Company
News
INTERMEDIA LAUNCHES WORLD-CLASS CALL CENTER USING
EDIFY'S NEXT GENERATION SOLUTION
Next Generation Call Center to Set Standard in Industry for Customer Care
TAMPA, FL and SANTA CLARA, CA (December 2, 1998) -
Intermedia Communications Inc. (Nasdaq: ICIX), one of the nation's fastest growing
telecommunications companies, and Edify Corporation (Nasdaq: EDFY), a global leader in
enterprise self service solutions, announced today that the first of Intermedia's regional
call centers in Tampa is now in operation providing world-class service to Intermedia's
customers. This call center, designed to set the standard in the industry for customer
care, utilizes Edify's Electronic Workforce/LS for interactive voice response (IVR), the
Genesys Suite from Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories for computer telephony
integration (CTI), and other best-of-breed Windows NT®-based industry standard components
to provide a mission-critical, 24 hour, 7-day a week customer care solution for
Intermedia's growing network of customers. "Our call centers are intelligently
routing calls to the appropriate customer service representatives (CSRs) who have right at
their fingertips the information about the customer that they need to respond to the
call," said Susan Hughes, Intermedia's vice president of Customer Operations.
"We are saving our customers time on the phone and giving them the exceptionally high
level of service they have come to expect from Intermedia."
Edify's Electronic Workforce/LS and CTI technology from Genesys integrates with front
office software from Clarify and a VisualBasic CSR desktop to provide a seamless customer
service solution. Edify's IVR application along with Genesys' CTI uses the customer's
dialed-number (DNIS) and identification number as well as the customer's response to
prompts about the problem to route the call to an appropriate CSR. By tightly integrating
with the Clarify front office system and the VisualBasic desktop, the Edify IVR
application enables the CSR to view a profile of the customer's service while addressing
the call. If the customer is calling to report a service outage, the CSR provides the
customer with a tracking number, which the customer can subsequently use to get an
automated update on estimated repair time. "With our partner Genesys, we provided
Intermedia with a highly scaleable solution that automates customer service and manages
the overall customer relationship," said George Fan, director of call center
marketing. "Our solution frees companies from their reliance on proprietary hardware
enabling them to quickly and cost-effectively deploy applications that can adapt to the
rapid changes occurring in call centers today."
The Window NT platform supports the open architecture for the components of the
Intermedia call center providing ease of use, low total cost of ownership, scaleability,
reliability and security. "Intermedia's advanced call center, serving a growing
number of customers in a 24 by 7 environment, demonstrates the excellent scalability of
Microsoft® Windows NT for mission critical call center applications," said Holly
Henson, group manager of enterprise applications at Microsoft Corp. "It is further
evidence of NT's continued penetration in this growing market."
During the coming months, Intermedia plans to replicate the Tampa call center success
with other call centers nationwide, which will ultimately be connected into one virtual
call center.
About Electronic Workforce/LS
Edify's Electronic Workforce/LS, a robust application development and run time platform
specifically designed for large call centers, integrates with front and back office
systems and databases, and supports multiple access options including the telephone, the
Web, e-mail, fax, and pager. Electronic Workforce/LS is based on Microsoft Windows NT, and
is highly scaleable, secure, and Year 2000 compliant.
About Intermedia Communications
Intermedia Communications is one of the nation's fastest growing telecommunications
companies, providing integrated telecommunications solutions to business and government
customers. These solutions include voice and data, local and long distance, and advanced
network access services in major US markets. Intermedia Communications' enhanced data
portfolio, including frame relay networking, ATM, and a full range of business Internet
connectivity and web hosting services, offers seamless end-to-end service virtually
anywhere in the world. Intermedia Communications is headquartered in Tampa, Florida.
Intermedia is on the World Wide Web at http://www.intermedia.com.
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