SAP Improves Productivity and Effectiveness in the Call Center with E-Mail Response Management System
New Extension to mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management Improves Accuracy of Automated E-mail Communications, Helps Increase Agent Productivity and Enables Marketers to Get the Most Out of Each Customer Interaction
WALLDORF, Germany — Sept. 22, 2004 — SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today introduced an e-mail response management system (ERMS) that helps companies effectively manage high-volume e-mail traffic, increase accuracy of outbound communications and turn inbound queries into sales opportunities. Delivered through mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM), the new ERMS capabilities enable improved inbound and outbound customer e-mail communication with the goal of offering cost-efficient, personalized customer service while helping marketers leverage inbound e-mail to deliver their message in compliance with legal regulations in countries in which outreach is conducted.
An increasing number of companies have come to rely on e-mail as a primary channel of communication with customers, vendors and service providers. To date, e-mail automation systems have fallen short of meeting companies` requirements. These systems reduced the need for agent intervention; however, the impersonal, uninformative nature of the automatic response often left customers unsatisfied and disgruntled.
"The ERMS offering from SAP ups the ante on accurate auto-response and auto-suggest by putting a specific customer context in the classification of inbound emails," said John Ragsdale, principal analyst, Forrester Inc. In his May 2004 report, SAP Brings Context Into Email Response Management, Ragsdale notes "Customers should evaluate the new offering as an easy way to add integrated, automated e-mail response to the customer service arsenal, with pricing and functionality that are likely to beat out even e-service specialists."
With the ERMS capabilities of mySAP CRM, companies can automatically organize, acknowledge, track and respond to high volumes of incoming email and simultaneously gather information on inbound requests. In this way, customer responses contain greater depth and help the customer experience a more personal relationship with the organization. This high level of customer knowledge also provides rich context that can help companies increase revenue by offering personalized product and service offerings that existing customers might be more likely to purchase.
With the high cost of customer acquisition and the increasing difficulty of informing and retaining existing customers, making the most of every customer interaction using cross and up-selling techniques has become imperative. Inbound customer emails present prime opportunities to up-sell and cross-sell products, taking one customer interaction and turning it into many. ERMS enables agents to leverage inbound communication with a customer and create a response that not only addresses the customer`s issue but also includes an appropriate marketing offer. Companies can use the auto-response and auto-suggest capabilities in ERMS to respond effectively to the customer while permission to respond is granted.
Keeping with SAP`s tradition of delivering superior value through its emphasis on integration, the single biggest advantage of mySAP CRM ERMS is its ability to provide a 360-degree view of the customer to service agents. It does this by interoperating with all back-office systems in real time to retrieve all relevant information—including inventory levels, account balance, shipping dates and customer interaction history—and easily pull this wealth of information into e-mail responses, thereby driving agent productivity to new levels.
The ERMS capability from mySAP CRM is available today on a global basis. SAP plans to tailor this ERMS offering to each of the more than 25 industries it supports by including pre-populated common rule attributes and adding templates for common FAQs in each vertical.
About mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM)
Moving beyond traditional CRM functionality, SAP`s innovation and unmatched industry expertise are setting new standards for the way companies connect with their customers and partners, creating customer-centric business processes across enterprisewide operations and business applications. mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management (mySAP CRM) delivers the market`s greatest breadth and depth of functionality, offering more than 280 end-to-end, industry-specific processes to cover the unique business demands of more than twenty-five industries. Built on the open, Web services-based architecture of the SAP NetWeaver™ technology platform, mySAP CRM helps companies leverage existing IT investments, achieve lower total cost of ownership, gain faster return on investment and continually evolve the business processes having the greatest impact on success. (Additional information at )
About SAP
SAP is the world`s leading provider of business software solutions. SAP® solutions are designed to meet the demands of companies of all sizes—from small and midsize businesses to global enterprises. Powered by the SAP NetWeaver™ open integration and application platform to reduce complexity and total cost of ownership and empower business change and innovation, mySAP™ Business Suite solutions are helping enterprises around the world improve customer relationships, enhance partner collaboration and create efficiencies across their supply chains and business operations. The unique core processes of various industries, from aerospace to utilities, are supported by more than 25 SAP industry solutions. Today, more than 23,400 customers in over 120 countries run more than 79,800 installations of SAP® software. With subsidiaries in more than 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at )
Any statements contained in this document that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements as defined in the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as "anticipate," "believe," "estimate," "expect," "forecast," "intend," "may," "plan," "project," "predict," "should" and "will" and similar expressions as they relate to SAP are intended to identify such forward-looking statements. SAP undertakes no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements. All forward-looking statements are subject to various risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from expectations. The factors that could affect SAP`s future financial results are discussed more fully in SAP`s filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"), including SAP`s Annual Report on Form 20-F for 2003 filed with the SEC on March 23, 2004. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of their dates.
Copyright © 2004 SAP AG. All rights reserved.
SAP, R/3, mySAP, mySAP.com, xApps, xApp, SAP NetWeaver and other SAP products and services mentioned herein as well as their respective logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of SAP AG in Germany and in several other countries all over the world. All other product and service names mentioned are the trademarks of their respective companies. Data contained in this document serve informational purposes only. National product specifications may vary.
Contact:
Bryan Nella
Technology
Burson Marsteller
212-614-4992
bryan_nella@nyc.bm.com
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