Lucent Technologies Launches eCRM Professional Services Unit
26 January 2000
Lucent Technologies Launches eCRM Professional Services Unit
BASKING RIDGE, N.J.--Jan. 25, 2000--To support the growing need for customized self-service applications, Lucent Technologies today announced a new organization dedicated to developing and delivering professional services solutions for e-business customer relationship management (CRM) applications.The eCRM service line, part of Lucent's NetCare(R) CRM Professional Services unit, will help enterprises integrate communications channels in any media -- such as the phone, Internet, e-mail and fax -- with their customer care operations. The team will focus on self-service applications that connect customers with front office contact channels and appropriate back office information. They are designed to give customers a choice of conducting business with or without a live agent.
"We define this group of applications as `eCRM'," said Jim Fluhart, executive general manager, Lucent Technologies NetCare CRM Professional Services. "These applications are key to an organization's CRM strategy because they help deliver high-quality, efficient customer care. They allow live agents to concentrate on transactions where they can add real value."
Lucent estimates the eCRM Professional Services market is growing at more than 40 per cent annually. John Benchoff, Lucent director of NetCare CRM Professional Services, will lead Lucent's eCRM service line.
"Traditional businesses and `dot com' companies alike are looking to extend their e-business strategies to include Customer Relationship Management. The real challenge with eCRM is creating customized solutions that meet the needs of businesses and their customers," Benchoff said.
"Lucent's expertise in delivering multi-media CRM creates a solid foundation for our eCRM service line," Benchoff said. "Our ongoing commitment is to help organizations implement self-service solutions that build valuable, long-term relationships with customers."
The organization's first project is for The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV was looking for a way to help its customers easily and efficiently schedule driving tests. Lucent designed an automated self-service solution using its CONVERSANT(R) interactive voice response system (IVR) connected to an internal Web-based system, also developed by Lucent.
Customers call an 800 number, and a brief series of prompts lets them arrange a convenient time and location. Customers can either press a phone keypad, or CONVERSANT's speech recognition capabilities enable them to speak a numerical choice.
The IVR interacts with the on-line system database, allowing customers to schedule road tests by telephone and Department personnel to administer and monitor the system on-line.
The solution was initially used at 29 road test sites, for which it schedules about 1,500 driving test appointments per day.
The Lucent NetCare CRM Professional Services team intends to extend the solution's capabilities to an extranet for access by authorized driving schools during the first year of 2000 and to the DMV's publicly available Internet site by the end of the year.
The eCRM service line is part of an industry-leading Lucent CRM professional services unit. Lucent's NetCare CRM Professional Services team has more than 750 consultants and integrators providing a broad array of consulting, integration and management solutions. Lucent designs and integrates more customer contact centers than anyone else, touching 900 centers every week worldwide.
Lucent Technologies, headquartered in Murray Hill, N.J., designs, builds and delivers a wide range of public and private networks, communications systems and software, data networking systems, business telephone systems and microelectronics components. Bell Laboratories is the research and development arm of the company. For more information on Lucent Technologies, visit its web site at http://www.lucent.com.