ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. Achieves R.O.I. Milestones With NetByTel Solution

BOCA RATON, FL - The refinancing boom of 2001 gave ABN AMRO Mortgage Group Inc. (AAMG) a good problem at its Sunrise, Fla., location: too many phone calls. To solve the problem, AAMG turned to NetByTel Inc. which worked directly with AAMG to build a loan qualification and application solution. The problem was not only solved, but also resulted in increased agent productivity, increased customer retention and revenue gains for ABN AMRO of approximately $4 million to $5 million. AAMG has 1.5 million residential mortgage customers. AAMG's voice-enabled system utilizes NetByTel's application technology and SpeechWorks (Nasdaq: SPWX) voice recognition technology, a NetByTel partner. In November 2000, ABN AMRO received about 7,000 sales calls. When the Fed began whittling away interest rates, call volume exploded to 30,000 in January 2002. "We began looking at voice recognition and advanced IVR functions in the beginning of 2001," said Garth Graham, senior vice president of customer relations and e-commerce for AAMG. "Interest rates were cut dramatically and there was an unpredicted, sudden demand from customers, with call volume increasing 400 percent. "We didn't start out saying we really need a voice-enabled application. We needed something that provided instant answers to our customers," Graham said. "We wanted to change the entire process of how the customer might get their loan fulfilled." AAMG wanted a solution that was conversational -- one that would ask a customer a question, then provide back benefits. The company also wanted a solution that could look up loan, Social Security or telephone numbers and be able to route calls depending on the customers' needs. "It's hard to do this with push button technology such as 'press one for this,' or 'press two for that'," Graham said. AAMG saw its customer retention rate double, with 50 percent of that directly attributable to the NetByTel hosted solution. Customer satisfaction also increased, by AAMG being able to give callers an answer within 30 seconds of initiation of the call. "We saw call center agent productivity double within weeks because callers had already heard some information and been pre-screened and had a good experience," Graham said. "We are estimating $4-$5 million revenue gains this year due to this solution." Deployment was just the first step. NetByTel worked with AAMG to further refine the solution in the first 60 days. "The application's just gotten more and more successful," Graham said. "We're very pleased to see this financial industry solution show the sort of returns we had anticipated for AAMG," said NetByTel President/CEO Leon Garza. "We applaud Garth and his team at AAMG for the leadership in customer service."