programme is to recognise the world’s most dynamic contact centre environments,” said Wes Hayden, president and CEO, Genesys. “Fineco has strategically leveraged the Genesys suite of contact centre solutions to achieve an optimal balance of customer traffic, internal resources and business outcomes. The most universal common thread among all of the innovators is the ability to link business issues to customer service, achieve optimisation and treat the contact centre as a strategic opportunity.”

Fineco set out to create a customer contact centre that could offer its high-demand clients real-time access to financial and trading transactions from anywhere. Fineco also needed to connect its large support offices in northern and central Italy with its nontraditional customer service network.

Fineco implemented the Genesys 7.2 real-time customer interaction suite and leveraged Open IP and SIP, providing contact centres with new forms of customer interaction, intelligent routing, call controls and software-based ACD capabilities. The IP solution fit well with Fineco’s online delivery model.

Genesys 7.2 integrates IP into key elements of the suite, such as the Genesys Voice Platform (GVP), taking Fineco’s call management to another level of self-service by dynamically receiving and routing calls to appropriate agents based on the nature of the customer inquiry. Because it can connect the contact centre with business applications, Open IP helps Fineco extend customer service beyond the traditional contact centre, leveraging customer data and knowledge from across the enterprise. Providing business rules and real-time statistics, Genesys Expert Contact automatically routes Fineco’s inbound calls, e-mail or chat sessions to functional experts in the office and remote field locations. In addition, Open IP also brings the contact centre closer together - linking remote offices to better align service goals across regions.

“We don’t think about the contact centre, but about the CRM platform. We think about building an integrated way to manage the relationship between the bank and our customers,” said Massimo Maggioni, CRM strategy developer, Fineco. “We wanted to create an open, transparent communication line, moving our customers to the appropriate expert to solve their problem or answer their question. We want to create strong relationships between Fineco, our financial planners and our customers.”

Fineco has seen impressive results from the Genesys 7.2 installation. Already, customers are transitioning to the GVP self-service application. In fact, now, sixty percent of Fineco’s inbound calls are handled through GVP. Without GVP, Fineco reports that their agent staffing levels would be double the current number.

In defining its DCC vision, Genesys looked at the global customer service leaders among the 4,000 companies currently using its software. Genesys recognised that customers have started to deploy elements of the DCC vision today, based on key capabilities. Genesys created the Genesys Customer Innovation Awards to recognise those customers who are already making strides toward creating DCCs. The programme also enables sharing of experiences among the Genesys customer community.

Fineco presented to a panel of analyst judges during the semi-finals at the Genesys Analyst Conference, held in San Francisco in January 2007. Fineco received recognition at G-Force London. For more information on the event, visit: www.genesysgforce.com.


About Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
Genesys, an Alcatel-Lucent company, is the only company that focuses 100 per cent on software to manage customer interactions over the phone, Web and in e-mail. The Genesys software suite dynamically connects customers with the right resources – self-service or assisted-service – to fulfill customer requests, optimise customer care goals and efficiently use resources. Genesys software directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day for 4,000 companies and government agencies in 80 countries. These companies and agencies can leverage their entire organisation, from the contact center to the back office, to improve the overall customer experience. As a result, Genesys helps stop customer frustration, drive efficiency and accelerate business innovation. For more information, go to www.genesyslab.com or visit the industry blog at www.betterinteractions.com.

About Alcatel-Lucent
Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) provides solutions that enable service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. As a leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent offers the end-to-end solutions that enable compelling communications services for people at home, at work and on the move. With operations in more than 130 countries, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with global reach. The company has the most experienced global services team in the industry, and one of the largest research, technology and innovation organizations in the telecommunications industry. Alcatel-Lucent achieved adjusted proforma revenues of Euro 18.3 billion in 2006 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. [All figures exclude impact of activities transferred to Thales]. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: www.alcatel-lucent.com.


Media Contact:
Duncan Burford, PR for Genesys, 01780 721433, dburford@iba-europe.com

 



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