Dish Network in the News

Edify Helps EchoStar Manage Growth

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Oct. 16, 2001 /PRNewswire/ -- Edify Corporation, an S1 company and a leading global supplier of end-to-end CRM solutions throughout the enterprise, announced today that it has enabled EchoStar Communications Corporation to contain service costs and achieve high levels of customer satisfaction at its DISH Network customer service centers as well as to manage and reduce costs associated with EchoStar's dynamic growth.

EchoStar's DISH Network delivers Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS) television products and services to customers across the United States. Since 1996, DISH Network has grown to service more than 6 million customers.

To keep pace with its growth, EchoStar turned to Edify's vCSR software to provide personalized billing and payment status information for its customers. EchoStar installed Edify's vCSR software to enable Interactive Voice self-service at five DISH Network customer service centers, allowing the company to reduce overall customer service representative (CSR) staffing needs.

"We have been very impressed with how Edify's vCSR software has helped us manage our rapidly growing volume of customers," said Dr. Germar Schaefer, vice president of IT Architecture and Development at EchoStar. "The Interactive Voice self-service feature from Edify is easy to use for our customers and increases our efficiency in our customer service centers."

Edify's vCSR software allows customer interaction applications to be created and customized quickly to deliver efficient, cost-effective, customer self-service through voice, email, wireless, and web channels. Today, Edify's vCSR systems complete more than 100,000 calls per month at EchoStar without agent assistance.

"Conventional wisdom once said that customer service costs could only go up," said Joseph G. Brown, president and CEO of Edify Corporation. "While working with us, EchoStar has been able to increase its customer base, maintain its high standards of personalized customer service and still reduce many of the costs associated with the provisioning of those services. EchoStar is an excellent example of how Edify is able to enhance the IT operations for customers of all sizes and provide a rapid and real return on investment."