CORRECTING and REPLACING Sage North America Boosts Loyalty with Customer Community from Lithium Technologies

EMERYVILLE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Please replace the release with the following corrected version due to multiple revisions.

“We are proud to support companies, like Sage, who understand the value of openly engaging with customers online”

The corrected release reads:

SAGE NORTH AMERICA BOOSTS LOYALTY WITH CUSTOMER COMMUNITY FROM LITHIUM TECHNOLOGIES

ACT! Online Community Becomes Key Customer Engagement Tool and a Top Marketing Asset

Lithium Technologies, the leading provider of on-demand customer community solutions for the enterprise, today announced that Sage North America, part of The Sage Group plc, has realized customer loyalty and product support benefits by connecting and engaging with customers using its ACT! online community (http://community.act.com). ACT! by Sage is the number one selling contact and customer management software used by 2.8 million registered users and over 43,000 additional corporate customer sites.

In the 12 months since its launch, the ACT! community has had over 8.9 million page views and 266,000 searches, far surpassing Sage’s expectations. The community has also served as a catalyst for product beta testing, increasing participation by over 300% in some cases, and has aided a 15-point increase in the ACT! brand’s customer loyalty score as measured by the Satmetrix Net Promoter score.

Sage North America provides software and services to small and mid-sized businesses that cover a full range of business requirements including accounting, customer relationship management and contact management, among many others. In 2007, the ACT! management team was seeking to connect customers directly with Sage executives to create a more dynamic view and dialogue about issues most important to customers. Sage recognized a need to find a strategic vehicle to achieve these objectives and selected Lithium Technologies not only for its industry-leading community platform, but for its expertise in community management, moderation, and reporting.

“The ACT! community has significantly furthered our goal of enhancing the overall customer experience, and Sage continues to develop innovative customer programs for its products through online communities,” said Sam Hunter, senior vice president and general manager for the ACT! business at Sage North America. “With Lithium’s expertise and analysis, we can clearly identify content that resonates well within a community so we can optimize our customer engagement and support efforts.”

In addition to the ACT! community, Sage also uses the Lithium platform for other product communities including Peachtree by Sage, Sage MAS ERP, Sage BusinessVision, Timeslips by Sage, and more. Links to all Sage online communities can be found at http://community.sagesoftware.com.

Delivered via Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Lithium provides on-demand reporting of community activity statistics, analysis, as well as links to interesting posts. Sage management utilizes Lithium’s reporting abilities to better identify the role a customer community will play when the company launches a new initiative.

“We are proud to support companies, like Sage, who understand the value of openly engaging with customers online,” said Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium Technologies. “We believe that by working alongside a company to identify goals, generate customer participation, and utilize data and analysis to effectively market to the community, we can ensure that our customers are successful.”

About Lithium Technologies

Lithium is the leading provider of customer-centric social networking solutions for the enterprise. Working with market leaders such as Best Buy, Sony, AT&T, Research In Motion Limited (RIM), Univision, and PayPal, Lithium delivers online customer communities that work. Lithium solutions inspire customers to share knowledge, connect with each other, and connect with the enterprise, thus providing a unique method for companies to identify, engage, and understand customers. As a result, businesses measurably improve their marketing and sales, accelerate innovation, and increase customer satisfaction. Lithium's platform is proven in high-volume, growth environments and provides the security, analytics, APIs, and multi-language support that enterprises demand. Founded in 2001, Lithium is privately held with headquarters in Emeryville, California. For more information, visit www.lithium.com.