Seventy-three percent of senior executives say that better collaboration with customers, suppliers, and partners is the most important business benefit to be gained from network convergence, according to a global survey conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) for AT&T.

The survey of 236 senior executives worldwide found that companies are pinning high hopes on investments in converged IP networks to help them improve customer service and the quality of their customer relationships. According to the respondents, companies are planning to rapidly bring customer service into an IP environment. Currently, just 8 percent of companies run their contact centres on an IP network, but this figure is expected to leap to 39 percent within the next two years.

The trend among firms to adopt a multichannel approach to customer service will also gain substantial momentum over the next two years, with nearly half of the companies surveyed planning to communicate with customers via video link, compared with just 9 percent today. In addition, 42 percent of all executives said that their firms will utilise Web chat or messaging, and 39 percent will use mobile text, versus today's 16 percent and 21 percent, respectively.

The research also reveals that customer service technologies will be important in helping firms improve innovation and product/service quality. For example, information obtained from customers through contact centres and other communications channels will soon be processed by new analytics tools providing agents with higher-quality knowledge and feedback that will help improve the entire customer service experience.

"With all the advances of new IP-based technology allowing more innovative ways to connect with customers, there are also major challenges for the enterprise," said Bill Archer, president of AT&T's operations for Europe, the Middle East and Africa. "This survey shows that while IP creates a scalable, robust, and global platform for integrated CRM technologies, a firm's customer service will still only be as good as the humans delivering it."

Archer continued, "Managers and staff alike will increasingly require multiple skills to make the IP-based contact centre work to best effect. The demand for technical aptitude will increase, but strong interpersonal skills will remain important as ever - for three-quarters or more of firms in the survey, voice and face-to-face communication will remain major channels of customer communication. Recruiting, training and retaining good customer service staff will naturally be crucial to success."

Free copies of the EIU research white paper "Customer Service in an IP World" can be downloaded from the AT&T Web site at:
http://www.att.com/emea/insights/whitepaper/customerservice.html

Other white papers from AT&T and the EIU are available at:
http://www.att.com/emea/insights/whitepaper/

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Survey and Research Methodology
As part of the research for the paper, the Economist Intelligence Unit conducted an online worldwide survey of 236 executives. The majority of respondents came from Asia Pacific (39%), North America (30%) and Europe (25%). Other respondents came from Latin America the Middle East and Africa. The top five industry sectors represented by the survey respondents were professional services, financial services, manufacturing, technology, energy, and health care and pharmaceuticals. In addition to the survey research, the EIU conducted a series of one-to-one in-depth interviews with senior executives and analysts.

About the Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit (http://www.eiu.com) is the business information arm of The Economist Group, publisher of The Economist. Through its global network of over 500 analysts, the Economist Intelligence Unit continuously assesses and forecasts political, economic and business conditions in nearly 200 countries. As the world's leading provider of country intelligence, the Economist Intelligence Unit helps executives make better business decisions by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on worldwide market trends and business strategies.

About AT&T
AT&T Inc. is one of the world's largest telecommunications holding companies and is the largest in the United States. Operating globally under the AT&T brand, AT&T companies are recognized as the leading worldwide providers of IP-based communications services to business and as leading U.S. providers of high speed DSL Internet, local and long distance voice, and directory publishing and advertising services. AT&T Inc. holds a 60 percent ownership interest in Cingular Wireless, which is the No. 1 U.S. wireless services provider with 55.8 million wireless customers. Additional information about AT&T Inc. and AT&T products and services is available at http://www.att.com.

(c) 2006 AT&T Knowledge Ventures. All rights reserved. Subsidiaries and affiliates of AT&T Inc. provide products and services under the AT&T brand.

For more information, contact:

Niall Hickey
AT&T
+ 44-0-771 577 1451


Denis McCauley
Economist Intelligence Unit
+ 44-20-7830 1138