Verizon Business Technology Helps Fannie Mae Expand Call Center in Support of Foreclosure Prevention

BASKING RIDGE, N.J. (Map) - Advanced Contact Center Helps Fannie Mae Implement 'Making Home Affordable' Program

BASKING RIDGE, N.J., June 22 /PRNewswire/ -- As Fannie Mae began implementing the Obama administration's new Making Home Affordable program to prevent foreclosures and support sustainable homeownership, the mortgage finance company needed to significantly expand its corporate call center to ensure it could efficiently and seamlessly respond to inquiries about the program. An advanced contact center solution from Verizon Business helped Fannie Mae rapidly ramp up its call center capacity and hit the ground running.

"Working with Verizon Business and other vendor partners, we've been able to field nearly 100,000 calls in response to the Making Home Affordable program since the initiative was launched in March," said Brian Faith, vice president-communications for Fannie Mae. "As a result of our enhanced call center capabilities, we've been able to better process inquiries and point borrowers in the right directions to get the help they need."

The Verizon Business solution integrated Verizon Web Center and Enhanced Call Routing (ECR), Verizon's hosted interactive voice-response service, to enable Fannie Mae to handle the call volume increase, speed call resolution and bolster response capacity.

Verizon ECR uses automated speech technology and simple touch-tone commands to route callers to the appropriate representatives. Verizon Web Center enables Fannie Mae to respond to callers on their own terms - via phone call, e-mail, fax or instant messaging - to deliver a more personal communications experience. Since Web Center is a network-based multimedia automated call distribution service, Fannie Mae was able to add more agents quickly - no matter where they are based - by simply having agents use their computers and a broadband connection.

"Customer service remains a key imperative for our business and government customers, as the economy and world issues continue to challenge how we get things done most efficiently and cost-effectively," said Blair Crump, group president of worldwide sales for Verizon Business. "Verizon Business is doing its part to help customers like Fannie Mae rise above those challenges by harnessing the power of advanced communications and IT solutions to help consumers get the information they need when they need it."

About Verizon Business

Verizon Business, a unit of Verizon Communications (NYSE: VZ), is a global leader in communications and IT solutions. We combine professional expertise with the world's most connected IP network to deliver award-winning communications, IT, information security and network solutions. We securely connect today's extended enterprises of widespread and mobile customers, partners, suppliers and employees -- enabling them to increase productivity and efficiency and help preserve the environment. Many of the world's largest businesses and governments -- including 96 percent of the Fortune 1000 and thousands of government agencies and educational institutions -- rely on our professional and managed services and network technologies to accelerate their business. Find out more at www.verizonbusiness.com.

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