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PEARSON ISSUES ANALYSIS OF CITIZEN CONTACT CENTERS

Thought Paper Offers Government Executives " Road Map" for Success As Public's Expectations for Interacting with the Government Evolve

ARLINGTON, VA., June 1, 2005 - Pearson Government Solutions today released a comprehensive thought paper on the challenges and opportunities faced by government agencies in developing contact centers to interact with the public. Titled, "Citizen Contact Centers: A Road Map For Government Executives," the thought paper offers practical guidance for agencies launching contact centers to ensure their success, and discusses the changing expectations of the public in how they communicate with government agencies.

Government agency executives rely more and more on what are increasingly referred to as citizen contact centers, as the most efficient and effective way to interact with individuals. These contact centers have become an overlooked success story for the Federal government, combining state-of-the-art technology and trained customer service representatives (CSRs) to provide information to individual citizens in a centralized and efficient manner.

The thought paper charts the evolving methods in which the public interacts with government agencies. What used to involve a simple toll-free telephone call number now includes Web sites, e-mail, voice recognition and response technology, and services for those with disabilities, along with more traditional phone calls, faxes, and traditional mail. These multiple communications channels offer more ways to cost effectively reach individual citizens, but also offer their own challenges.

"The Federal government is in the midst of enacting significant changes to a wide variety of government programs affecting virtually every U.S. household, and so government agency executives need successful strategies for interacting directly with the public to answer their questions and concerns," said Mac Curtis, President and CEO, Pearson Government Solutions.

The thought paper details some of the key issues that agency managers need to consider as they design and implement citizen contact centers:

• Diverse populations require different modes of communication. Government managers need to align their methods of interaction to meet the comfort levels and expectations of a diverse constituency.
• Quality customer service representatives are essential. They must have specific skills for each unique challenge, be well-trained and frequently re-trained with new program changes, and have a willingness and aptitude for helping others with complex problems.
• Agency executives and citizen contact center contractors must function as true partners. A partnership needs to develop where contact centers are able to respond rapidly and accurately to public inquiries even in the midst of fundamental program changes, which requires close alignment of government agencies with their contractor partners.

Pearson Government Solutions has been helping government agencies worldwide interact with their constituents for nearly 25 years. In the United States, it has helped government agencies achieve unprecedented success with some of the largest and most high-profile programs ever implemented. Through domestic and international partnerships, Pearson supports well over 50 million government-citizen interactions each year. Through these partnerships, Pearson has developed a keen sense of what it takes to design, build and operate a successful government citizen contact center - and why it is so important to get it right.

About Pearson Government Solutions

With nearly 5,000 employees worldwide, Pearson Government Solutions, based in Arlington, Va., serves customers in the U.S. federal, state and local, and international government; higher education institutions and student financial aid entities; and the worldwide telecommunications industry. The company designs, builds, and operates solutions that optimize public sector entities' performance in delivering information, benefits, and services to their constituents. Clients include the Federal Communications Commission; the U.S. Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs; the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

Pearson Government Solutions is a business of Pearson, the international media company. Pearson's primary operations include Pearson Education, the Financial Times Group, and the Penguin Group.