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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CITIBANK NORTH AMERICA RECEIVES PRESTIGIOUS ABERDEEN RESEARCH AWARD FOR EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT

Empathica client recognized for commitment to excellence and outstanding Customer Feedback Management program

TORONTO – September 15, 2008 – Empathica Inc., a leading provider of Customer Experience Management (CEM) programs to some of the world’s most respected brands, announced today that Citibank North America is this year’s winner of the prestigious Aberdeen Achievement Award for excellence in Customer Feedback Management.

The Aberdeen Achievement Awards in Customer Relationship Management (CRM), which recognize best-in-class organizations for proficiency and innovation across various aspects of CRM, were presented at Aberdeen’s CMO Summit, held September 4-5 in San Francisco, CA. Award winners were selected based on extensive Aberdeen research in the field and are recognized as progressive organizations that epitomize the criteria for each category.

William Wilson, VP of Customer Experience and Rosa Leung, VP of Customer Experience were acknowledged for their leadership of the Citibank customer feedback program and the award was accepted by Kristi Bageant-Epperson, Head of Network Management at Citibank. "We are proud to be recognized for our commitment to our customers," said Bageant-Epperson. "At Citibank, we are committed to listening to our customers and to finding innovative ways to improve the customer experience."

“We are thrilled to hear that Citibank has won this award; it really speaks to the courageous decisions Citibank took two years ago in adopting the latest innovations in customer experience management,” said Dr. Gary Edwards, EVP Client Services for Empathica. “Seeing our clients, like Citibank, acknowledged for their commitment to excellence in understanding and delivering on customer expectations is more rewarding than receiving accolades for Empathica. We’re proud to have helped Citibank establish itself as a leader in the field and look forward to continued success.”

Since 2006, Citibank has worked with Empathica to develop a sophisticated and highly effective customer experience management program. The program enables key stakeholders, including branch managers, personal bankers, and tellers, across its retail banking operations to understand, analyze and act on “voice of the customer” information, which is captured using Empathica’s multi-mode customer survey methods, including phone (IVR), Web browser, and interactive kiosks located in Citibank branches.

“From the outset, we wanted to show that we were serious about focusing on the customer experience,” said Wilson. “At first our frontline managers were concerned about opening the floodgates, but quickly they saw the power of being able to immediately get the customer feedback they need to drive performance. The program enabled us to move from fourth to second quartile performance in industry-wide customer satisfaction in less than a year,” he added.

About Empathica

Empathica provides retailers, foodservice brands, retail banking institutions and other multi-unit based organizations with comprehensive Customer Experience Management programs that help ensure outstanding customer experiences and engaging relationships across the entire brand. Using a variety of surveying methods, Empathica captures “voice of the guest” data and then performs rich analysis to derive key actionable insights that deliver operational excellence and deliver on the brand promise of our clients.

Empathica conducts more than 20 million customer surveys annually and delivers real-time, weekly, and monthly reports to more than 70,000 locations across close to 100 of the world’s leading brands.

About Aberdeen

Aberdeen is a leading provider of fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having benchmarked more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is uniquely positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen™ for insights that drive decisions.

 

For additional information, visit Aberdeen http://www.aberdeen.com or call (617) 723-7890, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748 or go to http://www.harte-hanks.com.

 

 

Media Contact:
Jason Weir
Marketing, Empathica
1.905.542.9001 ext. 260
jweir@empathica.com

 

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