IBM Completes First Pilot of Chordiant Customer Experience Front-Office Solution At KIT Finance Investment Bank

Chordiant Software, Inc. (Nasdaq: CHRD), the leading provider of Customer Experience (Cx™) software and services, jointly with its global partner IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced that they have completed the pilot implementation of Chordiant’s front-office Cx solution for servicing clients at the retail arm of KIT Finance Bank.

In light of its plans to considerably expand its retail business, KIT Finance Bank faced the task of maximizing the efficiency of its sales and servicing channels. The bank’s existing IT environment included multiple disparate banking applications that contained customer data and functionality. The goal of the new solution was to reduce the effort needed to perform transactions at the branches and in the contact center and to shift the focus to sales and servicing clients.

To meet these goals the bank needed a front-office solution that would consolidate information on customers, products and services within a common desktop, standardize and automate all key business processes in sales and servicing customers, simplify and speed-up the work of personnel, and improve quality of servicing through implementation of real-time Next-Best-Action™ recommendations to the clients. From a technology standpoint, the goal was to integrate with existing systems at the bank and considerably reduce the time required for implementation and modification of banking products.

The bank chose Chordiant because it could successfully manage the above tasks with the use of operational CRM and modern open technologies. The solution is effectively multi-channel, which allows the integration of various customer servicing channels within the single platform. These include contact center, branch, internet bank, electronic self servicing, etc. KIT Bank also selected Chordiant because of IBM and Chordiant’s experience in implementing such solutions at leading banks around the world.

The purpose of the pilot was to test the Chordiant solution in a Russian environment in one sales channel (branch) and with one product line (term deposits by individuals). The standard Chordiant front-office solution was localized and customized to meet the requirements of the bank and integrated with the banks’ existing solutions. Following tests the customized solution was accepted by the bank.

"Implementation of the pilot confirmed that our choice of IBM and Chordiant was correct. The solution allowed us to improve the quality of servicing customers and increase personnel efficiency. One of the most impressive characteristics of the Chordiant front office was the fivefold reduction in the average time to open a term deposit. The joint work of the IBM-Chordiant team allowed us to achieve a solution within limited timeframes,” said Vladislav Bykov, Deputy Director General of KIT Finance Investment Bank.

IBM managed the project and coordinated the activity of all participants. IBM Global Business Services (IBM GBS) consultants and Chordiant specialists designed the solution, which allows new product lines to be added with minimal modification to the existing customer service modules. The front office was integrated with existing systems using a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and WEB-services through IBM WebSphere Enterprise Service Bus.

"IBM and Chordiant have a long history of partnership and have successfully implemented Chordiant solutions many times all over the world. This project is an important milestone in our cooperation—it is the first implementation of Chordiant in Russia, and we are happy that this experience was a success. Efficient implementation processes and active participation by the banks’ specialists resulted in the project going live in five months. This is a very good result, particularly when you consider that it had to be localized for the Russian market and customized to suit the client,” said the head of IBM GBS Boris Hohl.

About Chordiant Software, Inc.

Chordiant helps leading global brands with high-volume customer service needs deliver the best possible customer experience. Unlike traditional business applications, Chordiant Customer Experience (Cx) front-office solutions blend multi-channel interaction management with predictive desktop decisioning, enabling companies to capture and effectively anticipate and respond to customer behavior in all channels, in real-time. For global leaders in insurance/healthcare, telecommunications and financial services, this deeper understanding cultivates a lasting, one-to-one relationship that aligns the most appropriate value proposition to each consumer. With Chordiant Cx solutions, customer loyalty, operational productivity and profitability reach new levels of return. For more information, visit Chordiant at www.chordiant.com.

Chordiant and the Chordiant logo are registered trademarks of Chordiant Software, Inc. The Customer Experience Company, Next-Best-Action, and Cx are trademarks of Chordiant Software, Inc. All other trademarks and registered trademarks are the properties of their respective owners.