Our Company: Fuze Digital Solutions is an employee-owned and profitable company based in Seattle, Washington, focused on providing comprehensive, affordable and easy to use customer care software. We are a tight-knit team that has control over our company, and we keep our overhead low so that we can provide you with the best value possible.

Our Product: Our software is called the Fuze Suite, and it helps companies like yours provide better customer service across all your support channels -- in-person, phone and the Web. The Fuze Suite also captures the rich consumer insights exposed during the support process that most companies only benefit from when a sale is made, which represents only a fraction of consumers' potential overall value to your organization. The Fuze Suite lets you know more about your consumers (members, customers and partners) so that you can provide more personalized service and create targeted offers that resonate with them. The Fuze Suite also provides your staff with a valuable resource to capture and reuse important knowledge for supporting consumers and running your operations.

Who uses the Fuze Suite? Although the Fuze Suite is a valuable solution for companies in any industry, the Fuze team has extensive experience in financial services and has developed several features and best practices in conjunction with our credit union customers that are especially effective in addressing the needs of consumers doing business with their credit union, bank or thrift. Common to all our customers is a drive to differentiate their business by consistently providing outstanding customer service -- customer service that does not vary grossly between staff nor lack consistency across support channels.

How are we different? We offer a unique blending of features and have created an offering that directly addresses the support needs of consumers. We offer an enterprise-grade application that is proven to be stable and effective in many industries, for a lot less money than comparable offerings. We do not add superfluous product features; instead we let our customers drive out the product features that are most important to them and their end-users. We are focused to retain our offerings ease of use as we continue to grow its features.

We are big enough to offer and aggressively evolve a mission-critical application, yet small enough to provide the personalized and attentive customer service that our customers expect and deserve. We are primarily owned by our staff and we do not lose focus catering to the short-term goals of investors. We consider ourselves to be a partner with all of our customers, understand that we have an impact on their brand and reputation and we work hard to earn the loyalty of our customers EVERY day.

Customer testimonials:  Just ask any of our customers what it's like working with Fuze.

"We have been nothing less than thrilled with our partnership with Fuze! The Fuze Suite is significantly easier to administer and we have found the support provided by Fuze to be head-and-shoulders above anything we previously received. Fuze is a flexible and focused partner that I would highly recommend to anyone!" -- Eric Grapner, Customer Service Mgr., CareerBuilder.com (Previously a RightNow customer before converting to Fuze)

"The system has been excellent! The setup and integration was a breeze (especially compared to RightNow). But the biggest 'wins' for AAA Arizona are for our support staff and for the customers. The staff is seeing fewer incidents because customers are doing more 'self help.' Our incident response time is improving rapidly and already better than it was with RightNow. For ½ the price we lost none of the functionality we had with RightNow and gained a system that is much easier to use." -- Cliff Clark, AAA Arizona

"Previously a Kana user, we have reduced our live customer service requirements by 94% and reduced our response service levels from 72 hours to 24 hours since converting to the Fuze Suite. We are now able to focus on our work without needing to constantly service our 500,000 monthly site visitors. All feedback from staff and consumers has been extremely positive regarding Fuze's ease of use and breadth of features. Fuze’s staff provides outstanding support, and we consider Fuze to be an important partner of Techies. ” -- Ben Johnson, Techies.com, Inc.

"The Fuze Team has been very responsive to our needs and are available when we need them. (I wish I could say that about all our vendors.) I have found that all their employees are knowledgeable and understand the CU industry and member needs. They really do seem to 'get it.' They also regularly suggest items and tips to help make the product better and to increase usage. (Rather than make the sale and you never hear from them again.) Overall they have been terrific to work with and we really do consider them a partner in our success." -- Scott Prior, All City Credit Union

What does it take to use the Fuze Suite? We developed the Fuze Suite from the ground up using Web technologies so that only a Web connection and a browser are required to access all of its functionality. The software runs using multi-tier technologies from Microsoft and can be run on your servers or ours in a "hosted" model. The importance of the multi-tier technologies used is that our application can scale to support any transaction volume by adding hardware, which has been successfully validated by the intense and fluctuating volumes of our larger customers such as CareerBuilder.com.

Using our hosted model, we can provide you with a custom instance of the Fuze Suite that seamlessly integrates with your Web site and brand in days. Integration just involves adding links to your site and does not require additional hardware, software or support from your busy and expensive technology support staff. The time it takes for you to extend the Fuze Suite to consumers and staff is dependent on the scope of your implementation -- the time taken by customers to launch the Fuze Suite has ranged from a couple days to a few months.

How is the Fuze Suite's functionality packaged? The Fuze Suite is a broad offering, including several complimentary and fully integrated modules that can be turned on with the flip of a switch. This allows you to extend and utilize features when they make sense for your organization, without incurring the expense, disruption and risk of integrating multiple solutions from different vendors. What's more, since our pricing is based on the number of support staff using the Fuze Suite (financial institutions also have a pricing option based on asset size), our enterprise-grade application is affordable for organizations of all sizes. Although our offering is robust, it is has been carefully designed to be easy to use for even the most novice computer user. The Fuze Suite has effectively been used by consumers and staff of all ages and skill levels without training and training of support staff is comfortably done within a couple hours. Click here for a breakdown of the available Fuze Suite modules.

What does the Fuze Suite do? Reviewing the link directly above, which provides a description of the Fuze Suite's modules, is a good way to delve into the specifics of what the Fuze Suite offers. Below we have provided just a sampling of what the Fuze Suite does in general terms:

• Provides central access to disparate information:  Core to the Fuze Suite is a knowledge base. Think of the Fuze knowledge base as a central place where information you need to support your consumers and staff is digitally captured in a computer and can be quickly and easily searched using our powerful search engine. The information may be questions and answers or articles and contain links to external documents anywhere on the Web or on your network, including Web pages, Word documents, spreadsheets, print files (PDFs), etc. Benefits: Consumers will only spend a few minutes looking for specific answers to their questions and Web site navigation and general Web site search tools do not get consumers quickly to answers. Staff have similar problems finding information when it is spread across different locations on their network. The Fuze Suite's centralized knowledge base enables consumers and staff to go to one place to quickly find desired information. What's more: By digitally capturing information that is important to your organization, you make it readily accessible, reduce training costs and mitigate the inevitable impact caused by changes in staffing.

• Selectively defines who can see what:  Our knowledge base allows you to put all your information in one place and selectively define who can see what. No need to manage multiple knowledge bases for different user groups. You may have some product and service information you want everyone to see, financial data you only want viewable by management and your board or procedure and policy information only relevant to staff in a particular department. It's up to you who can see what in your Fuze knowledge base, and its easy to set up and administer. Benefit: It's easier to administer and find information if it is all in one place for all potential users.

• Helps consumers make informed financial decisions:  As part of our product evolution for financial institutions, we have developed content maintained by Fuze, providing personal finance information in understandable terms that includes calculators and is cross-linked to relevant products and services and to other relevant information within the knowledge base and found on Web sites maintained by non-competing organizations, such as non-profits and government entities. This content, called "knowledge packs", is updated by Fuze and pushed into customer knowledge bases periodically. Benefit: Consumers like to be in control and make informed decisions, and the Fuze knowledge packs help members and customers do just that when working with their financial institution. However, instead of merely placing links to the sites of other content providers -- which does nothing to improve the perceptions of your brand -- Fuze knowledge packs integrate seamlessly with your Web site and reside side-by-side with your content and relevant products and services. Using the Fuze Suite search engine, your consumers now have access to all relevant information.  What's more, all usage is tracked and leveraged and consumers can use our knowledge base alerts to be automatically notified when specific information they care about is added or changed, continually drawing them back to your Web site and eCommerce engine. 

• Proactively keeps consumers & staff up to date: Consumers and staff can request to be automatically informed with no more than a single email per day when specific information they care about is added or changed in your knowledge base. This feature is called knowledge base (KB) alerts and allows anyone you give access to set alerts for individual items in your knowledge base or groups (or categories) of like items. Benefit: This powerful and unique feature to Fuze continually draws individuals back to your Web site or intranet and allows consumers and staff to be very selective on when they get alerts, addressing the common problem today of information overload. Some of our competition allows users to be notified when individual items in the knowledge base are updated, but only Fuze allows users to be notified when information is added or changed in categories of information, which is generally far more useful. This enables consumers to do things like requesting to be notified when new information is available about retirement planning and staff to be notified when updates to procedures relevant to their job responsibilities are posted.

• Facilitates 2-way secure communications with you: When consumers and staff cannot find what they are looking for in your knowledge base, they can securely ask a question using a secure form AND securely get a response -- providing 2-way secure communications without using messy email encryption that requires the consumer download software on their computer. What's more, all interactions are saved and available to the user for online viewing. Benefit: For consumers to accept your Web site as a viable alternative to your other support options, they must have fast and easy access to information to attempt to help themselves, and they must be provided with a managed and secure option for getting assistance from you online when required. Fuze gives you that.

• Manages assisted support from all channels:  Incoming inquiries from consumers or staff originating via email, Web form, phone and in-person can be captured in the Fuze Suite and are automatically routed to staff that are available and have the best skills to respond to the inquiry. Everything is managed and collaboration between staff is facilitated to ensure that accurate answers are provided within service expectations by all staff and through all support channels. Regardless of the number of staff and support channels involved (phone, in-person and Web) to resolve an inquiry, everything is captured in a single record, reducing the common and frustrating need for redundant conversations. Benefit: Fast, accurate and consistent answers across all your support channels.

• Offers secure Chat option:  For those situations when consumers or staff need immediate attention, and communicating through email or an online form will not do, you can extend our Chat module. Like all our modules, you can extend and pay for our fully integrated Chat module when it makes sense for your organization. Benefit: Many consumer inquiries can be effectively dealt with via email. Others, like a consumer trying to complete an application or check out, sometimes require immediate online attention or risk the consumer abandoning the transaction. Chat provides consumers with that real-time option.

• Captures and disseminates important feedback:  Consumers and staff can provide direct feedback online and staff can quickly and easily capture feedback provided during conversations in-person or over the phone. This feedback can then be automatically sent to relevant management immediately and is included in online reporting, ensuring that your organization proactively keeps abreast of how you are doing before it is too late to nip product, service or operational issues in the bud. Benefit: It is critical for all companies to keep a pulse on what their customers think of their products and services. Effective methods to ensure that consumer feedback will get from front-line staff and online systems to people that can do something is critical.

• Makes it easy to create rich content in the knowledge base:  Simple formatting tools are provided to enable non-technical staff to easily create and recommend information be posted in your knowledge base. Depending on the nature of the information and users viewing the information, you may opt to have a single or multiple staff review and edit the information prior to being accessible by its intended users. Benefit: Your consumer-facing staff know what information is important to your consumers and how it needs to be communicated to be understood. Putting simple tools in the hands of these staff enables your knowledge base and Web site and intranet content to naturally grow with pertinent information as questions are answered that are not already in your knowledge base. The controls on how information is published ensures that the information is appropriate and written according to standards applicable to the type of data and users that can view the information.

• Lets consumers opt in to be notified of important events and activities on their particular accounts:  Our e-alerts module allows your organization to extend a single Web page to consumers to request to be automatically notified about general items such as product specials or new arrivals along with account-specific notifications involving balances dipping below a threshold or CDs maturing. Benefit: Consumers are busy and e-Alerts and KB alerts make it easy for consumers to stay informed on things they care about and continually draws them back to your Web site.

• Records and leverages valuable consumer activity:  Everything that happens in the Fuze Suite is captured at a detailed level using our Support Usage Analytics module. This tracking automatically happens for all activity occurring when consumers use the Fuze Suite online and includes anything that you have opted to manually capture from your phone and in-person support, such as feedback, service lapses and sales indicators; "sales indicators" include inquiries made by consumers that indicate a propensity to use a product or service, like asking about rates or pricing and product particulars. Our new API to 3rd Party support applications (such as Symitar) included in our 5.0 release due in April of 2005 makes this a snap. Benefit: The rich consumer information captured by the Fuze Suite provides valuable insights enabling more personalized support, and for creating focused contact lists used in targeted marketing campaigns.

We hope that you have found this to be informative and that we have peeked your interest to learn more about Fuze and the Fuze Suite.

Click here to see Fuze in action on some of our customer sites. 

Click here to contact us for additional information or assistance.