TFCCSearch Keeps Utility Industry in Touch with Customers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 07, 2004

Columbus, Ohio and Portland, Oregon:  Qsent, Inc., the leading provider of precise contact data services, has been selected by Twenty First Century Communications to power TFCCSearch, a new service that helps the utilities industry meet the challenges they face in accurately identifying and contacting their customers. TFCCSearch will improve emergency notification and contact center efficiency, enhance customer service, increase billing and collections resolution and reduce directory assistance costs.

“Incomplete and inaccurate customer data is a significant problem for the utility industry,” said Dennis Smith, director of editorial and research for Chartwell, Inc., a leading research firm for the utility industry. “Poor quality customer data leads to high call center costs for inbound and outbound notification, inadequate billing and collections resolution, inability to effectively handle returned mail, and poor customer service.”

“Utility providers find that 80% of the newly established accounts are set up without a service-location phone number because the customer is still in the process of moving and no phone number has yet been assigned, ” said AJ Brown, senior vice-president, marketing, Qsent. “Qsent adds immediate high value to Twenty-First Century services by providing a precise phone contact within hours of phone service installation, a critical element for further service contact, call center efficiency, outage notification and debt recovery.”

Nationwide, 44 million people and 2.5 million businesses move every year and set up new utility accounts. To keep up with this high volume of contact changes, Qsent provides utilities with Telco-sourced service level records–based on up to 1 million daily updates with 250,000 material changes to name, address and phone number– from the more than 700 phone companies in the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

“Having served the utility industry since 1989, we are well aware of the problem that poor telephone number records can cause,” said Jim Kennedy, president of Twenty First Century Communications. “That is why we are so pleased to find a partner the caliber of Qsent to help. With this service, our clients will have access to current, accurate information about their customers and make ‘database shame’ a thing of the past.”

Fourteen major utility companies serving over 15 million end customers are currently using a Qsent-powered solution to improve customer contact information.

About Qsent
The Qsent service provides definitive contact information for financial, utility, government, retail and telecom applications where precision and timeliness are of high strategic value. Using Qsent services, companies improve their ability to locate, contact, verify, and trust their current customers and target audiences in order to achieve their business and revenue goals. Qsent is a privately held corporation headquartered in Portland, Oregon, USA.

The Qsent name and logo and the iQ411 name and logo are trademarks of Qsent, Inc. All Rights Reserved. The TFCC name and logo, HVCA and TFCCSearch are trademarks of Twenty First Century Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All other company, brand and product names are the property of their respective owners.