Software offers workforce optimization solution.

Press Release Summary:



Designed for customer-facing branch banks, Impact 360(TM) for Retail Financial Services provides strategic planning functionality and can create what-if models that predict impact on staffing and customer service levels. Software recommends optimal times for conducting training, when it will least affect service and costs. With web-based scheduler, Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations automates scheduling processes and is integrated with forecasting functionality.



Original Press Release:



Verint Witness Actionable Solutions Delivers New Software to Help Organizations Become More Customer-Centric



Company Introduces New Workforce Optimization Functionality to Its Retail Financial Services and Back-Office Operations Solutions

MELVILLE, N.Y., October 29, 2007 - Verint Systems Inc., a leading provider of analytic software-based solutions for workforce-enterprise optimization and security, today announced the availability of two new versions of its workforce optimization software that helps companies achieve a consistent customer experience across the entire customer service value chain. Offered through the company's Enterprise Solutions Group, the new functionality is designed for branch banking and back-office operations.

Verint Witness Actionable Solutions' Impact 360(TM) for Retail Financial Services solution includes an array of new workforce optimization functionality designed for customer-facing, bank branch stores. The company's Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations solution also features a host of new workforce optimization capabilities designed for use across multiple enterprise operations functions and departments, each of which help improve the customer experience - including claims processing, order fulfillment, customer administration, billing, retail and commercial banking, mortgage banking, lending, insurance, securities, bank card servicing and transaction processing.

Workforce Optimization for Retail Financial Services - for Better Strategic Planning

Building upon its robust forecasting and scheduling software, Verint Witness Actionable Solutions has added new strategic planning functionality that enables banks to create "what if" models to predict more accurately the impact on staffing and customer service levels prior to implementing changes. For example, banks can now determine the training requirements for staff on a newly implemented system, and build that non-customer facing activity into their staffing model, so customer service levels are not compromised as a result of tellers and sales personnel being absent for training.

The software also can now recommend optimal times for conducting training when it will least affect service and costs. Impact 360 for Retail Financial Services modifies time standards for newly trained employees, adjusting the staffing model to ensure enough employees are available to meet customer service demands while employees progress along the learning curve. By assessing different scenarios, banks can more accurately quantify changes prior to roll-outs of new processes or programs to determine optimal implementation - helping ensure minimal impact on customer service, while maximizing branch staff productivity.

Further, the solution features new scorecards with performance alerts that can notify managers of less than satisfactory performance in real-time, enabling timely coaching or the assignment of eLearning lessons to hone technology system or protocol skills. Impact 360 for Retail Financial Services' new customer feedback survey functionality enables customers to give real-time input based on their recent experiences with a bank. With such timely feedback, banks are now even better equipped to receive relevant, specific customer input and take immediate action.

As financial institutions focus on a superior customer experience as a means of differentiating themselves from competitors, they need tools to assess the quality of staff performance and customer interactions in the branch. Explains Darryl Demos, senior vice president and general manager of the Enterprise Solutions Group of Verint Witness Actionable Solutions, "Previously, the only metrics by which banks could measure performance in the branch were through customer wait times, transaction volumes and periodic, post-visit surveys conducted by phone or by mail. Now, with Impact 360's expanded capabilities - such as application analysis, performance management, eLearning and customer feedback - banks can evaluate the effectiveness of employee performance by capturing transaction types, timing and steps taken to complete tasks, and then evaluating those metrics against targets, best practices and peer performance."

Adds Demos, "By extending proven workforce optimization capabilities that have been successful in the customer-facing contact center market, for example, banks can now benefit from among the same functionality to deliver a superior and consistent customer experience across their enterprises."

Workforce Optimization for Back-Office Operations - for a More Effective Enterprise

New to the Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations software is the ability to evaluate operational effectiveness, determine system and process efficiencies, monitor workflow, reduce errors, identify trends, and implement changes that enhance productivity and drive profitability.

This Verint Witness Actionable Solutions offering helps solve one of the greatest challenges faced in operations environments - the real-time, automatic capture of activity and performance data from disparate systems across multiple functional groups. Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations is designed to automatically forecast capacity and workload, and then align staff accordingly. Actual forecasted volumes enable managers to create high-level capacity plans, with the ability to highlight over/under staffing instances that can be proactively addressed and corrected. These plans identify opportunities for improved processes and capacity management to predict and meet demand and service level agreements (SLAs) more effectively.

Additionally, Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations now features a Web-based scheduler, which replaces time-consuming, manual scheduling with an automated process that's integrated with the solution's forecasting functionality. As a result, operations managers can easily accommodate employee preferences, as well as enforce shift length and breaks. The solution also incorporates employee skill proficiencies, allowing managers to identify resources in other functional areas that can be called upon to complete work in backlog that threatens the achievement of deadline quotas and SLAs.

"We are now not only offering an integrated solution for the retail bank branch, but also a workforce optimization solution that addresses the unique needs of back-office operations, enabling banks and other verticals to have one provider and solution for enterprise-wide resource management and optimization," says Demos. "As we build upon our market leadership position, our ongoing focus continues to be partnering with our customers to help deliver strong ROI, along with heightened employee and customer satisfaction."

Service Quality Validated as Key Strategic Objective
From the contact center to branch banking to back-office operations environments, optimized customer-facing touch points in the enterprise reinforce the customer experience and service quality as key strategic focuses and differentiators. Impact 360 is designed to help organizations improve service levels across their front- and back-office operations by aligning customer demand to resources and continually improving employee performance through its workforce optimization functionality.

For more information about the Impact 360 for Retail Financial Services and Impact 360 for Back-Office Operations solutions, call 1-800-4VERINT or +1-770-754-1884.

About Verint Witness Actionable Solutions

Verint® Witness® Actionable Solutions was formed as a result of the company's successful combination with workforce optimization provider, Witness Systems. Verint Witness Actionable Solutions enables organizations to capture and analyze customer/caller interactions, improve workforce performance and optimize service processes in contact center, branch and back-office operations. With the industry's broadest portfolio of innovative solutions for customer service analytics, workforce optimization, quality monitoring/full-time recording, workforce management, eLearning, performance management and customer surveys, Verint Witness Actionable Solutions helps companies uncover business trends, discover the root cause of employee and customer behavior, and power the right decisions to help ensure service excellence and achieve continuous performance improvement across every aspect of customer operations.

About Verint Systems Inc.

Verint Systems Inc., headquartered in Melville, New York, is a leading provider of analytic software-based solutions for workforce-enterprise optimization and security. Verint software, which is used by over 5,000 organizations in over 100 countries worldwide, generates actionable intelligence(TM) through the collection, retention and analysis of voice, fax, video, email, Internet and data transmissions from multiple communications networks. Visit us at our website www.verint.com.

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