BUYSEASONS, Inc, a wholly owned subsidiary of Liberty Media Corporation (LINTA), is the world's largest online-only retailer of costumes, party supplies and Halloween decorations. To market for the Halloween season, the company mails millions of catalogs and maintains the leading online presence through BUYCOSTUMES.COM and its CELEBRATE EXPRESS family of web sites. In addition, it added 250 seasonal agents to the 90 year round agents to address its share of the $5 Billion a year Halloween industry.

"We've experienced tremendous growth in the last several years," said BUYSEASONS Vice President of Operations Terry Rowinski. "It's unusual for most call centers to go from 90 to 300 agents in a few days, so we require technology that is flexible and easy to manage. AltiGen's software based solution allows us to staff up and down to meet changes in seasonal demand, as well as adapt to the many changes that may take place in a single day."

Earlier this summer, BUYSEASONS deployed an AltiGen "softswitch" and call center suite. The company implemented digital lines from the phone carrier to allow up to 368 concurrent calls to the AltiGen system. In just a few months, the call center answered hundreds of thousands of calls.

"The AltiGen system allows us to intelligently route based on the type of call," said IT Operations Manager Tony Ellis. "By connecting a customer to the agent best qualified to address their questions, we maintain a very high level of efficiency and customer satisfaction. In many cases we are able to receive a call, process the order and have it available for shipping in less than one hour. AltiGen is a critical component in the chain of events required for us to ship hundreds of thousands of costume orders a season."

BUYSEASONS selected AltiGen based on the following:

--  The ability to process and intelligently route thousands of calls per
    day
--  AltiGen's software based design which provides rapid scaling and real
    time changes
--  Intuitive applications that put control in the hands of call center
    supervisors
--  AltiGen's integrated software suite provides great value vs. cost
    

"The BUYSEASONS team have been excellent to work with, and the facility is quite remarkable in person," said AltiGen Vice President of Sales Mike Plumer.