E-Channel: CentreCom Launches CentreCare and CentreX

Posted: 11/2000

CentreCom Launches CentreCare and CentreX
By Josh Long

As business success on the web hinges more on customer care, California-based
CentreCom (www.centrecom.com) is churning
out solutions that automate the Q&A process and that enable unified
communications.

The 1997 startup, a virtual local and long-distance provider, launched
CentreCare and CentreX in September, two customer service management solutions.

CentreCare is a frontline CSM solution that lets consumers obtain quick
answers to their questions via the web through an intelligent database. If the
database is at a loss for words, the consumer can connect to a live agent.

Through virtual PBX and messaging functions, CentreX closes the global gap
among company locations, which allows company representatives to be reached
worldwide through the Internet. From China to the United States, virtual
customer care representatives can field calls by using CentreX.

"The whole goals of these products is to increase the customer service
level of the consumer when they are shopping online," says John Campbell,
CentreCom’s vice president of sales and business development. "I think
there is huge play for both of these products from an e-commerce … and
customer care standpoint."

The company’s CentreCall has been on the market for about a year. It allows
consumers with a multimedia device to connect to a call center in about 10
seconds. The solution is not limited to the business world. Subscribers with
personal websites also can use the solution. CentreCom executives have observed
that many U.S. residents with relatives outside the country are putting a phone
applet on their site to enable international calls, Campbell says.

In October 1997 CentreCom’s chairman and CEO Donald S. Feuer founded
developed the patent-pending technology that enables the company to provide
toll-quality local and long-distance services over the Internet. CentreCom
launched follow-me services its first year.

CentreCom is equipped to provide local service in more than 30 metropolitan
hubs in the United States and Canada and plans to extend its network to furnish
local services over the Internet and TDM networks in Asia, Australia, the
Caribbean, Europe and New Zealand.

The company has formed strategic partnerships with Cisco Systems Inc. (www.
cisco.com) iPlanet (www.iplanet.com)
Microsoft (www.microsoft.com) Ericsson (www.ericsson.nl)
Unisys Corp. (www.unisys.com) TEK DigiTel
Corp. (www.tekdigitel.com) and MAX
Internet Communications Inc. (www.maxic.com).