Verio Receives National Customer Service Award; Verio Network Services Receives ``Customer Service Team of the Year'' Recognition by Sales & Marketing Management Magazine

ENGLEWOOD, Colo.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 20, 2004--Verio, a subsidiary of NTT Communications and a leader in global IP solutions, today announced it was recognized by Sales & Marketing Management with the National Sales & Marketing Award for "Customer Service Team of the Year" for designing and implementing an exemplary customer service strategy. During the 12-month period on which Verio Network Services was judged, the team showed improvements over specified goals resulting in higher customer satisfaction levels and faster, more accurate service and resolution for customers. These goals involved areas including average speed of answer, mean time to resolve, call handle time, and quality assurance monitoring. The award also recognizes Verio's innovation in training and retention initiatives.

The Sales & Marketing Management National Sales & Marketing Awards were established to recognize the best in the sales and marketing profession, showcasing the highest level of achievement. Winning the Customer Service Team of the Year award reiterates Verio's high standards of management, training and commitment to excellence in the delivery of NTT/VERIO services and solutions to its customers.

"The pool of submissions for this year's National Sales & Marketing Awards was competitive, and the winners of the 2003 awards truly stood out in terms of their creativity and innovation in tackling challenges head on," said Melinda Ligos, editor-in-chief, Sales & Marketing Management.

"Verio has made customer care a priority in its business, and the Network Services team works consistently to maintain high levels of customer satisfaction through increased responsiveness and attentiveness to customers," said James Treuting, acting president for Network Services at Verio. "We're honored to be recognized with this award, which we consider a testament to our commitment to deliver an enhanced customer experience, and validation of the investments we've made to accomplish this. We continue to strive for even greater service excellence as well."

As a Verio customer, the International Center of Photography (ICP) confirmed the importance of outstanding customer service to its organization. "With our considerable network requirements, ICP has a strong need for dependable support from its service provider. Verio's customer service has proven to be consistently proactive; they have solved problems within an hour that would have taken the local telco a day to just respond," said Edward Earle, curator of Digital Media for ICP. "Verio's service has helped to ensure our longstanding relationship as a customer for both network services and web hosting."

Verio was chosen from a pool of nominees, which was reviewed by a panel of judges including Ligos; Andy Cohen, editorial director, Sales & Marketing Management; and Eric Gist, partner, Customer Relationship Management service line, Accenture. Nominees were judged based on six main criteria, including initiative, goals, innovation, collaboration, customer experience and results of the customer care campaign or program. The recipients of the 2003 National Sales & Marketing Awards are featured in the February 2004 issue of Sales & Marketing Management magazine.

Sales & Marketing Management magazine -The award-winning business magazine mission that serves the needs of top executives who have a direct responsibility for all aspects of sales, marketing, and management within their companies. The recipient of numerous awards for excellence in journalism and design, the magazine's mission is to provide key strategies to help executives sell more, market smarter, manage better. www.salesandmarketing.com

Verio Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of NTT Communications (NTT Com), which provides long distance and international telecommunications reaching over 200 countries worldwide. Verio is one of the world's largest operators of Web sites for businesses and a leading provider of global IP solutions. NTT Com and Verio market their global IP solutions under the NTT/VERIO brand. The company offers businesses a broad range of Internet services, including Web hosting, dedicated access, virtual private networks, and managed service offerings, among other enhanced services. Verio supports its operations with highly reliable and scalable global infrastructure and systems including the NTT/VERIO Global IP Network, and provides Web hosting services to customers in more than 146 countries. The combination of Verio and NTT Com offers services to meet the growing and diverse needs of all businesses, including small to medium businesses, large global enterprises and multi-national corporations. More information can be found at www.verio.com and www.ntt.com/index-e.html.