Certification process endorsed by Purdue University enables customers to achieve world-class status for their call centers ATLANTA - June 7, 2004 - STI Knowledge, Inc. (STI), a leading provider of Business Process Outsourcing and Enterprise Support solutions, announced today a partnership with BenchmarkPortal, Inc. to help companies earn "Center of Excellence" certification for their customer service call centers. "STI Knowledge and BenchmarkPortal understand the challenges faced by companies that prevent their call centers from achieving optimal performance," said Dr. Jon Anton, Director of Benchmark Research for both Purdue University's Center for Customer-Driven Quality and BenchmarkPortal. "The Center of Excellence certification process helps customers to quantifiably measure their call centers' effectiveness to justify expenses, report results and communicate value. Together, STI Knowledge and BenchmarkPortal can help provide real improvements to this critical component of our customers' businesses." STI Knowledge experts, in partnership with BenchmarkPortal, will provide a benchmark analysis of customers' call centers compared to industry metrics and best practices. This third-party certification process, endorsed by Purdue University, evaluates key performance indicators against peer companies and industry standards. Once a customer meets these world-class performance standards, they earn the Center of Excellence certification that helps call centers establish credibility and value, while increasing customer service satisfaction. "The Center of Excellence certification recognizes that customers' call centers are the best-of-the-best," said Peter Alexander, President and CEO at STI Knowledge. "Our partnership with BenchmarkPortal gives customers a rigorous certification process that has the advantage of referencing all performances goals to our best practice database of thousands of call centers. That means that customers are held to performance levels that will improve their competitive position and have a positive impact on their bottom line." STI Knowledge adds the Center of Excellence certification to an already extensive curriculum of enterprise support education offerings to expand the value provided to its customers. For more information, visit www.stiknowledge.com or www.benchmarkportal.com. About STI Knowledge, Inc. STI provides BPO and Enterprise Support solutions and services for the healthcare, insurance, government, and commercial enterprises industries. STI helps its customers reduce costs, increase productivity, and improve service quality through business process re-engineering, technology enabled automation, and global delivery centers. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, STI was founded in 1995 and employs approximately 350 professionals throughout the United States. STI has been recognized in Gartner Group's Magic Quadrant of Help Desk Outsourcers. For more information, visit www.stiknowledge.com. About BenchmarkPortal, Inc. BenchmarkPortal is the source for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) best practices information for call centers. Founded as a joint venture with Purdue University, the original benchmarking of call centers began at Purdue's Center for Customer-Driven Quality (CCDQ) in 1993 under the direction of Dr. Jon Anton, noted authority in all aspects of the customer contact/service industry sectors. BenchmarkPortal is continually growing their database, already the world's largest, for call center metrics and is extending both its national and international reach. Through BenchmarkPortal reports and its leading edge research, the company aims to contribute to the continual improvement processes of individual customer call centers, and ultimately to improve the performance of this vital sector as a whole, worldwide. For more information, visit www.benchmarkportal.com. For additional information: Debora Tucker STI Knowledge 770.280.2761 E-mail: detucker@stiknowledge.com Bruce Belfiore BenchmarkPortal, Inc. (805) 614-0123 ext. 25 BruceBelfiore@BenchmarkPortal.com
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