Avaya helps to Deliver Superior Customer Service

Direct Marketing Leader Harte-Hanks Uses Avaya Intelligent Communications Solutions to Deliver Superior Customer Service

When your business depends on how well you treat your client's customers, there's no room for error. That's true for direct marketing giant Harte-Hanks, which handles customer care for some of the world's largest companies. The company's success rests on its ability to help clients deliver superior, uninterrupted customer service across multiple communication channels (i.e. phone, e-mail, Web) and to realize substantial returns on their marketing investments.

To meet these goals, Harte-Hanks uses industry-leading speech self-service and Internet protocol (IP) telephony solutions from Avaya Inc. (NYSE: AV), a leading global provider of business communications software, systems and services.

"Our client companies demand efficient delivery of quality services," said Dave LaGreca, chief information officer, Harte-Hanks Inc. "We help our clients optimize relationships with their customers throughout the entire buying cycle - from lead responses to purchases to product support after a sale is made. This requires interactions to be handled quickly and in the most cost-efficient way, a goal we're able to achieve by partnering with industry leaders such as Avaya."

Harte-Hanks extends global contact center solutions to a variety of FORTUNE 500(R) clients, with a network of centers in the United States and worldwide providing sales support, lead generation, customer care, technical support and security expertise.

Avaya's IP-based Speech Technology Dramatically Improves Response Times
When a major Harte-Hanks client needed a better interactive response system to route technical support calls from customers, the marketing firm turned to a speech self-service solution based on the Avaya Voice Portal - a next-generation software platform for speech-enabling Web services across a distributed enterprise.

"Speech applications can be thoughtfully and efficiently implemented to improve the customer experience," said Kris Klein, director of voice services for Harte-Hanks. "They can make service simpler and faster, by expediting the caller to the representative with the appropriate skills and expertise."

Added Klein, "When we needed a new natural-language application to enhance customer service for our client, we knew Avaya could do the job. We trust the recommendations and engineering behind Avaya Voice Portal."

With the Avaya solution in place, Harte-Hanks now has a solution that prompts customers to request the kind of help they need in natural spoken language. The system recognizes their spoken words and automatically routes calls to the most appropriate agent - whether the customer needs help with a specific problem or advice from a specialist. The solution also helped Harte-Hanks reduce average call transfer times for its client - getting customers to agents more quickly for improved responsiveness.

Working with Harte-Hanks was a member of the Avaya Developer-Connection program - Viecore Inc., a consulting and systems integration firm - which designed and implemented the speech self-service application using Avaya Dialog Designer, a VoiceXML development tool that speeds the development of speech self-service applications. Avaya DeveloperConnection is an initiative to develop, market and sell innovative third-party products that interoperate with Avaya technology and extend the value of a company's investment in its network - Avaya.