Survey Shows Ecommerce Customer Service Greatly Improved In 2003

Second Annual Survey Shows Growing Consumer Comfort With Multiple Contact
Channels Including Self-Service, E-mail, Chat and Instant Messaging

SAN JOSE, Calif., Jan. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Aspect Communications
Corporation (Nasdaq: ASPT), a leading provider of enterprise customer contact
solutions, today announced the results of its annual survey of online holiday
shoppers conducted through independent firm Greenfield Online, a pioneer in
online market research. Now in its second year, the Aspect survey is designed
to gather intelligence, uncover issues and determine new trends among online
holiday shoppers with regard to their customer service experiences. This
year's survey for 2003 revealed that 40 percent of respondents found their
customer service experiences had greatly improved from that of 12 months ago.

Another 54 percent of online shoppers responded that their customer service
experiences were as good as or slightly better than their experiences the
previous year. In all, more than 90 percent of survey respondents had positive
customer service experiences shopping online this past holiday season.
In the survey for 2002, respondents beseeched online companies to improve
their overall customer service response times and to provide better agent
training in the newer contact channels, particularly e-mail. For 2003, holiday
shoppers saw a marked improvement in response times overall -- and to e-mail
inquiries in particular. Survey results confirmed that e-mail, equaling
70 percent of all inquiries, has cemented its place as the most popular
contact channel among holiday online shoppers by a wide margin. In terms of
response times, nearly 20 percent of those surveyed reported having received
responses to their customer service inquiries via e-mail in under an hour, and
53 percent received responses within the 12-hour business day.

"These results indicate many companies are listening to the concerns of
their online customers in earnest," said David Puglia, Aspect's senior vice
president of global marketing. "We sell Aspect's solutions into organizations
using customer service as a differentiator, so we saw a number of companies
re-evaluate and re-structure their customer service strategies to suit the
online shopper. When you consider that online-shopping revenue experiences
double-digit growth every year, providing the best customer service solution
isn't just about customer retention anymore, but rather, an imperative for
capturing new revenue as it moves online."

According to this year's eSpending Report, a research report issued
jointly by Goldman, Sachs & Co., Harris Interactive and Nielsen/NetRatings,
online holiday spending went up 35 percent in 2003 from 2002. The report noted
that consumers spent a record $18.5 billion in online purchases during the
2003 holiday season, compared to $13.7 billon during the 2002 season.

Better Customer Self-Service -- Improved "Live" Agent Performance

Aspect's survey also revealed that 62 percent of the respondents for 2003
found it necessary to contact customer service only one or two times, with
more than 90 percent of those contacts either being routine requests for more
information on a product or a check-in on shipping/delivery status. 99 percent
of those information requests were processed through some kind of a customer
self-service system. Respondents for 2002, however, had bemoaned the lack of
adequate online or voice self-service systems. The difference indicates that
online retailers responded to market demand with new customer self-service
functionality for the 2003 holiday season.

In summary, the survey results for 2003 strongly suggest that the online
shopping experience for the majority of respondents was more positive than in
past years with only a small percentage (less than 3 percent) reporting any
serious problems. Moreover, an average of 53.3 percent of the survey
participants also gave high marks for their conversations with "live" customer
service agents, emphasizing that the agents as a whole were polite,
professional, knowledgeable and able to process their requests with a high
degree of accuracy.

About the Survey Methodology

Omnibus is a weekly survey fielded to 1,000 members of the Greenfield
Online Internet-based marketing research panel. The panel of 1,000 respondents
is weighted by age, gender and household income to be representative of the
Internet population. The margin of error is (+) or (-) 3 percent. Questions
may be presented so as to deliver yes/no, rating scale, ranking or open-ended
responses. Aspect's survey for 2003 was fielded to 1,019 semi-qualified
consumers with 800 recipients meeting the survey criteria and completing the
survey. 219 of the initial recipients did not meet a certain area of the
survey criteria, and as a result, are not reflected in the data discussed in
this release.

About Aspect Communications

Aspect Communications Corporation is the world's largest company focused
exclusively on contact center solutions, and the only one that unifies
workforce, information and communications to deliver exceptional customer
service. The Aspect brand is trusted by more than 75 percent of the Fortune
50, and more than 3 million customer sales and service professionals worldwide
rely on Aspect's mission-critical business communications solutions. The
company's leadership is based on 19 years of expertise gained from more than
8,000 successful implementations worldwide. Aspect is headquartered in San
Jose, Calif., with 24 offices in 11 countries around the world. For more
information, visit Aspect's Web site at http://www.aspect.com or call 877-621-3692.