AAA Hits The Road With MCI In $12 Million Deal

MCI's Communications Services to Provide Solutions for 47 Million Auto Club Members

ASHBURN, Va., Oct. 25 -- MCI today announced that it has entered into a multi-year, $12 million agreement with AAA, North America's largest motoring and leisure travel organization, to offer services to its automobile clubs in the U.S. Under terms of the agreement, MCI will deliver a wide range of advanced IP-based solutions, including Private IP, MCI Advantage, Video and Net Conferencing, Internet, DSL and Managed Network Services to help AAA enhance its various automotive, travel, insurance, and financial services for the association's 47 million members.

MCI has devised a solution to enable AAA auto clubs to automate many of its member services through MCI's Voice Portal offering, an interactive self- service application which employs voice recognition technology via the telephone to access a Web-based database. With a simple touch of a telephone key pad, members in club territories using this feature will be able to quickly access up-to-the minute driving directions, renew a membership, request additional member identification cards, update member records, order maps and obtain billing information.

"MCI is focused on helping customers like AAA put technology to work for them to heighten their customer experience," said Steve Young, senior vice president, MCI Commercial Services. "By automating many of their member services, AAA clubs can further streamline customer service operations and continue to enhance the customer service experience for AAA members any time of the day or night."

AAA Auto Club South, based in Tampa, Fla., has already achieved success in using MCI's IP-based voice-enabled technology. For two years, AAA Auto Club South has been using MCI's voice portal solution and found that members can conduct simple transactions without waiting on hold for the next available live agent. As a result, the club has been able to reduce hold times and the number of abandoned calls, while reducing the costs associated with live operator services.

In October, MCI was awarded the AAA Chairman's Choice Award for its Voice Portal solution. This top award was given by the AAA member club CIO's and presented at the AAA/Canadian Automobile Association IT conference, following a live demonstration of the Voice Portal application that collects mailing addresses via speech recognition and posts the address in real time to the AAA database.

MCI will also provide connectivity and toll-free Enhanced Call Routing (ECR) to some AAA call centers ensuring that member calls are quickly and properly routed to the closest club and members receive the assistance required around-the-clock. Through the use of ECR services, AAA clubs are able to minimize caller confusion and annoyance, while improving the allocation of people and equipment within the AAA club business environment.

"MCI's breadth and depth of its communication portfolio have enabled us to better serve our AAA Members through the use of MCI's Enhanced Call Routing and Voice Portal technology," said AAA Auto Club South CIO Mike Petrilli. "With MCI, we are confident knowing we have a partner that has both the technology and the people to assist us in delivering high levels of service to our members.

The agreement also provides AAA clubs the opportunity to purchase MCI local and long distance services, private line, ATM and other services at competitive prices under the nationwide contract. By purchasing a range of services from MCI, AAA is leveraging its purchasing power to offer additional value to its clubs.

In addition, through MCI's secure Customer Care (MCC) portal, AAA gains online access to a wide variety of Web-based tools they can use for real-time network management and troubleshooting, online ordering, electronic billing and payment options, customer training and real-time network performance reporting.

About AAA

As the nation's largest motoring and leisure travel organization, AAA provides its members in the U.S. and Canada with travel, insurance, financial and automotive-related services. Since its founding in 1902, the not-for-profit, fully tax-paying AAA has been a leader and advocate for the safety of all travelers.

About MCI

MCI, Inc., , is a leading global communications provider, delivering innovative, cost-effective, advanced communications connectivity to businesses, governments and consumers. With the industry's most expansive global IP backbone, based on the number of company-owned points of presence, and wholly-owned data networks, MCI develops the converged communications products and services that are the foundation for commerce and communications in today's market. For more information, go to http://www.mci.com/.