Contact Centers to Benefit From Improved Agent Retention and Performance With Advanced eLearning and Job Match Capabilities

CHELMSFORD, MA–(EMWNews – July 29, 2008) – The PerformanceEdge Group of Aspect

Software, the world’s largest company solely focused on Unified

Communications for the Contact Center™, today announced that it will be

offering PerformanceEdge™ eLearning and PerformanceEdge Job

Match, which enable contact centers to improve agent recruitment,

retention, and training processes along with overall contact center

productivity. With these new eLearning and hiring capabilities,

PerformanceEdge provides customers the most complete depth and breadth of

contact center performance

optimization capabilities on the market. The capability is provided

through a partnership with Knowlagent, the leading provider of on-demand

call center agent performance improvement tools.

PerformanceEdge eLearning is designed to improve training and coaching by

delivering the right content at the right time to agents and supervisors.

PerformanceEdge Job Match is a Web-based job screening application

specifically designed for the call center that helps companies assess

candidates against the critical job requirements and provides them with the

opportunity to assess their own fit. The result is fewer “false starts,”

therefore reducing attrition and improving overall performance.

“Agent attrition is one of the most prevalent problems that contact centers

face today. Hiring and training new agents is a costly and time-consuming

process,” said Robert Kelly, vice president of the PerformanceEdge Group.

“With PerformanceEdge Job Match and PerformanceEdge eLearning, contact

center managers now have sophisticated hiring and training options to

better address these challenges. These capabilities will help our customers

overcome the difficult task of lowering hiring costs and improving agent

retention and skills, ultimately enabling their contact centers to deliver

improved customer service, collections and sales.”

PerformanceEdge eLearning and PerformanceEdge Job Match capabilities will

be delivered via the Web as a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering from

Aspect Software beginning August 2008. This simplifies distribution,

reduces costs and implementation time, lowers professional services fees,

and eliminates annual software maintenance fees and hardware costs. This is

the first time Aspect is directly providing hosted services to customers

via the Internet.

“Aspect is clearly reinforcing its commitment to agent training and contact

center optimization with the PerformanceEdge eLearning and Job Match

offering,” said Paul Stockford, president and chief analyst at Saddletree

Research. “The eLearning market will continue to grow in the near future as

companies look for ways to streamline the process of hiring and training

knowledgeable contact center agents. By delivering the application via

SaaS, Aspect is making eLearning capabilities easily accessible to its

customers and speeding the adoption process of this essential performance

optimization application.”

Finding the Time for Agent Training Through eLearning

PerformanceEdge eLearning integrates with

automatic call distribution (ACD) and workforce management systems to

deliver learning sessions without impacting ACD service levels. It monitors

the levels of required ACD metrics, and can prevent or interrupt learning

sessions in real-time as well as update the PerformanceEdge workforce

management application, Aspect® eWorkforce Management™, indicating

whether training was delivered. In addition, PerformanceEdge eLearning

offers customized

pre-packaged courses to meet specific training needs, aid deployment and

speed ROI. Specialized content learning bundles include Agent Productivity

Improvements, Sales Optimization, and an upcoming Collections Skills

course. The benefits of PerformanceEdge eLearning include:

--  Improved agent performance management through delivery of targeted

    eLearning sessions.

    

--  Reduced training time and costs.

    

--  Certification and compliance with key business initiatives.

    

PerformanceEdge eLearning will offer product integrations to Aspect®

eWorkforce Management™, Aspect® CallCenter® ACD and Aspect®

Spectrum® ACD. Integrations with Aspect® Unified IP™ will be

delivered in a subsequent release.

Transforming the Hiring Process with Job Match

PerformanceEdge™ Job Match provides applicant screening capabilities

that improve the agent selection and hiring process by identifying

candidates with the best aptitudes and skills to increase recruiting

efficiency, reduce attrition and improve new hire productivity. With its

complete process and tool set, PerformanceEdge Job Match automates key

steps of the selection process to eliminate wasted time screening and

interviewing unqualified candidates, so you can hire the right agents from

the start.

PerformanceEdge Job Match creates models that reflect unique job activities

and business needs and provides applicants with a realistic overview of the

position and its associated tasks. Skills, personality and voice fit are

assessed to determine if candidates are capable of performing job-specific

behaviors. Benefits to users include:

--  Increased agent retention and productivity.

    

--  Decreased new hire attrition and hiring costs incurred by screening

    and interviewing unqualified candidates.

    

--  Streamlined and automated hiring process.

    

--  Improved time to proficiency.

    

About PerformanceEdge

PerformanceEdge combines workforce management, recording and quality

management, performance management, campaign management, and coaching and

eLearning to enable organizations to holistically respond to changing

business conditions. The PerformanceEdge applications dynamically

interoperate to contact center managers consider everything and act

immediately, ultimately making it easier for inbound, outbound and blended

contact centers to control costs, enhance service levels and align

performance with strategic goals. For more information, visit

www.performanceedgesuite.com.

About Aspect Software

Aspect Software, Inc. founded the contact center industry and is now the

world’s largest company solely focused on unified communications for the contact center. Our all-in-one,

IT-ready solutions communications-enable customer service, collections and

sales & telemarketing business processes for small and medium enterprises

as well as for two-thirds of the FORTUNE Global 100. For more information,

visit www.aspect.com.

Aspect, PerformanceEdge, eWorkforce Management, Aspect CallCenter, Aspect

Spectrum, Unified IP, Unified Communications for the Contact Center and

Aspect Software are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Aspect

Software, Inc., in the United States and/or other countries. The names of

other companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of

their respective owners.