Alliance Data Customer Care Centers Achieve Eight-Time 'Center of Excellence' Certification By Internationally Recognized BenchmarkPortal

DALLAS, April 25, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Alliance Data Systems Corporation, a leading provider of loyalty and marketing solutions derived from transaction-rich data, announced today that its Retail Services business has again achieved the prestigious "Center of Excellence" certification by BenchmarkPortal for the quality of its care center operations and service delivery. Alliance Data also received second-place honors in the "Top 100 BenchmarkPortal Call Centers list" in the "large centers" category which compares the performance of centers throughout North America by evaluating their key metrics against industry peers.  Founded in 1995 by Purdue University, BenchmarkPortal is a global leader in the contact center industry providing benchmarking, certification, training, consulting and industry reports.

The recertification of its customer care centers marks the eighth time Alliance Data has received BenchmarkPortal's Center of Excellence ranking – more times than any company or organization in the financial services/credit industry. The Center of Excellence designation is reserved for the top 10 percent of all customer care centers surveyed by BenchmarkPortal, and is based on best-practice metrics for quality, cost, efficiency, effectiveness, and superior performance. These metrics are drawn from the world's largest database of objective and quantitative data, which is audited and validated by researchers from BenchmarkPortal.

"It's an exciting time for Alliance Data's customer care centers. We view this part of our business as a competitive differentiator for our organization, and as an asset to our client partners," said Sallie Komitor, vice president of customer care operations for Alliance Data. "Achieving the Center of Excellence recertification and earning 'Top 100 BenchmarkPortal Call Centers list' honors is a direct reflection of our ongoing, significant investments in people, process and technology. We know the customer interactions that drive our performance metrics are key to delivering customer care excellence; we view every customer touchpoint as an opportunity to enhance customer loyalty with our partner brands."

In developing its call center measurement parameters, BenchmarkPortal found that 22 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) strongly correlate to quality and quantity of calls handled in call center operations. For the benchmarking survey, BenchmarkPortal monitored and measured Alliance Data's performance against these KPIs and their large call center database to determine each center's level of efficiency and effectiveness.

  RESULTS INCLUDE:

• High caller satisfaction. Customers calling into Alliance Data customer care centers gave 'top box' satisfaction ratings 23 percent higher than the industry average. 'Top box' satisfaction refers to the highest possible survey score customers can use to rate the service they experienced.
• Best-in-class service. Alliance Data customer care center associates answer customer service phone calls 55.4% faster than industry average.

"Certification is an important distinction because it is based on best-practice metrics drawn from BenchmarkPortal's database of contact center metrics, which was founded at Purdue University and is the largest in the world," said Bruce Belfiore, chief executive officer of BenchmarkPortal. "This achievement confirms Alliance Data's commitment to service excellence; the obvious beneficiaries of which include the center's customers, employees, and shareholders. This is an achievement of distinction."

About Center of Excellence Certification   
Contact centers and their managers who wish to implement best practices and obtain world-class performance in their industry have a unique opportunity to certify their call centers. BenchmarkPortal's rigorous certification process has the advantage of referencing all performance goals to their best practice database of thousands of contact centers. Thus, contact centers will be held to performance levels that will improve their competitive position, not just force them to adhere to an arbitrary standard. Please follow the link to discover what the steps to certification are and how they will improve your centers performance. www.benchmarkportal.com/call-center-certification.  

About BenchmarkPortal  
Founded in 1995, BenchmarkPortal is a global leader in the contact center industry providing benchmarking, certification, training, consulting and industry reports. The BenchmarkPortal team of professionals has gained international recognition for its expertise and an innovative approach to best practices for the contact center industry and hosts the world's largest database of contact center metrics. BenchmarkPortal's mission is to help contact centers reach peak performance in operational effectiveness and efficiency so that the centers will realize increased levels of agent and customer loyalty while containing costs and building enterprise value. For more information on BenchmarkPortal, please call 1-800-214-8929 or visit www.BenchmarkPortal.com.

About Alliance Data Retail Services
Alliance Data Retail Services is one of the nation's leading providers of branded credit card programs, with over 100 marketing-driven private label, co-brand and commercial programs in partnership with many of North America's best-known brands. The business delivers upon its Know More. Sell More.® commitment by leveraging customer insight to drive sales for its client partners. Leveraging deep-rooted retail industry expertise, transaction-based customer data, and advanced analytics, Alliance Data Retail Services creates turnkey, multichannel credit programs designed to help its clients develop stronger, more profitable customer relationships. Alliance Data Retail Services is part of the Alliance Data family of companies. To learn more about Alliance Data Retail Services, visit www.alliancedata.com.

About Alliance Data 
Alliance Data® (NYSE: ADS) and its combined businesses is North America's largest and most comprehensive provider of transaction-based, data-driven marketing and loyalty solutions serving large, consumer-based industries. The Company creates and deploys customized solutions, enhancing the critical customer marketing experience; the result is measurably changing consumer behavior while driving business growth and profitability for some of today's most recognizable brands. Alliance Data helps its clients create and increase customer loyalty through solutions that engage millions of customers each day across multiple touch points using traditional, digital, mobile and other emerging technologies. Headquartered in Dallas, Alliance Data and its three businesses employ approximately 11,000 associates at more than 70 locations worldwide.

Alliance Data consists of three businesses: Alliance Data Retail Services, a leading provider of marketing-driven credit solutions; Epsilon®, a leading provider of multichannel, data-driven technologies and marketing services; and LoyaltyOne®, which owns and operates the AIR MILES® Reward Program, Canada's premier coalition loyalty program. For more information about the company, visit our website, www.alliancedata.com, or follow us on Twitter via @AllianceData.

Alliance Data's Safe Harbor Statement/Forward Looking Statements  
This release may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Such statements may use words such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue, " "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend, " "may, " "predict," "project," "would," and similar expressions as they relate to us or our management. When we make forward-looking statements, we are basing them on our management's beliefs and assumptions, using information currently available to us. Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, these forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions, including those discussed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

If one or more of these or other risks or uncertainties materialize, or if our underlying assumptions prove to be incorrect, actual results may vary materially from what we projected. Any forward-looking statements contained in this presentation reflect our current views with respect to future events and are subject to these and other risks, uncertainties and assumptions relating to our operations, results of operations, growth strategy and liquidity. We have no intention, and disclaim any obligation, to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future results or otherwise, except as required by law.

"Safe Harbor" Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: Statements in this presentation regarding Alliance Data Systems Corporation's business which are not historical facts are "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties. For a discussion of such risks and uncertainties, which could cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements, see "Risk Factors" in the Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K for the most recently ended fiscal year. Risk factors may be updated in Item 1A in each of the Company's Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q for each quarterly period subsequent to the Company's most recent Form 10-K.

SOURCE Alliance Data Systems Corporation