Outrigger Hotels & Resorts Teams With Echopass And Genesys To Deliver 'Wow' Customer Experience On Demand
Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., an Alcatel company (NYSE: ALA, Paris: CGEP.PA), and Echopass Corporation, today announced that Outrigger Hotels & Resorts will use Echopass solutions, which feature Genesys technology, to give its customers advanced multi-channel customer service options, while reducing total cost of ownership for the company's contact center operations.
Outrigger is one of the largest and fastest-growing privately-held lodging and hospitality companies in the Pacific. The company operates 40 resorts, combining hospitality with real estate and retail investments. Its 55 contact center agents in Denver, Colo. specialize in either retail or wholesale practice areas of its reservations and customer service operations. Outrigger sought a hosted contact center solution that would offer sophisticated routing and management across all customer interaction touch points - voice, fax, e-mail and Web chat - while also offering a platform that would support the future addition of voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) for work-at-home agents.
"We pride ourselves in offering our customers a complete destination experience, not just a hotel reservation," said Bill Peters, vice president, reservation services, Outrigger. "We sell a service – a customer experience – beginning with a customer inquiry to our contact center and ending with a stay at an Outrigger resort. Implementing a high-quality, technically-sound inbound and outbound solution, therefore, was a top priority for us. We needed a state-of-the-art customer interaction system that would complement that philosophy, allowing our team to deliver ‘wow' customer service regardless of how our customers chose to reach us. Echopass was the only hosted solution that could help us accomplish that, quickly and cost effectively."
Echopass on demand solutions are built on industry-leading customer contact routing technology from Genesys, which was an important factor for Outrigger. A key offering in Alcatel's broad range of flexible Managed Communication Services solutions, the Genesys managed services platform is an open, standards-based platform that leverages existing contact center infrastructure and accounts for future expansions by size, application and technology. "We were looking for a hosted solution but did not want to risk the quality of our services," continued Peters. "Echopass' partnership with Genesys, and our network provider Sprint, gave me the confidence to move from my traditional, premise-based system to an on demand service."
"We recognize that companies like Outrigger are entrusting us with one of their most valuable assets – their customer communications," said Vincent Deschamps, Echopass chief executive officer. "We refuse to compromise the quality of our services, which is why we have based our solutions on Genesys technology and why we own and operate our own Network Operations Center."
As a family owned and operated business, Outrigger has a history of personal connectivity with both their customers and with the local communities in which they have properties. This focus on service and relationships has allowed the company to create ideal vacations in premier destination spots.
"In moving to a hosted solution, it was critical not to decrease the level of service and personal attention that travelers expect from Outrigger," said Elliot Danziger, Genesys chief technology officer. "Being able to connect customers to the right agents, regardless of contact method, has simply extended Outrigger's ability to deliver personalized service via voice, chat, e-mail or fax."
About Genesys
Genesys, an Alcatel company, is 100 percent focused on software for contact centers. Leading companies in the Global 2000 and Fortune 1000 use Genesys to deliver interactions that drive better business. With 3000 customers in 80 countries, Genesys directs more than 100 million customer interactions every day. Genesys allows enterprises to achieve key business objectives by tying together customer interactions, people and customer information in both traditional telephony and IP environments. Sophisticated routing and reporting across voice, e-mail, documents and Web interactions, coupled with integrated self-service, ensure that customers are quickly connected to the right resource - the first time. Genesys solutions stop customer frustration and allow enterprises to deliver superior customer satisfaction and improved business results. For more information visit us at www.genesyslab.com.
About Alcatel Managed Communications Services
Alcatel draws on its worldwide expertise with both service providers and enterprises to deliver an industry-leading portfolio of Managed Communications Services. The Alcatel portfolio includes managed solutions for business communication, employee interaction and customer interaction, and is backed by full go-to-market support to ensure business success. Today Alcatel is working with many of the world's leading service providers to rapidly roll out high-value Managed Communications Services for enterprises of all sizes.
About Alcatel
Alcatel provides communications solutions to telecommunication carriers, Internet service providers and enterprises for delivery of voice, data and video applications to their customers or employees. Alcatel brings its leading position in fixed and mobile broadband networks; applications and services, to help its partners and customers build a user-centric broadband world. With sales of EURO 12.3 billion in 2004, Alcatel operates in more than 130 countries. For more information, visit Alcatel on the Internet: http://www.alcatel.com.
About Echopass
Echopass Corporation in the leading service provider of on demand contact center solutions for midsize businesses, departments and branches of large enterprises and outsourcers worldwide. With a wide range of flexible inbound and outbound customer contact solutions, Echopass delivers rich functionality that is easy to deploy and use. Echopass takes the pain and complexity out of implementing telephone and web-based customer contact solutions by offering a full suite of service packages on demand and delivered over the data networks. With Echopass, customers enjoy the benefits of highly effective sales, marketing and customer service communication in less time and at a lower cost than traditional, premised-based systems. Founded in 2000, Echopass is privately held, backed by top-tier venture capital firms and headquartered in San Francisco with a world-class operations center in Salt Lake City, Utah. Echopass is a Genesys Interacts Partner. For more information, go to www.echopass.com.