CT EXPO 2000 BOOTH # 437

Contact Information:
Mariana Haven 
Hammer Technologies
888-888-0001 
mhaven@ham.com 

March 6, 2000 - Wilmington, Mass. - Hammer Technologies today announced a new Acceptance Testing Service that helps call center operations and telecommunications managers significantly reduce the risk of failure when deploying new or modified ACD/PBX, CTI and IVR systems and applications. Unlike manual acceptance testing processes, which frequently fail to find hidden problems because of low call volumes, Hammer's automated Acceptance Testing Service makes it possible for call center operations and telecommunications managers to rigorously test new systems and applications with thousands of calls as a final step before going "live." Call centers using Hammer's Acceptance Testing Service get fast test turnaround, documented test results, and can quickly and easily verify that new telecommunications systems and applications have been properly configured and engineered - reducing the risk of call center deployments.

"Many call center operations managers cross their fingers every time they go "live" with a new system or application," said Brian Miller, General Manager of Hammer's Call Center Business Group. "That's because so many call center installations, that have passed manual acceptance tests, fail when they go "live." Hammer's automated testing helps call centers find the hidden problems and can take the risk out of new installations."

In contrast to manual testing, which usually depends on a small number of volunteers repeatedly dialing into systems trying to find problems, Hammer's new automated service is able to place thousands of test calls remotely, via the public telephone network, into new systems and applications in the target call center. Just like actual callers, Hammer'' service, using prompt recognition, is able to step through complete call flows, end-to-end, all the way to an agent desktop, if desired. Throughout each call, the automated Hammer test systems take precise performance measurements and can even determine if the right prompts are playing. If any problems are found, the test system logs where in the call flow the problems occurred and can also alert a technical resource for corrective action. In addition to being able to generate large call volumes, a key advantage of the service over manual testing is increased test repeatability and improved test accuracy. 

Hammer's Acceptance Testing Service can be used to verify call center capacities, proper system configuration, correct call routing, trunk availability, and CTI screen pop success. Call handling errors and bottlenecks can be quickly identified along with timing problems in CTI controllers and backend databases.

Hammer's Call Center Acceptance Testing Service is priced starting at $440 per hour plus test development time. Testing capacity and customized tests are available to meet almost any requirement. 

About Hammer Technologies

Based in Wilmington, Mass., Hammer Technologies, a Teradyne Company was founded in 1991. Hammer Technologies provides the Hammer family of voice and data testing products. 

Hammers are in use today by developers of computer telephony, advanced switching, and enhanced services systems, most of the regional Bell Operating companies and long-distance carriers, and at call centers of numerous Fortune 100 companies. Hammer is the only system that provides a complete solution for load, feature, regression, and in-service testing of integrated telecommunications systems and services. The Hammer's test capabilities include voice, data, T1, E1, ISDN, WWW, TCP/IP, SS7, LAN/WAN, Speech Recognition and other related technologies. 

Additional Information on Hammer: Please visit our website at www.ham.com