BASKING RIDGE, NJ--(Marketwire - November 15, 2010) - Avaya, Inc., a global leader in enterprise communications systems, software and services, today announced that it has received the AMI Small and Medium Business Social Media Marketing Award 2010 for Customer Advocacy.
AMI, an industry-leading global research and consulting firm, presented the award to Avaya's small and medium-size enterprise (SME) communications division in a November 11th ceremony in New York City. AMI uses three factors -- SMB engagement, SMB purchase influence and SMB perception -- in order to evaluate and analyze candidates and determine how effective their social media efforts are in achieving goals.
According to AMI, the Customer Advocacy category refers to the use of social media to provide value-added services and business resources to reach customers effectively. This results in increased loyalty and provides a path to achieving an improved return on investment (ROI) using social media. According to AMI's report on Social Media Marketing Best Practices1 many companies who have designed and executed SMB-focused social media initiatives state their main goal is customer advocacy.
"Social media is a key component of the Avaya SME program, helping us grow a critical mass of customers willing to act as advocates on Avaya's behalf, share best practices and provide feedback," said Isabelle Guis, senior director, product management & marketing, SME Communications. "This enables us to use borderless avenues with a global reach to forge deeper connections with SME owners and partners, while enabling us to showcase innovative SME solutions."
"Avaya has been one of the most responsive vendors in the SME market, when it comes to delivering on social media commentary," said Donald Best, executive vice president, WW Bus Dev and Client Services. "Whether it's a blog, or a Tweet or a Facebook status, Avaya's SME division has made it a priority to address questions or issues immediately. In terms of customer advocacy and in influencing brand opinions, Avaya is leading the way."
More than one hundred companies were in consideration for AMI's 2010 Social Media awards, with ten receiving final award recognition.
Avaya is the worldwide leader in the SME space, with leadership in both revenue and line share.2 It's SME Communications division offers a broad range of collaboration and customer service products, with the Avaya IP Office solution as its centerpiece. This solution offers SMEs a simple and cost-effective way to bring the advanced Internet protocol (IP)-based communications of big business to small organizations.
Adds Paul Dunay, global managing director of Avaya services and social marketing: "There is no Tweet or Facebook post that goes unseen where our company name is mentioned. This is a core element of our social media strategy which includes providing social customer support across all forms of social media using our own listening solution which integrates with the contact center."
Avaya's specialized focus on SME social media efforts includes an interconnected strategy driving customer advocacy through Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, forums and blogs. On a broader level, the company has a social media virtual team that monitors approximately several thousand mentions of Avaya every week. In many cases, Avaya is able to proactively use social media to intercept various issues before customers even log a formal request.
For information on the AMI SMB Social Media Marketing Awards for 2010 visit here.
1 AMI Report: Social Media Marketing Best Practices 2010, by Jacqueline Atkinson and Rashmi Sundar
2 Based on a report by Dell'Oro Group, Enterprise Telephony Report, 2Q10, August, 2010.
About Avaya
Avaya is a global leader in enterprise communications systems. The company provides unified communications, contact centers, data solutions and related services directly and through its channel partners to leading businesses and organizations around the world. Enterprises of all sizes depend on Avaya for state-of-the-art communications that improve efficiency, collaboration, customer service and competitiveness. For more information please visit www.avaya.com.
Certain statements contained in this press release are forward-looking statements. These statements may be identified by the use of forward-looking terminology such as "anticipate," "believe," "continue," "could," "estimate," "expect," "intend," "may," "might," "plan," "potential," "predict," "should" or "will" or other similar terminology. We have based these forward-looking statements on our current expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections. While we believe these expectations, assumptions, estimates and projections are reasonable, such forward looking statements are only predictions and involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, many of which are beyond our control. These and other important factors may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to differ materially from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Some of the key factors that could cause actual results to differ from our expectations include: our ability to develop and sell advanced communications products and services, including unified communications, contact center and data solutions; our ability to develop our indirect sales channel; economic conditions and the willingness of enterprises to make capital investments; the market for advanced communications products and services, including unified communications solutions; our ability to remain competitive in the markets we serve; our ability to manage our supply chain and logistics functions; the ability to protect our intellectual property and avoid claims of infringement; our ability to effectively integrate acquired businesses into ours; our ability to maintain adequate security over our information systems; environmental, health and safety laws, regulations, costs and other liabilities; the ability to retain and attract key employees; risks relating to the transaction of business internationally; pension and post-retirement healthcare and life insurance liabilities; and liquidity and our access to capital markets. We caution you that the foregoing list of important factors may not contain all of the material factors that are important to you. For a further list and description of such risks and uncertainties, please refer to Avaya's filings with the SEC that are available at www.sec.gov. Avaya disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.
Contact Information:
Avaya Media Contact:
Jonathan Varman
P: 908 953 6432
jvarman@avaya.com