Teloquent's Customer Interaction Management System Adopted by Wisconsin Public Service

Wisconsin Public Service (WPS), supplier of electricity and gas to more than 400,000 customers throughout Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has selected the Teloquent Interchange customer interaction management (CIM) software solution to meet their blended multi-channel contact center requirements.

BILLERICA, MA, MAY 18, 2002 - - Wisconsin Public Service (WPS), supplier of electricity and gas to more than 400,000 customers throughout Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, has selected the Teloquent Interchange customer interaction management (CIM) software solution to meet their blended multi-channel contact center requirements. Teloquent and WPS formed a partnership when WPS first selected Teloquent as their voice call center solution several years ago. Teloquent and WPS have worked together to review WPS business requirements, and as Larry Matzke, Call Center Supervisor states, Teloquent would show us the future in call centers and we would align our business center plans to ensure that we would be ready". Ken Dax, the Call Center Manager for WPS notes that with the multi-channel Teloquent Interchange we have the technology in place to move from a voice center to a voice, web and email enabled contact center. Were able to manage all contact types from one central system, track service levels, do reporting, monitoring and control all functions from a technology base we know and are comfortable with. With the Interchange solution and several custom applications developed by Teloquent and WPS, we have the technology in place to provide the service our customers want and expect".

WPS has kicked off a web initiative and is now offering electronic billing, service turn-on and turn-off and budget program requests on the web with more to follow. As Matzke points out we can manage these applications as one rather than managing separate silos of information". Bruce Bower, President and CEO of Teloquent agrees. Companies today must be prepared to meet customer demands for communication. WPS has always known this and has been ready to adopt the infrastructure needed to meet these demands."

Interchange will enable WPS to build upon their existing applications to achieve their goal of 20,000 outbound credit calls per month using a custom Preview Dialer application developed by Teloquent for WPS.    Phil La Blanc, Technology Leader for WPS call center, looks forward to increased agent productivity and satisfaction as agents are busier, less bored, and are able to use more sophisticated tools while Interchange ensures there are no collisions between inbound and outbound calls at the desktop".

Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and Automatic Number Indicator (ANI) technology automatically log reports of power outages and map the distribution of these calls to lines and substations in the WPS Storm Restoration System (SRS) - without human intervention. By quickly logging many more calls than agents could handle manually, the SRS system generates enough information to accurately predict the location and cause of an outage. Of 27,000 emergency calls so far this year, 36% were totally handled by the IVR.

Managing weather storms is of primary importance at WPS. When outages and emergencies occur the supervisor on call must quickly assess the situation. The on-call supervisor will be able to access the contact center from any remote desktop browser to determine what resources theyll need to call in to support the contact center. To dispatch emergency crews, Teloquent created an event-driven dispatch application for WPS. Teloquent routing will prioritize issues so events such as a gas leak will be addressed before less urgent problems. As Matzke notes, The Teloquent system has immensely improved our ability to respond to emergencies".

About Wisconsin Public Service
Wisconsin Public Service Corporation is an investor-owned electric and gas utility serving over 400,000 natural gas and electric customers in northeastern and north central Wisconsin, as well as an adjacent portion of Upper Michigan. Wisconsin Public Service is a wholly owned subsidiary of WPS Resources (NYSE: WPS).

About Teloquent
Teloquent markets an industry leading multi-channel router, equipped with open architecture APIs to leverage existing voice and data infrastructure and enabling rapid migration to best-of-breed solutions. Teloquent Interchange integrates all communication channels and customer relationship management (CRM) applications on the desktop, creating a unified contact center to increase customer service representative productivity and responsiveness. For more information, visit www.teloquent.com, or contact Teloquent via email at info@teloquent.com or telephone at 1-888-TELOQUENT.