The Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) group of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services organization, launched a new customer contact center in Tulsa, Okla. jointly developed with Nortel Networks* [NYSE/TSE: NT] to manage day-to-day customer interactions of various BPO clients.

The contact center is the result of an agreement between PricewaterhouseCoopers and Nortel Networks to jointly develop, implement and promote a network of highly-sophisticated, next generation customer contact centers that will provide BPO clients with advanced applications - like interactive voice response (IVR) and customer relationship management (CRM) - through outsourcing. These multimedia centers will assist BPO clients in offering a high level of customer service, while helping them to recruit new business by allowing customers to interact using the method of choice - voice, fax or Web. "By outsourcing customer interaction operations to us, companies can leverage a solution that combines the experience and technology of PricewaterhouseCoopers and Nortel Networks to enhance relations with customers, partners, suppliers and employees while striving to significantly reduce costs," said Tom Eubanks, the PricewaterhouseCoopers partner and COO in charge of Global BPO Operations and North America BPO Leader.

"By integrating phone, fax, Internet and e-mail systems, our center can manage a high volume of inquiries with minimal waiting time and quickly access critical customer information - all major factors in providing prompt, efficient customer care." The contact center is based on a central, integrated platform for Web- and voice-enabled customer interactions, including customer service and technical support. This platform - featuring Nortel Networks Symposium* Call Center and Periphonics* IVR - is designed to shorten customer service representative (CSR) learning curves and help them become more productive in a shorter time than previously possible, while enabling experienced CSRs to handle increased call volumes and other interactions. At the same time, customers can access self-help features and submit requests on- line. "This gives BPO clients an edge in an environment of increasing demand to improve customer service," said Barry O'Sullivan, general manager, Customer Contact and Voice Portal Solutions, Nortel Networks. "An advanced contact center such as this one is crucial to the success of an outsourcing operation." The contact center is designed to be leveraged by other PricewaterhouseCoopers BPO service centers globally in support of outsourced operations such as finance and accounting, human resources, and applications support.

Through a growing network of 32 Centres of Excellence, PricewaterhouseCoopers Business Process Outsourcing group (www.pwcglobal.com/bpo) serves as the Global Back Office* for multinational corporations and government organizations in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. These Centres are among the largest business process outsourcing facilities in the world, providing an integrated, multi-process solution to managing finance and accounting, applications process, procurement, human resources, e-learning, real estate process and customer relationship management operations for clients in a wide range of industries. Since its establishment in 1996, the Business Process Outsourcing group has enjoyed the distinction of being one of the fastest growing practice areas of PricewaterhouseCoopers, the world's largest professional services organization. PricewaterhouseCoopers (www.pwcglobal.com) is the world's largest professional services organization. Drawing on the knowledge and skills of more than 150,000 people in 150 countries, we help our clients solve complex business problems and measurably enhance their ability to build value, manage risk and improve performance in an Internet-enabled world. PricewaterhouseCoopers refers to the member firms of the worldwide PricewaterhouseCoopers organization.