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Well-Known President of Alternate Access to Address Women in Banking Conference

Adrienne Lumpkin Will Discuss Ways North Carolina Banks Can Optimize Customer Service with Technology

Raleigh, NC - 4 May 2005 - When Adrienne Lumpkin talks customer service, women in business, and/or converged technologies, people listen. Package all of these topics into one presentation, and you have a program not to be missed. That's because this award-winning and highly acclaimed woman business leader has walked the talk, making a difference in the way organizations operate, communicate, and are perceived.

On Thursday, May 5 in Greensboro, Lumpkin will address a conference of the North Carolina Bankers Association for women in banking. Her topic is "Converging High Tech and High Touch: Strategic Choices in Communications Technology." In her presentation, she will discuss how banks have isolated their advances in technology from their front line customer service staff, and how by combining the two instead, there are tremendous opportunities to take advantage of to increase productivity and enhance customer service.

Lumpkin says, "Given the increasing expectations and demands of customers, the right balance of technology and human touch will be what sets banks apart and creates a competitive advantage in the area of customer service." To reach this conclusion, she conducted an informal survey of 100 women in business of which 92% own their business and 66% have employees. Responses revealed that while banking relationships may be long (50% said they have retained one bank for 15 years or more), 62% report frustrations over the frequent turnovers in their personal bankers (generally every 1 to 2 years).

In the survey, women in business overwhelmingly answered that they would like to hear from their personal bankers at least quarterly; and they want him/her to be easily accessible and responsive at a time that is convenient for them. Lumpkin will demonstrate how these desires are achievable with today's communications technology, which is powerful, convenient, intuitive, and responsive to business demands.

Adrienne Lumpkin is a graduate of the Harvard Business School where she earned an MBA with a concentration in marketing. After working 13 years for Hewlett-Packard Company and IBM in the areas of product line management, marketing communications, channel management, strategic marketing, sales training, and project management, she founded Alternate Access®, a converged communications company, in 1993 with husband Kelly. Alternate Access has received numerous awards for customer service, growth and profitability, and entrepreneurism. Lumpkin has been recognized with a Women in Business Award, a Women Extraordinaire Award, a Distinguished Alumni Award from her undergraduate alma mater, Wesleyan College, and an H. Naylor Fitzhugh Award of Relevance presented by the National Black MBA Association. She is the current president of the Greater Raleigh Chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO)

About Alternate Access®
Alternate Access empowers service businesses to dramatically boost their productivity and
customer service levels by delivering converged communications solutions. Customers include
banking, real estate, construction, staffing, florists, auto dealers and other service businesses.
Alternate Access quickly gets to the core of how your business works and combines the
convenience of your telephone with the intelligence of your computer-for bottom line results.
Converged Communications for Competitive Advantage. For more information, contact us at
www.AlternateAccess.com or call toll free at 866-831-9273. .