Bells are ringing for west suburban technology firm
July 20, 2005

http://www.suntimes.com/output/zinescene/cst-fin-ecol20.html

BY SANDRA GUY SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

Chicago might be among the top 10 cities for embracing high technology, but its low profile as a high-tech magnet left one local company scrambling for a leader.

Apropos Technology, an Oakbrook Terrace-based company that makes software to manage data, phone calls and Internet communications in help desks and call centers, lost its interim CEO after seven months because he wanted to stay in his home state of California. "There are more high-tech CEOs in Boston, Silicon Valley, San Francisco and in Texas. Here, you can count the number on two hands," said John Cray, Apropos' vice president of products.

Apropos hired a consulting company on June 28, shortly after the last CEO left. The consulting company is providing an interim CEO while Apropos looks for a leader with specific credentials. Apropos' expertise is the inner workings of call centers, where an increasing number of desk-bound workers in low-wage countries answer toll-free calls from people seeking customer service.

The company sells its patented technology to companies that operate call centers or who hire others to handle their customer-service calls. About 20 percent of Apropos' clients operate part of their centers overseas to cut costs.

Apropos is focused on relieving the frustration people feel when they dial a customer-help number, wait on hold, repeat a complaint they've made before, get poor service and get passed on to someone else to explain the problem again.

The company's co-founders, Patrick Brady and William "Bud" Bach, started by developing a technology that let callers respond to questions by punching phone numbers, so their calls could be routed to a worker familiar with their problem.

The co-founders also developed a system that popped up information about the caller on a call-center worker's computer screen so the caller didn't have to repeat the same information over and over.

The technology has been upgraded to handle e-mail and instant messaging.

Apropos' latest innovation is a universal queue that acts much like a teller line at the bank. It sets up virtual tellers who handle any form of communication so the line keeps moving. The technology enables a single call center to take calls, e-mails or other communications from customers of several businesses at once.

The technology lets the call-center worker "see" who is calling, so he can answer the phone as if he were an employee rather than an outsourced agent.

Ace Hardware Co., the Oak Brook-based hardware cooperative, uses Apropos' technology to give help-desk callers the option of hanging up and getting an automatic callback as soon as an agent is free.

Apropos' 350 clients also include the United Nations Federal Credit Union, Honeywell Access Systems and the Veritas data-protection software company.

Though Apropos competes against a host of other publicly traded companies such as Cisco, Nortel and Avaya, as well as smaller players, it has landed on the "Fast 50" list of hot-growth companies for four years and recorded $20.6 million in revenues last year.

Apropos employs 100, of whom about 65 work at the suburban headquarters.

Apropos counts on its independent technology to keep sales growing. The company is the oldest independent call-center supplier, so its technology works with any kind of call-routing switch.

"We play well with businesses that use different systems in different departments, because we create a virtual environment that looks like one system," Cray said.

The next stage will revolve around voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), or Internet telephone calling.

"So far, VoIP is about reducing costs, not improving service," Cray said. But in the long run, blending voice with the Internet will bring about a richer information environment, he said.

At the least, a caller on seemingly interminable hold can look at his past complaints and get answers and help on the computer screen, rather than listen to elevator music.

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