15th Feb 2006 08:00
Eckoh Technologies PLC15 February 2006 For Immediate Release 15 February 2006 IRISH EYES ARE SMILING - WILLIAM HILL LAUNCH IRELAND'S LOWEST PRICED HORSE RACING COMMENTARY AND RESULTS SERVICE Eckoh Technologies, one of Europe's leading speech application serviceproviders, has announced a new deal to provide William Hill with an automatedhorse racing commentary and results service for the Irish market. The newservice will allow punters in the Republic of Ireland to access up-to-the-minutelive Irish and UK horse racing commentary and results. The automated commentary service (tel: 1530 787 666) costs just 33c per minutefrom an Irish landline, making it by far the lowest priced live horse racingcommentary and results service available in the Republic*. Not only does theservice deliver fast-paced, real-time commentary and results from over 27leading Irish race courses, 59 UK tracks and a host of greyhound meetings, italso provides for the transfer of high priority calls for punters wishing toplace a bet. William Hill's decision to develop a dedicated commentary/results service forthe Irish market follows on from the phenomenal success of the UK commentary/results service (08712 444 666), which has handled millions of calls across theUK and Ireland, since it was first launched in 2002. All calls from the UK and Irish automated services are hosted on Eckoh's highlyscaleable platform, which is capable of handling an overwhelming 650,000 callsper hour and 8,000 calls concurrently. The scalability of Eckoh's platform is ofcrucial importance to William Hill during busy racing periods, allowing agentsto focus on value-add calls whilst enabling punters to connect straight throughto live racing commentary without delay. Mike Grenham Head of Sports Information at William Hill, said:"William Hill's 5 year sponsorship of "The Galway Plate" and the launch of adedicated Irish horse commentary service, is further endorsement of ourcommitment to providing Irish customers with a 1st class betting service,powered by the latest voice technologies, at the lowest possible price. Eckoh Technologies have once again pulled out all the stops to make the newIrish commentary service a tremendous success. We look forward to working withEckoh to match the tremendous performance and operational achievement beingenjoyed by our automated commentary service in the UK". Jim Hennigan - Managing Director - Eckoh Technologies added:"Through our partnership approach with William Hill, we are committed todeveloping practical solutions that deliver measurable business and customerservice results. We're delighted to be given the opportunity to extend ourself-service offering into the Irish market and look forward to - what's sure tobe - another winning result for William Hill's leading automated commentaryservices". * Calls cost 33c per minute incl VAT from an Irish landline. Call rates frommobiles may vary. Only available in the Republic of Ireland. ENDS For further information about Eckoh Technologies Tel: 08701 100 700Martin Turner, Chief Executive OfficerNik Philpot, Chief Operating OfficerBuchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia For further information on William Hill's Irish Commentary Service Tel: + 353 879 222 056Tony Kenny E: [email protected] 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. Since 2003, bothparties have combined their core competencies to create an unparalleled customerservice offering in the provision of hosted speech solutions. The relationship with BT empowers Eckoh to leverage BT's World class IntelligentNetwork capability, their CRM expertise and their broader telephony serviceoffering whilst BT benefits from Eckoh's leading market expertise and technicalskill-set in the design and application of hosted speech solutions.The combined strengths of both parties have created an unrivalled andvalue-added speech proposition and clients of the alliance include: BarclaysStockbrokers, TD Waterhouse, NIE, UGC Cinemas, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, NationalRail Enquiries and Three 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 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. Eckoh also operates the following businesses: •IVR - Eckoh is one of the largest providers of managed IVR and SMS services in the UK to media clients including ITV, BBC, Trinity Mirror, Channel 4, Endemol, IPC and EMAP. •Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Anglia" brands, Eckoh supplies fixed line and mobile telephony products and services, to SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Network Services has an SME customer base of approximately 8,000. In the year to 31 March 2005 Eckoh Technologies plc generated a turnover of£79.7 million and had a cash balance of £13.3m. Further information can be foundat www.eckoh.com. About William Hill www.williamhillplc.co.uk This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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