Pleasanton, Calif. - October 14, 2008 - Echopass Corporation, a provider of hosted contact center services to the enterprise market, today announced that The Provident Bank is continuing to see sustained, dramatic customer service improvements since they began using Echopass hosted Contact Center On-Demand solutions three years ago. With Echopass, the bank cut the average duration of inbound customer service phone calls by 40 percent and reached a first-call problem resolution rate of 95 percent.

Implemented in 2005, the Echopass solution continues to help The Provident Bank answer customer calls more quickly while reducing its number of abandoned calls and decreasing customer wait times. Driving the improvements have been Echopass’ agent routing and a computer "screen pop" that displays key customer data to contact center agents instantly as they answer the call; and the companies jointly working together to identify, create and quickly implement incremental solutions and services that continue to help increase Provident’s agent effectiveness and customer service.

"Since we’ve deployed the Echopass Call Center Service, my agents are happier with the information and efficiency of the system," said Marcia Blunt, vice president of Remote Banking for The Provident Bank. "We have improved sales results and satisfied customers with the added attention they receive - and in the banking industry, those are improvements that translate directly to the bottom line."

Vincent Deschamps, chief executive officer of Echopass Corporation, said, "Even in a challenging business environment three years after initially implementing Echopass, The Provident Bank continues to enjoy dramatic improvements. The bank’s previous on-premise, hardware-based contact center was inflexible and couldn’t support improvements. Our on-demand hosted services continue to make sense for Provident year after year because we help customers maximize flexibility and eliminate risk. The bank pays monthly only for the Echopass services and number of agents using our technology, which we can easily increase or decrease to fit their changing business needs. Customers appreciate that we also integrate with a wide range of applications and technology partners, and manage the entire service end to end. Our essence is about providing outstanding customer service to enable our own customers to provide a great customer experience."

Banking on Echopass
When Echopass was initially deployed at Provident, one of the priorities on their wish list for call center agents was a "screen pop" function that would eliminate the need to ask customers tedious, time-consuming questions. Echopass and The Provident Bank worked together to analyze the bank’s call center data, looking for the most common information requests to develop a working solution.

Based on the requirements, Echopass developed a systems interface to the bank’s Fidelity applications and a customized home screen for The Provident Bank to instantly provide agents with the customer data and account information needed to answer the most frequently asked questions.

"Since we got started with Echopass, as soon as a call comes in, our agents have 95 percent of the customer’s data at their fingertips," said Jack Novielli, senior vice president for The Provident Bank and founder and chairman of the Fidelity Charter Users Group. "The screen pop vastly improved the overall call handling and customer experience, and we’ve been able to maintain a high level of customer satisfaction ever since."

Another key Echopass provided benefit was a skills-based routing protocol that ensures customers are connected to an agent with the precise expertise necessary to resolve the customer’s concern. At the core level, Provident’s callers are provided with language options for agents with specific language skills. At the next level, calls are routed to the agent with the level of expertise appropriate for the request - personal vs. business accounts, for example, or sales vs. service.

Meeting Higher Standards and Further Improving
With the hosted contact center from Echopass, ninety percent of The Provident Bank’s inbound customer call volume is answered within the first 20 seconds - high by any industry measure. Call duration has been reduced by 40 percent, down to 2.5 minutes. The average customer wait time has been cut in half, down to 12 seconds. Abandoned calls have been minimized, down to 2.84 percent. Best of all, first-call problem resolution peaked and remains a healthy 95 percent. Equipped with the Echopass services, The Provident Bank improved its customer service without hiring any additional personnel. All of these metrics have held steady over the course of the Echopass/Provident three-year relationship.

"Agents are able to greet callers by name," Novielli said. "Also, because data is right in front of the agent as opposed to toggling through multiple screens and cutting-and-pasting information between systems, service personnel are able to address customer issues almost immediately."

In search of further improvements, The Provident Bank is investigating web chat, email, and automated customer survey services from Echopass. Tighter integration with the bank’s core applications from Fidelity National Information Services is also in the works. The enhanced Fidelity integration will give call center agents direct access to the Fidelity systems, eliminating time and keystrokes to expedite and further improve customer service. The bank is also looking to integrate the Echopass service with an upcoming Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software implementation.