Contract Win

Eckoh Technologies PLC
04 May 2004

                                                                  4 May 2004


Eckoh Technologies and BT sign exclusive 3 year speech contract with UGC Cinemas


Eckoh Technologies plc ("Eckoh"), one of Europe's leading speech application
service providers, in association with BT, one of the world's leading suppliers
of telecommunications services, today announced that they have delivered a
cinema information and ticket booking service to UGC Cinemas, one of the UK's
largest cinema groups.

The 3-year contract, which commenced on 16 April 2004, provides UGC with a
one-number-solution for its group of 42 cinemas across the UK and Ireland.

The cinema information and ticket booking service which has been developed by
Eckoh is hosted on their 7,000 line call processing platform in St Albans and
Hemel Hempstead, one of the largest speech enabled self-service platforms in the
world. The service is supplied to UGC through the Eckoh and BT speech alliance
and the revenues from the service are shared between the parties on a variable
basis. This agreement was first announced by Eckoh in December 2003 as one of
four Speech Solutions contracts valued at £6m over 3 years, of which UGC is the
most significant deal.

Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer of Eckoh Technologies, commented:

"This is an exciting development for Eckoh as the UGC service is truly a mass
market speech recognition service taking millions of calls every year and we
anticipate that the positive experience callers will receive will assist us in
accelerating the roll-out of other client services using advanced speech
recognition. We remain committed to becoming the market leading hosting provider
for Speech Solutions and we are encouraged at the strengthening prospects in
this area."

Barbara Austin, Information Systems Director at UGC Cinemas commented: "The
roll-out of our new speech recognition service provided by Eckoh and BT has gone
incredibly smoothly and we are extremely happy with the performance of the
system and the positive reaction we have received from our customers.  I would
like to congratulate the team on  a first class implementation which will enable
us to provide efficient yet personalised customer interaction which is vital to
revenue generation for UGC."


How the service works

UGC customers dial 0871 200 2000 to access the service and then using speech
recognition they select the cinema they wish to visit either by asking for it
specifically or by saying the name of a nearby town or city. They can then say
the name of the film they are interested in seeing and the approximate time they
would like to visit the cinema and the service will inform them of the most
suitable performance times. The caller can choose to book tickets using a credit
card which is completely automated, and in the event of the performance being
sold out the service will recommend either the next available performance or the
nearest cinema where there is availability.

The speech recognition technology means that callers can now access the
information they require far quicker than with the traditional touch-tone
system, as they no longer have to listen to lengthy lists of options. It also
enables mobile callers, an increasingly larger percentage of users, to have a
more convenient experience than with touch-tone as they no longer have to keep
moving the handset away from their face to make a selection.
        
In addition to the automated speech service, live agents are on hand to deal
with specific calls such as large volume ticket bookings. These agents use a
web-based interface which integrates seamlessly with the speech platform by
passing all the information collected from the caller on the speech application
to a pop-up screen, allowing the agent to deal with queries in an informed
manner without the caller needing to provide the information again.




For further enquiries, please contact

Eckoh Technologies plc                               Tel: [phone]
Nik Philpot, Chief Operating Officer

Buchanan Communications                              Tel: [phone]
Mark Edwards/Jeremy Garcia


For further information on BT, please contact
Band & Brown Communications                          Tel: [phone]
Josephine Bowen/Laura Lynne




Notes to Editors

About Eckoh Technologies:

Eckoh Technologies plc designs, builds, hosts and manages Speech Solutions for
large corporations and organisations using ASR (Advanced Speech Recognition) and
IVR (Interactive Voice Response) technologies. It is a leading UK service
provider and infrastructure owner/operator, and intends to exploit the
anticipated growth in demand for Speech Solutions across Europe.

In January 2003, Eckoh signed a landmark deal to create an exclusive speech
alliance with BT to provide hosted speech recognition solutions to their
corporate client base over the next 2 years. This contract was then subsequently
extended until December 2006. In December 2003, BT and Eckoh announced
significant contracts to the value of £6m with UGC Cinemas, TD Waterhouse, RNIB
and Wire-E.

In June 2003 Eckoh enlarged its call processing infrastructure to 7,000 lines
(capable of handling 500,000 calls an hour) by installing another platform into
a BT hosting facility. This created the largest speech enabled call processing
platform in Europe.

In addition to those above, Eckoh has secured contracts to supply hosted Speech
Solutions to clients including Virgin Mobile, Auctionworld, William Hill and
Wyevale Garden Centres.

Eckoh also operates the following businesses:
     
*    IVR - following the acquisition of Intelliplus Group plc in Sept
2003, Eckoh is one of the largest providers of managed IVR and SMS services in
the UK to media clients including the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Endemol, EMAP,
Johnston Press and Cartoon Network.

*    Network Services - under the "Symphony" and "Freecom" brands, Eckoh
supplies fixed line and mobile telephony services, broadband and data services
to SMEs in the UK and Ireland. Following the acquisition of Intelliplus Network
Services now has an SME customer base of over 13,000.

In the year to 31 March 2003 Eckoh Technologies plc generated a turnover of £55
million and had a cash balance of £12m.

Further information can be found at www.eckoh.com.


                      This information is provided by RNS
            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange