27th Mar 2006 07:03
Eckoh Technologies PLC27 March 2006 For Immediate Release 27 March 2006 Eckoh Technologies ECKOH TECHNOLOGIES DELIVERS FIRST IN A SERIES OF OFF-THE-SHELF SELF-SERVICE APPLICATIONS FOR BT Eckoh Technologies, one of Europe's leading automated speech solution providers,has delivered the first in a suite of off-the-shelf self-service packagedsolutions. The application suite will be marketed to business customers on amass market scale by Eckoh's strategic partner, BT Global Services. The first application in the series, 'Pay My Bill' enables BT's business clientsto offer their customers an around-the-clock automated bill payment service on ano-wait, no-queue basis. In addition to these customer service enhancements, PayMy Bill delivers significant operational efficiencies for organisations bycutting back on traditional manual transcription costs and allowing staff tofocus on more value-added customer calls. Further off-the-shelf capabilities tobe delivered by Eckoh for BT over the course of the coming months include apackaged name and address capture/fulfilment solution. "The suite of applications we're building for BT will enable clients to automatea wide range of highly repetitive processes" says Eckoh's Managing Director, JimHennigan. "Each application has a twin objective; to help companies improvecustomer service and choice, while reducing operating costs." All calls handled through Pay My Bill are hosted on Eckoh's highly flexible callprocessing platform which, able to handle up to 8,000 calls simultaneously, isscaleable to any business need. "This means businesses can access the benefitsof automation without the upfront capital investment in technology which, todate, has proved a significant barrier to entry for many organisations," saysHennigan. "It also means that the application can be installed, up and runningand delivering value within days rather than weeks or months." Contd Paul Brett of BT Global Services comments; "We have seen significant interest inthe business market for packaged automated solutions. BT and Eckoh have beenworking in partnership for 3 years now to deliver highly complex, innovative andbespoke automated solutions to leading organisations and brands across theprivate and public sector. We will now bring some of the benefits of thisextensive experience to bear with a value-added packaged proposition for themass business marketplace." -ends- For further enquiries, please contact:Eckoh Technologies plc Tel: 08701 100 700Nik Philpot, Chief Operating OfficerJim Hennigan, Managing DirectorBuchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia Notes to Editors About Eckoh Technologies: Eckoh Technologies plc designs, builds, hosts and manages speech solutions forlarge corporations and organisations using ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition) andIVR (Interactive Voice Response) technologies. It is a leading UK serviceprovider and infrastructure owner/operator, and intends to exploit theanticipated growth in demand for speech solutions across Europe. In 2003, Eckoh formed a strategic alliance with BT to capitalise on the growingopportunity for speech technology in the corporate marketplace. The combinedstrengths of both parties have created an unrivalled and value-added speechproposition and clients of the alliance include: Barclays Stockbrokers, TDWaterhouse, NIE, UGC Cinemas, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, National Rail Enquiries andThree Valleys Water. In addition to those above, Eckoh has direct contracts to supply hosted SpeechSolutions to clients including Vue Cinemas, William Hill, 02, Virgin Mobile,Ideal Shopping Direct, Tote and The London Stock Exchange. Eckoh is also a market leader in providing interactive services to large mediaowners and has amongst its clients ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster,Trinity Mirror, the largest newspaper publisher and IPC, the leading consumermagazines group. Eckoh has a call processing platform of 10,000 lines (capable of handling over650,000 calls an hour) of which over 8,000 lines incorporate speech recognitiontechnology making it the largest speech enabled call processing platform inEurope. In September 2005 Symphony Telecom Holdings plc ("Symphony"), a wholly ownedsubsidiary of Eckoh was floated separately on AIM. Eckoh now holds a 64.64%shareholding in Symphony Telecom Holdings plc. STH - under the "Symphony" and"Anglia" brands - supplies fixed line and mobile telephony products andservices, to SMEs in the UK and Ireland. In the first 6 months trading to 30 September 2005 Eckoh Technologies plcgenerated a turnover of £55 million and had a cash balance of £12.5m. Furtherinformation can be found at www.eckoh.com. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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