7th Jul 2005 07:01
Eckoh Technologies PLC07 July 2005 For immediate release 7 July 2005 Eckoh Technologies Eckoh wins 2-year exclusive Speech Contract with Ideal Shopping Direct • 2-year exclusive contract to supply Ideal Shopping Direct with speech recognition based data collection solutions • Eckoh to take over all Ideal Shopping Direct's inbound telephony requirements Eckoh Technologies ("Eckoh"), one of Europe's leading speech application serviceproviders, today announced an exclusive 2 year contract to supply Ideal ShoppingDirect ("Ideal Shopping"), the UK's leading independent home shopping TVchannel, with speech recognition based data capture solutions. Ideal Shopping required a speech application provider that had the necessaryhosting capacity and was robust enough to manage many thousands of orders whilesimultaneously processing these using speech recognition. Eckoh's large callprocessing platform, with over 6,500 lines of speech recognition capacity,combined with their track record of operating high volume speech applications,made Eckoh the natural choice. The highly advanced speech recognition service to be designed and hosted byEckoh, will be an end-to-end solution which will allow a caller to place anorder, pay for a product and participate in a bespoke customer questionnairerelating to the product they are purchasing, without needing to speak to a liveagent at any point. The service is expected to launch in the Autumn as part of amajor new live show. In addition to the agreement which commenced in late May, Eckoh will alsocontrol the management of all inbound call traffic on behalf of Ideal Shoppingwith call volumes expected to be around 15 million minutes per annum.Furthermore, Eckoh will also supply Ideal Shopping with ad hoc IVR and SMScompetition line services. Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer for Eckoh, said: "Ideal Shopping has grownenormously in recent times consistently showing an innovative approach to theirtarget audience and we are excited to partner with them on this new groundbreaking project. This speech recognition solution will clearly demonstrate thatour speech platform is not only capable of performing extremely complex tasksbut can do so under the pressure of live television, catering for thousands ofsimultaneous users." Andrew Fryatt, Chief Operating Officer for Ideal Shopping Direct, commented: "Once it became apparent that it would be both impractical and hugely costly forIdeal Shopping to fulfil this project without call automation, we startedlooking for a suitable long term partner in this area. We were hugely impressedby Eckoh's credentials having proved that they can successfully deliver avariety of speech solutions in many market sectors and having a depth ofexperience in managing live television formats. We look forward to launchingour new show in conjunction with Eckoh and seeing the benefits first hand ofwhat speech can deliver". For further information on Eckoh Technologies, please contact:Martin Turner, Chief Executive Officer Tel: 08701 100 700 Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer Buchanan Communications Tel: 020 7466 5000 Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia For further information on Ideal Shopping Direct plc, please contact:Reputation Inc Tel: 020 7758 2800 Tom Wyatt 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. Eckoh has a speech alliance with BT to provide hosted speech recognitionsolutions to their corporate client base. BT and Eckoh have previously announcedsignificant contracts with UGC Cinemas, TD Waterhouse and the Association ofTrain Operating Companies (ATOC) and now have live services with over 17 clientsincluding Lloyds TSB, Three Valleys Water, Abbey at Work, Communisis and BSkyB. In addition to those above, Eckoh has direct contracts to supply hosted SpeechSolutions to clients including Vue Cinemas, William Hill, 02, Virgin Mobile andThe London Stock Exchange. 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. Eckoh also operates the following businesses: • IVR - Eckoh is one of the largest providers of managed IVR and SMSservices in the UK to media clients including ITV, BBC, Trinity Mirror, Channel4, Endemol, IPC and EMAP. • Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Anglia" brands, Eckohsupplies fixed line and mobile telephony services, broadband and data servicesto SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Following the acquisition of Anglia TelecomCentres Limited in April 2005, Network Services now has an SME customer base ofover 15,000. • Freecom.net - selling a full range of complementary internet productsand data services, including web-site design, e-commerce solutions, e-mailservices, connectivity (dial-up and broadband), search engine submission anddirectory services, and hosting to SMEs. 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 Ideal Shopping Direct plc: Ideal Shopping Direct plc is Britain's leading independent home shopping TVbusiness, with its Ideal World channel broadcasting 24 hours including 16 hoursof live programmes daily on Sky digital satellite channel 634, digital cable NTLchannel 855 and, since April 2004, on Freeview channel 22. Ideal World can currently be accessed by an estimated household population ofapproximately 14 million households. In addition, the company operates two nichechannels, Create and Craft on Sky digital satellite channel 664, a dedicated 24hour channel specialising in craft products, and Ideal Vitality on Sky digitalchannel 661 focussing on health and beauty products. Both these channels haveinteractive transactional websites, offering a wide range of complementaryitems. Ideal Shopping Direct serves the "direct to home" market via TV home shopping, amarket which is estimated to be worth over £800 million per annum. With 2004sales of £60 million, Ideal has a current market share of approximately 7.5% butexpects to continue to grow at a faster rate than the market. It will shortlylaunch a new channel under the "Jewellery Vault" label, offering jewellery andaccessories in a bidding format. Ideal Shopping Direct plc has been listed on AIM since February 2000. Its marketcapitalisation is currently approximately £80 million. 35% of the shares areheld by the founder directors, Paul Wright and Val Kaye, with the rest owned bya variety of institutional and private investors. This information is provided by RNS The company news service from the London Stock ExchangeRelated Shares:
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