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Online Truck Accessories Business Selects inContact to Manage Customer Service Calls

Posted on: Monday, 18 July 2005, 06:00 CDT

SALT LAKE CITY, July 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- UCN, Inc. (BULLETIN BOARD: UCNN) , a provider of on-demand contact handling software and business telecommunication services delivered over the UCN national VoIP network, announced today that US Truck Accessories Warehouse, LLC, a Virginia-based, online business selling after-market truck accessories, has implemented the UCN inContact(TM) call handling suite of applications to handle all inbound customer service calls.

US Truck Accessories Warehouse (USTAW), founded in 1998, and headquartered in Richmond, VA., operates solely as an online store, offering over 50,000 items to truck and SUV owners. Currently, the business handles between 200 to 300 orders per month. Product is drop shipped from one of 20 different warehouses affiliated with USTAW. As a virtual business, USTAW's goal is to drive as much cost out of the business as possible, yet provide superior customer service and industry leading prices. "Our problem was that our customers would get busy signals because we didn't have a way to put a call on-hold," explained Lou Berkowitz, president, USTAW. "Phone equipment to support my small staff would have cost me $8000 to start and was neither scaleable nor flexible enough to support my growth goals. I was looking for an affordable solution that could grow with my business, and be flexible enough to enable me to employ part-time, at-home workers. InContact was what I had been looking for over the past three years." USTAW was introduced to UCN and inContact by MABC, a Virginia-based, communications solutions provider and UCN reseller.

Today, when a USTAW customer calls in during working hours, if all call-handling agents are busy, the call is held in queue within the UCN network and music or a promotional message is played. Depending on the hold time, the caller may be given the option to drop-off the line, yet have their position held by the system. When their position comes up, the system automatically calls the customer back and connects the customer with the available USTAW agent. Prior to installing inContact and leveraging its on-hold and Auto Call Back capabilities, Berkowitz figures he had a 25% to 30% abandonment rate. Now, with inContact, he estimates his group is getting back to almost everyone who calls, putting his abandonment rate below 10%.

If the call comes in after business hours, and the caller requires technical support, they are given the option of inputting the first four letters of the manufacturer's name. MABC helped USTAW configure the inContact system so that it uses the keyed information to do look up, then reads back the customer service number for that manufacturer and their web site URL. "At some point in the future," commented Berkowitz, "we may program the system so that the caller is automatically connected to the manufacturer's service department."

Business Benefit

Berkowitz used to be VP of Sales and Marketing for a division of Figgie International, a former Fortune 500 Company, where he was responsible for the company's outbound call centers. "With inContact," said Berkowitz, "here is a way to gain access to very expensive call center capabilities without spending all that money." Specifically, the cost savings USTAW is realizing every month on its UCN per-minute rate for toll-free numbers, more than covers the cost of the inContact application services. "I actually am paying less for the total service -- my toll-frees and the inContact service -- than I was paying for just my toll-free numbers from Sprint," said Berkowitz. In the future, he is considering integrating inContact with a customer database to support outbound sales activities.

About USTAW

US Truck Accessories Warehouse, LLC, was founded in 1998 as an online store for after-market accessories for pickup trucks and SUVs. Today, the company offers over 50,000 items, with plans to grow to over a half million product items during the next several years. For more information on USTAW visit: http://www.ustaw.com/.

About MABC

Mid-Atlantic Business Communications, Inc. (MABC) of Portsmouth, VA, was founded in 1990, and became a UCN reseller of inContact(TM) in September, 2004. With 70 people located in four offices in Virginia and West Virginia, MABC services a national customer-base, offering integration services for Avaya and Nortel telecommunications solutions as well as UCN products. For more information on MABC visit: http://www.mabc.com/.

About UCN, Inc.

UCN is a provider of on-demand contact handling application services and business long distance service delivered over its national VoIP network. The inContact(TM) application suite includes an integrated package of advanced contact handling, reporting and administration applications, and inControl(TM), a unique, rapid application development tool. For more information on UCN visit http://www.ucn.net/.

Safe Harbor Statement: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking information made on the Company's behalf. All statements, other than statements of historical facts which address the Company's expectations of sources of capital or which express the Company's expectation for the future with respect to financial performance or operating strategies, can be identified as forward-looking statements. Such statements made by the company are based on knowledge of the environment in which it operates, but because of the factors previously listed, as well as other factors beyond the control of the Company, actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements.

UCN, Inc.

CONTACT: General Contact, Jan Johnson, VP of Marketing of UCN, Inc.,+1-801-320-3263, jan.johnson@ucn.net; or Investor Contact, Scott Liolios,scott@liolios.com, or Ron Both, both of Liolios Group Inc, +1-949-574-3860,for UCN, Inc.

Web site: http://www.ucn.net/http://www.ustaw.com/http://www.mabc.com/

Source: PRNewswire-FirstCall

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