Company Press Release
July 25, 2000
SAN JOSE, CA & STOCKLEY PARK, UK--Aspect Communications Corp. (Nasdaq:ASPT), the leading provider of customer
relationship portals, yesterday announced that Thomas Cook, one of the world's leading international travel and
financial services groups, has selected the Aspect® Customer Relationship Portal to improve customer service.
Using the Aspect Portal, Thomas Cook will be able to offer customers personalized experiences whether they book
travel and buy vacation packages using the telephone, e-mail, fax or the Web. The company intends to implement
the software in four contact centers in the cities of Peterborough, Falkirk, Birmingham and Glasgow in the United
Kingdom.
Thomas Cook identified that nearly 50 percent of its customers called several times before booking vacation travel.
With each call, the customer would talk to a different travel consultant and often repeat the same information.
The Aspect Portal is designed to route the customer back to the consultant who took the initial inquiry and to
display the customer's history directly on the consultant's desktop. This enables the consultant to review past
contact details immediately and help the customer from the first call right through to the end sale.
In addition, Thomas Cook has expanded its business online by enabling customers to browse and buy vacation packages
via its Web site. If customers do have any queries, they can click on the ``call-me'' button on the Web site to
request assistance. The Aspect Portal will transfer this request to a Thomas Cook travel consultant, who will then
call at the appropriate time to assist the customer.
Richard Whitehouse, head of Thomas Cook IT strategic development, said, ``Thomas Cook has millions of customers
traveling to far-off destinations or taking weekend breaks in the UK. We chose Aspect because of its expertise
in implementing solutions to enhance customer service. This is a significant development for Thomas Cook, and we
required experts to advise us on the best solutions to remain competitive. A key factor that impressed us was Aspect's
extensive support offerings in the U.K.''
``Thomas Cook is working in a highly competitive environment where personal service and customer loyalty are major
sources of competitive advantage,'' said Beatriz Infante, Aspect president and CEO. ``The Aspect Portal is the
technology bedrock on which Thomas Cook is building its electronic customer service offering, today via the telephone
and the Web, tomorrow through whichever channel the customer demands.''
The Aspect Customer Relationship Portal
The Aspect Customer Relationship Portal allows companies to build eCRM applications that integrate front- and back-office
systems, eCommerce applications and multimedia contact centers into one centrally managed eBusiness system. The
Aspect Portal Multimedia application unifies and personalizes customer interactions across Web, phone, fax and
e-mail to identify, qualify, cross-sell, up-sell and route customers in real time. The Aspect Customer Relationship
Portal was named a Best of Show award winner at the fall 1999 and spring 2000 Communications Solutions Expos and
received Product of the Year in the ``Multimedia Customer Contact Portal'' category from C@ll Center CRM Solutions
magazine.
Aspect Communications
Aspect Communications Corp. is the leading provider of customer relationship portals, a software platform for building
and deploying eCRM applications that enable businesses to ensure consistent interactions with their customers from
one centrally managed eBusiness system. Aspect's leadership position in customer relationship management solutions
is based on its 15-year history and more than 7,600 customer contact center implementations. Aspect is headquartered
in San Jose, with offices in major cities worldwide. For more information about Aspect, visit the company's Web
site at http://www.aspect.com or call 877/621-3692.
Note to Editors: Aspect, the Aspect logo and the phrase ``The Starting Point for eBusiness'' are trademarks and/or
service marks of Aspect Communications Corp. in the United States and/or other countries. All other product or
service names mentioned in this document may be trademarks of the companies with which they are associated.
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Contact:
Aspect Communications
Cheryl Edwards, 408/325-2381
cheryl.edwards@aspect.com
Jennifer Stroud, 615/221-6842
jennifer.stroud@aspect.com
or
Gray Associates
Adrienne Routledge, +44 (0) 20 8650 6755
ABRPubRel@aol.com