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Vertical Introduces MultiSite Reporter 2.0 for Retail Market; Visibility into Call Data to Improve Customer Service and Operations

Posted on: Thursday, 8 September 2005, 18:00 CDT

Vertical Communications (ASFT.OB), a leading provider of phone systems and voice applications that help businesses boost revenue, increase productivity and provide superior customer service, today announced MultiSite Reporter 2.0 (MSR), a business intelligence application that provides visibility into calling data to help retailers safeguard the customer experience and improve service and operations.

MSR enables enterprises to measure the effectiveness of their call-handling infrastructure and the quality of customers' calling experience - across the network and for individual locations, departments and agents. Working in conjunction with Vertical's InstantOffice IP-PBX platforms, MSR draws extensive data from InstantOffice to provide vital information on caller behavior, the quality of the caller experience and the effectiveness of voice applications as well as employee productivity and facilities usage.

"Most retail organizations have little or no visibility into their customers' calling experience," said Bill Tauscher, Vertical's president and CEO. "Abandoned calls, extensive hold times and excessive transfers can quickly erode an organization's relationship with its customers - new and repeat - as well as damage its reputation, sometimes irreparably. MSR has been developed to help organizations extract this kind of call data to provide better customer service, enhance decision-making and maximize revenues."

"Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Reporting Services integrates with Vertical's MultiSite Reporter to help our mutual customers create business intelligence solutions to gain enterprise-wide visibility into their infrastructure and improve their internal and external communications," said Alex Payne, senior product manager for SQL Server at Microsoft Corporation.

MSR's reporting capabilities automate the capture, presentation and distribution of information to the appropriate line-of-business and functional managers. In turn, managers can look across their network of stores or view data at the level of regions, individual stores, departments or even specific employees and phone lines. Key reporting features include:

-- Call Detail analyzes incoming and outgoing calling patterns.

-- Call Management offers views of recent history and historical trend data such as queue times and call duration, across all locations, at individual stores, or for specific groups, queues, agents and callers.

-- Facility Management provides trunk usage statistics, such as the number of inbound and outbound calls, total number of all calls, percentage of time all trunks are busy, and the number of trunks out of service. This feature offers analysis of system performance and operations, identifies over- and under-capacity situations, and optimizes trunking at the local level to save money while ensuring stores are always accessible.

-- Exception Reports enable users to easily adapt the 60 standard report templates to their specific needs. With a wide array of exception reports, users can define threshold values that indicate a problem may be imminent, so it can be further analyzed and promptly addressed.

Additionally, MSR's powerful scheduling features allow any report to be automatically generated at specified intervals (daily, weekly, annually, etc.) and sent to a pre-defined distribution list. Authorized users can also access reports on demand, or create ad hoc reports, and print or email any report in widely used formats such as Microsoft Office Excel, Portable Document Format (PDF) and XML.

MSR works together with MultiSite Manager, Vertical's award-winning management console, which allows IT staff to manage dozens, hundreds or even thousands of InstantOffice systems by logical groups - all from a single location. Staff can easily perform backups, upgrade software and implement store changes remotely and at pre-scheduled times, enabling highly efficient management at a greatly reduced cost of ownership.

MSR is designed for the needs of fast-growing retail companies with widely distributed locations. The software supports hundreds of simultaneous users and, like MultiSite Manager, supports thousands of sites. Built on scalable technologies including .NET Framework architectures and Microsoft SQL Server 2005, MSR also facilitates faster queries and the flexible addition of new reports over time. Web access enables authorized users to view reports from any browser on your corporate network. The ability to control user access via permissions enables key users to safeguard sensitive data while providing convenient access to decision makers.

Vertical's MSR is currently available. For more information on Vertical's MultiSite Reporter or other products and solutions from the company, call 800-914-9985 or visit: www.vertical.com.

About Vertical

Vertical Communications, Inc. is a leading provider of phone systems and voice applications that help businesses boost revenue, increase productivity and provide superior customer service. Vertical's products and solutions help companies of all sizes - from small and medium-sized businesses to large, distributed enterprises - including CVS/pharmacy, Household International and Apria Healthcare. Vertical is headquartered in Cambridge, Mass. and delivers its solutions through a worldwide network of systems integrators, resellers and distributors. For more information, please visit the company's Website at www.vertical.com.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.

This release contains forward-looking statements based on current expectations or beliefs, as well as a number of assumptions about future events, and these statements are subject to important facts and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. The forward-looking statements in this release address a variety of subjects, including, without limitation, the perceived benefits of Vertical's product and service offerings and the benefits to the Company of its new MSR product offering. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements: a failure of the Company's products and services to be perceived as adding value for the business conducted by the Company's customers, the inability of the Company's MSR product offering to achieve the anticipated benefits the Company anticipates; and other factors detailed in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission including its most recent filings on Form 10-K.

Trademark Information

Vertical Communications and the Vertical Communications logo and combinations thereof are trademarks of Vertical Communications, Inc. Artisoft, TeleVantage, InstantOffice and Vertical Networks are registered trademarks of Artisoft, Inc. All other brand and product names are used for identification only and are the property of their respective holders.

Source: Business Wire

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