DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 1, 1999--

New Software Helps Companies Improve Customer Retention, Increase

     Revenues and Reduce Costs by Executing 1-to-1 Marketing Via
             Transaction Documents and Internet Messaging

     The Production Mail and Document Factory Solutions Division of

Pitney Bowes Inc. (NYSE:PBI) and privately-held Exstream Software

Corporation today announced a reseller agreement which will enable high-volume mailers to easily implement a new customer relations software capability and dramatically boost the effectiveness of their regular monthly mailings to customers.

In conjunction with Pitney Bowes technology, the new customer relationship software from Exstream permits high-volume mailers to design and manage sophisticated one-to-one marketing campaigns using existing processing equipment and regular monthly mailings as well as Internet messaging to help improve customer retention, increase revenues, and reduce the cost and complexity of customer communications.

"Creating strong personal relationships with customers is a top priority for any organization," says Steve Whitman, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Exstream Corporation, "but it requires an ongoing dialogue with highly-tailored message content. Prior to Exstream, organizations did not have a comprehensive solution to track these messages at the client level and were limited to costly, and largely ineffective, mass marketing campaigns that sent the same message to everyone. Those campaigns were created and implemented separate from an organization's regular monthly mail, which includes account statements, bills, renewal notices and other transaction-related communications."

The Monthly Statement--Now a Marketing Tool

Exstream's customer relationship solution changes all that because it provides tools which document production professionals can use to easily create and target campaigns that are automatically merged into existing mailings without any disruption to the statement application, the production process or the print/mail finishing environment.

"Our technology relationship with Exstream is a giant step forward for corporations who want to unlock the strategic marketing value of the transaction document," says Kurt Konow, Pitney Bowes Senior Product Manager. "Many organizations try to use the inherent value of transaction-related mailings," continues Konow, "but are limited by a production process with tight time frames, cumbersome legacy technology, and restrictive audit and control procedures."

And while a growing number of high-volume mailers use the excess carrying capacity of the monthly statement to include selective inserts--which are enclosed according to criteria such as gender or ZIP code, or variable documents or portions of documents, which are created according to factors such as the size of the account balance--these efforts are rarely tailored to the needs of individual recipients.

"The Pitney Bowes one-to-one marketing solution will allow corporations to optimize the value of their hard copy transaction documents as well as electronic communications for those companies seeking to provide one-to-one messages via the Internet," concludes Konow.

Separate Production, Merged Delivery

The Pitney Bowes solution utilizing Exstream's technology is far more effective because it separates the process of building the account statement from the process of building the customer relationship campaign, and provides tools to easily integrate the two immediately prior to production. The result? Highly-tailored campaigns integrated seamlessly into existing statement applications.

Exstream enables high-volume mailers to go well beyond existing capabilities to create, manufacture, manage, track and analyze marketing programs using existing transaction-based documents and mailings on virtually a one-to-one basis. The new software includes easy-to-use tools to develop, target, track and manage highly-personalized, one-to-one campaigns which can be distributed either with or within one or more mailings; designate the locations and layout of marketing materials within the transaction document application; automatically merge the campaigns into the existing transaction document applications; aid control of print/mail finishing operations to assure that the completed documents are efficiently processed in both high-volume paper-based and digital delivery environments.

Sophisticated Campaign Management

"Exstream's customer relationship software enables high-volume mailers to transform routine monthly account statements into carefully-tailored, one-to-one marketing vehicles via tools that can create and target campaigns, design and personalize messages, and track and analyze the results of those campaigns," says Whitman. "Organizations will find the new Exstream modules easy to learn and implement quickly. Personalized communications that are built using a `knowledge base' of tracked previous dialogue will have a tremendous and positive impact on the relationship an organization has with its customers."

Pitney Bowes Production Mail and Document Factory Solutions is "an excellent partner to help introduce the advantages of Exstream," adds Whitman, "because of its long and successful relationships with high-volume mailers and its proven ability to implement innovative advances in technology."

The Exstream customer relationship software is being offered as part of pb.commander, the industry's most comprehensive suite of products, services and financing options aimed at helping high-volume mailers design and implement automated document factories. pb.commander includes advanced technology from selected partners.

Pitney Bowes is a $4.2 billion provider of informed mail and message management. For more information visit www.pitneybowes.com.

Exstream is a privately-held software company. The solution was developed to help clients in customer-intensive industries build and manage customer oriented document and communication processes. For more information visit www.exstream.com.