Altitude uCI optimizes agent productivity at HSBC Group's Associate company in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Altitude Software broadens its reach in the Middle Eastern Customer Interaction Management (CIM) Marketplace.


Dubai Internet City, U.A.E, Altitude Software MEA & South Asia, November 21, 2002 –  Altitude Software, a global technology leader of contact center solutions for Unified Customer Interaction™ (uCI), today announced that The Saudi British Bank (SABB) has implemented the Altitude uCI  contact center suite, automating its outbound calling to streamline and increase the productivity of collection campaigns.
 
SABB is one of the leading banks in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its head office in Riyadh. It is an Associate company of the HSBC Group, one of the world's largest banking and financial organizations, with some 7,000 offices in 81 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. Through contacting any branch office the Bank's customers can gain access to the HSBC Group's global network, its resources, skills, specialist knowledge and expertise.
 
The Altitude uCI Selection
The Saudi British Bank needed to improve the overall effectiveness of its contact center and increase the productivity of its outbound collection campaigns. To fulfill these needs, the Riyadh-based bank selected Altitude Software after having evaluated several contact center software providers. The Altitude uCI suite was chosen due to its good fit with SABB’s existing IT infrastructure, as well as its powerful outbound predictive dialing module and fast ROI.
 
“When selecting a contact center software solution, you do not just select a technology. You are initiating a relationship with the supplier. We found Altitude Software very committed and attentive, providing a solution that would effectively meet our collection campaign’s requirements,” said John Pearl, Head of SABB’s Collection Department. “Our evaluation showed that the Altitude uCI suite is a highly reliable, cost-effective contact center solution that provides the flexibility to enable SABB to optimize its credit collection activity and therefore increase revenue generation,” added Pearl.
 
The SABB contact center went live with a fully functional Altitude uCI solution in January 2002. The Altitude solution today supports SABB’s agents, by providing key real time information, such as customer history and credit card data (credit limit, account balance, payment due date, etc.).
 
Realizing a rapid ROI  with Altitude Predictive Dialer
The Bank, which handles over 100,000 outbound calls monthly, is also able to benefit from Altitude’s predictive dialing functionalilty, in particular for its outbound credit collection campaigns. Thus, since Altitude’s predictive dialer is fully integrated with Altitude’s agent scripting tool, the pacing mode is able to intelligently predict when an agent will be available to receive a new outbound call from his or her position in the dialogue script. In addition to a significant increase in productivity, this also reduces the instances  when no agent is available to receive the outbound call.
 
Before Altitude uCI was implemented, agents at  SABB's call center were dialing numbers manually. After using Altitude Software, talk time increased significantly. Such an increase translates into direct savings for SABB, notably by allowing its collection center to handle more calls per day with the same number of agents. "The net effect of using Altitude Predictive Dialer in our collection campaigns  is that we are now able to handle much more accounts and generate more revenue with the same number of agents. Therefore, we are extremely pleased with Altitude Software and the productivity gains we've enjoyed using the product. It was an extremely worthwhile investment in our future," said John Pearl.
 
"We are pleased The Saudi British Bank have chosen to partner with Altitude Software in this important business initiative,” said Riadh Boukhris, Altitude Software Vice President MEA & South Asia. “When our customers generate significant revenues with our solutions, we feel that we have achieved our goals."
 
Currently more than 150 banking and financial institution sites use Altitude Software solutions in over 30 countries. These companies selected Altitude uCI to optimize a variety of multi-channel customer contact operations, including telebanking, appointment scheduling, telesales and debt collection. Current worldwide customers include: Banco Santander (Portugal and Brazil), Bank of Valetta (Malta), Banco Popular (Spain), Banco Itau (Brazil), Credit Agricole (France), Crédit Mutuel (France), Harland Company (USA), MultiBank / BRE Bank (Poland), NovaBank (Greece),  Royal Bank of Canada (Canada), etc.
 
The Altitude uCI solution is an out-of-the-box, infrastructure independent solution with full blended support for voice (inbound and outbound), IVR, email, web collaboration and chat. uCI manages and improves customer relationships for each new interaction in a wide range of contact centers, from SME’s to huge multi-site organizations.
 
Within the contact center, Altitude uCI is a cost-efficiency oriented management tool, conceived to improve the overall productivity of the contact center. Since Altitude uCI was engineered to easily integrate with legacy, front-end, and back-end systems, Altitude uCI delivers significant cost benefits, revenue benefits, and intangible benefits even with a small up-front investment. Therefore, Altitude uCI allows the customer to achieve return on investment in a limited time frame.
 
 
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About Altitude Software
 
Altitude Software (www.altitude.com) is a privately owned independent company backed by several investors, such as e-millenium1; Intel Capital, Insight Venture Partners, BNP Paribas, BPI; Fogeca.com;Nesbic CTE Funds; Sonae Group; Totta Finance and Hicks Muse. Altitude Software is a global technology leader in contact center solutions with the Unified Customer Interaction™ (uCI) product line. The company was founded in 1995 and serves 570 customers of all sizes worldwide, either directly or through a wide network of partners. Altitude Software has 13 offices in 11 countries around the world. Altitude Software Middle East, Africa & South Asia is located in Dubai Internet City, U.A.E,  and is today leading the multimedia contact center market in those regions.
 
 
About  the Saudi British Bank  (HSBC Group)
 
SABB (www.sabb.com) is an Associate company of the HSBC Group, one of the world's largest banking and financial organizations, with some 7,000 offices in 81 countries and territories in Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, the Americas, the Middle East and Africa. The Bank's customers can, through contacting any branch office, gain access to the HSBC Group's global network, its resources, skills, specialist knowledge and expertise. SABB is incorporated in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its head office in Riyadh.
 
 
 
Editorial Contacts:
 
Altitude Software MEA & South Asia
Siegfried Gruber
Sales Support Manager
Tel : +971 4 3918880 (GMT + 4)
siegfried.gruber@altitude.com
www.altitude.com
 
Altitude Software EMEA
Jose Duarte Ramos
Marketing Communications Manager
Tel : +33 1 55 27 60 71
jose.duarte@altitude.com
www.altitude.com

© Press Release 2002