28th Jul 2005 07:00
Eckoh Technologies PLC28 July 2005 For Immediate Release 28 July 2005 Eckoh's Speech Alliance with BT extended until 2010 • BT extends Speech Alliance contract with Eckoh Technologies to 2010 • Eckoh has delivered 20 speech applications to 17 BT customers since January 2004 • Hosted speech solutions market expected to grow by £112.5m over the next 6 years * • Over 23 million minutes generated to date through the BT-Eckoh Speech Alliance Eckoh Technologies plc ("Eckoh"), one of Europe's leading speech applicationservice providers and BT, one of the world's leading providers of communicationssolutions, today announced the extension of their speech alliance contract toprovide BT customers with hosted speech recognition services up to 2010. BT's extension of the alliance is a clear endorsement of Eckoh's highperformance and capability in the delivery of hosted speech recognition servicesto top corporate BT customers since the formation of the partnership in 2003.The five-year extension will enable BT to fulfil the increasing requirement fromcustomers for long term, multi-year contracts for Eckoh's hosted speechrecognition services. Over the past three years, Eckoh, together with BT, has helped a large number ofcustomers across the finance, government, utilities, telecoms, retail andentertainment sectors, to successfully transform their business operationsthrough the introduction of hosted speech recognition services. The speech alliance was created to meet the growing demand from businesses foradvanced speech recognition technology, and since January 2004 a total of 20speech applications have been successfully deployed for 17 BT customersgenerating over 23 million minutes of self-service speech transactions. Chris Pike, general manager, CRM solutions at BT says: "In the digital networkedeconomy that we live and work in today, enabling customers to make contact in away that best suits their needs is a real challenge facing many organisations.The extension of our alliance with Eckoh to 2010 is testament to a winningpartnership approach in helping to transform business operations across a widerange of vertical markets through the deployment of speech recognition servicesto our customer base. Over the past three years, Eckoh has consistently demonstrated client serviceexcellence through their leading market expertise, speed of customer responseand through their state of the art deployment of sophisticated client handlingsolutions and broader self-service options to our customers." Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer of Eckoh commented: "Since the formation of our alliance with BT in 2003, we have experiencedconsiderable growth in the demand for self-service speech solutions. Morebusinesses in the UK are turning to self-service speech solutions to reducecost, to improve customer satisfaction and to enhance customer service levels. Through our extended alliance with BT, we look forward to building on ourremarkable success in driving exciting new business opportunities for BTcustomers in the accelerated market for advanced speech recognition services." For further enquiries, please contact: Eckoh Technologies plcMartin Turner, Chief Executive Officer Tel: 08701 100 700Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer Buchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia BT Tel: 07885 652 235Suzy Christopher, PR manager More about Hosted Speech Solutions: Eckoh's hosted speech recognition services are typically applied in a customerservice environment. The introduction of BT- Eckoh's "Real-Time Stock Quotingservice" on behalf of TD Waterhouse, has increased the volume of customerenquiries, reduced contact costs for routine transactions and increased theavailability of agents to handle higher value calls. "TrainTracker(TM), a speech recognition service designed and deployed by BT -Eckoh for National Rail Enquiries, is another example where the application of aself-service speech solution has delivered clear benefits to both the client andthe end user. By calling the TrainTracker(TM) number (0871 200 4950), customerscan access the latest arrival and departure times for trains running on the UKmainland. The service is aimed at providing instant access to real-timeinformation at busy times and times of service disruption, without having toqueue for an advisor." Other key speech recognition services delivered by Eckoh through the BT allianceinclude: call routing, automated bill payment, ticket booking, product ordering,information retrieval, credit card validation, name and address verification andinformation capture. Leading BT clients availing of Eckoh's speech recognition services include: UGCCinemas, Barclays Stockbrokers, TD Waterhouse, Her Majesty's Court Service,Communisis, Abbey at Work, BSkyB, Electrolux and The Central Office ofInformation. Key business wins over the past six months include Lloyds TSBRegistrars, Three Valleys Water and the NIE. *Source: Data Monitor 2005 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 continues to exploit thesignificant 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. Eckoh has a call processing platform of 10,000 lines (capable of handling over500,000 calls an hour) of which over 6,500 lines incorporate speech recognitiontechnology, making it the largest speech enabled call processing platform inEurope. 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 BT BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions servingcustomers in Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific. Its principal activitiesinclude networked IT services, local, national and internationaltelecommunications services, and higher-value broadband and internet productsand services. BT consists principally of three lines of business: • BT Retail, providing a comprehensive range of communications and related services to more than 20m UK consumers and businesses. • BT Wholesale, providing network services and solutions within the UK to more than 600 fixed and mobile operators and service providers including the provision of broadband and private circuits. • BT Global Services, providing networked IT services to meet the needs of multi-site organisations globally. BT Global Services operates in more than 130 countries and also offers international carrier services. In the year ended 31 March 2005, BT Group's turnover was £18,623 million withprofit before goodwill amortisation, exceptional items and taxation of £2,085million. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York. BritishTelecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group andencompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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