High quality, best-in-class security and operational efficiency fuel use of virtual customer service centers within financial services industry.

DENVER, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- Alpine Access, the premier provider of virtual contact center solutions for brand-conscious companies, announced today that over the past 12 months the company has seen a significant increase in the number of financial service companies outsourcing their customer service to virtual call centers.

According to internal Alpine Access data, more than 75% of Fortune 500 financial services companies, including retail banks, credit card companies, mortgage providers, and insurance carriers, are currently using or are considering using home-based customer service agents. As the founder of the at-home call center model, Alpine Access serves numerous Fortune 100 financial service companies, and is currently negotiating contracts with several more. The company handles account inquiries, bill payment and processing, balance transfers, account origination, product/service selling, and collections for several of the nation's leading financial institutions including one of the largest issuers of charge cards, one of the three largest retail banks and one of the three largest private label credit card issuers.

"We signed our first financial services client in 2005 and now a significant portion of our revenue comes from this market," said Christopher Carrington, CEO of Alpine Access. "The at-home model makes sense for financial institutions because it provides extreme security, high quality service and efficient operations at a low overall cost. As a result, the use of at-home customer service agents is becoming much more mainstream among leading financial services companies."

Virtual contact centers hire agents from across the country based on specific skill set requirements. Alpine Access receives more than 10,000 resumes annually from applicants with previous financial services experience. The ability to locate, hire and train agents from anywhere in the U.S. allows virtual centers to employ the top 2-3% of the nation's most qualified customer service agents. This is especially important to the financial services industry where agents typically handle complex call types and need specific licenses and/or certifications.

In addition to accessing higher quality agents, financial services companies are turning to virtual call centers for these further benefits:

• Information security. Alpine Access is Level 1 PCI DSS compliant as certified by third party audits. In addition, all agent computers are secured through a remote desktop solution and 100% of all calls are recorded.
• Operational cost savings. Virtual call centers have a more flexible workforce, allowing them to efficiently schedule agents based on actual call volume.
• Effective training. By applying the latest adult learning philosophies to distance-based training programs for one of its financial services clients, Alpine Access' online university has reduced training time by 22%, while performance metrics are nearly 10% higher than the client's internal brick-and-mortar agents.

While many Fortune 500 institutions moved call center operations offshore earlier in the decade, they are now bringing the function back onshore as security, quality and overall cost has improved through the use of U.S.-based, virtual call center providers. With more than 1,000 agents expected to be handling customer service for financial companies within the next year, Alpine Access continues to lead the homeshoring trend.

About Alpine Access

Alpine Access pioneered the home-based, employee contact center model in 1998 to deliver high quality customer service at a lower cost for brand-conscious companies. Known for innovation, operational efficiency and results, Alpine Access has employees in over 1,100 U.S. cities and offers a full suite of services includes outsourcing, consulting, recruiting and training. Alpine Access' client base represents more than ten of the Fortune 100 companies in the communications, financial services, retail, and travel industries. For more information, visit the Alpine Access website at www.alpineaccess.com or call 1-866-279-0585.

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Chris Carrington

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SOURCE Alpine Access

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