CINCINNATI & DENVER – Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services, announced today it has acquired a leading contact center analytics firm that specializes in customer-driven business transformation and addresses the specific needs of the $130 billion in-house contact center market.
Convergys closed today on the purchase of Finali Corporation for $25 million in cash, representing less than two times expected 2005 revenue. This acquisition will be neutral to fourth quarter 2004 as well as 2005 earnings per share.
Finali transforms customer care operations into business intelligence centers through a unique blend of analytics, consulting, and automation. Finali uses call segmentation and enterprise-specific categorization tools to produce data that explains the causes of customer contacts. This business intelligence enables companies to optimize their business processes both inside and outside the customer care center.
Using this intelligence, companies can treat the causes of the contacts at the source and automate transactions more successfully. Clients experience dramatic reductions in cost and measurable improvements in customer satisfaction.
Finali also provides patented virtual agent technology that helps its clients’ customers effectively navigate their web sites. This results in more completed web transactions and fewer telephone calls.
“The acquisition of Finali strengthens our growing leadership position in customer interaction Business Transformational Outsourcing. It also provides alternate ways for Convergys to add value to clients, prospects, and partners beyond outsourcing,” said Jack Freker, President of Convergys’ Customer Management Group. “The Finali acquisition also creates additional, strategic competencies for us in contact center business intelligence while providing an added revenue stream and new clients.”
This acquisition:
- strengthens Convergys’ strategic leadership and profitability in customer interaction management through expanded business transformational capabilities and professional services for the in-house and outsourced contact center industry.
- gives Convergys a new suite of differentiated, premium services based on operational excellence, proprietary methods and technology, and global delivery capabilities.
- enables Convergys to create unmatched, industry-specific benchmark data on customer interactions to help clients identify and address gaps in business performance more quickly and effectively.
“I’m excited about the opportunity the combination of Finali and Convergys brings to the contact center marketplace,” said Bob Burgin, Finali’s CEO. “Finali’s analytic process reengineering and automation services along with Convergys’ global leadership position in contact center services will provide clients unique insights about customer calling behavior, allowing them to customize business strategies more effectively, reducing costs and improving customer satisfaction. We’re pleased to be joining the Convergys team.”
The privately held Finali Corporation, established in 1999, is headquartered in Denver and has about 150 employees.
Convergys is committed to a strategy that adds value to our clients’ customer and employee relationships by providing a broad range of solutions and expertise as well as unrivaled industry experience. To support this strategy, earlier this year Convergys entered the accounts receivable management market and strengthened its business process outsourcing capabilities with the acquisition of Encore Receivable Management of Olathe, Kansas.
About Convergys
Convergys Corporation, a member of the S&P 500 and a Fortune Most Admired Company, is a global leader in integrated billing, employee care, and customer care services provided through outsourcing or licensing. We serve top companies in telecommunications, Internet, cable and broadband services, technology, financial services, and other industries in nearly 60 countries. We also provide integrated, outsourced, human resource services to leading companies across a broad range of industries.
We bring together world-class resources, software, and expertise to help create valuable relationships between our clients and their customers and their employees. This commitment is validated by the more than 1.5 million individual bills our software produces each day to support more than 100 million subscribers, and by the more than 1.7 million separate customer and employee contacts we manage each day, both live and via electronic interaction.
Convergys® employs more than 63,000 people in 62 customer contact centers and in our data centers and other offices in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. Convergys is on the net at www.convergys.com and has world headquarters in Cincinnati.