Sykes and NetByTel Announce Reseller Agreement

BOCA RATON, FL - Sykes Enterprises Incorporated (NASDAQ: SYKE) has chosen to add NetByTel's automated speech recognition solutions to SYKES' existing Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services and solutions. SYKES is reselling the NetByTel solutions under the product name: SYKES Personal Voice Assistance, powered by NetByTel. "We chose NetByTel because many of our clients have come to us seeking ways to control customer service costs, and we wanted to bring to them the very best combination of people, process and technology available in the marketplace to help them reach their objectives," said Chuck Sykes, General Manager and Senior Vice President - Americas. "NetByTel's deep expertise and brand recognition in the speech industry was a driving factor in our decision to co-brand their service, and we see it as a perfect complement to SYKES' core capabilities." "We are excited about our new partnership with SYKES, because they are well positioned in the global call center marketplace, and they have an excellent reputation among top-tier customer-driven companies," said Leon Garza, president and CEO of NetByTel. "This is also an important step for the industry at large, because more and more BPO providers are beginning to recognize the cost benefits and customer service enhancements that voice self-service can provide." NetByTel's voice self-service solutions will allow SYKES to offer its clients a full range of customer care solutions, including live agent support, e-mail and now voice self-service. NetByTel's speech solutions, including product ordering, order status, location finders, lead capture, name and address change, and much more, provide a complementary channel alternative to live agents, helping to alleviate service delays due to volume spikes. "Speech recognition functionality can add significant value to BPO deals for the outsourcer, enterprise, as well as customer," said Benjamin Farmer, managing analyst at Datamonitor, Inc. "By developing agent-through-automation solutions, the NetByTel and SYKES joint offering addresses a growing need in the market for cheaper customer service that nevertheless handles increasingly complex queries." Voice self-service also opens the door to a new client base of companies who may not have been able to outsource their call center needs in the past due to cost constraints, time limitations or quality control issues. Speech recognition gives them the ability to quickly outsource in a cost effective manner, while maintaining the quality in an easy-to-use customer support environment. "NetByTel is continuing to break ground with voice self-service," added Garza. "We have deployed more transactional voice solutions than any other company in the industry, and as we continue this strong momentum with quality companies such as SYKES, speech recognition will become more and more of a dominant force in the outsourced call center space."