Eckoh wins contract with Comi

RNS Number : 5693I

Eckoh PLC

15 March 2010

 



15 March 2010

Eckoh plc

("Eckoh" or "the Group")

Eckoh wins contract with Comic Relief

Eckoh, the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, is pleased to announce that it has been appointed by Comic Relief as the charity's exclusive supplier of Interactive Voice Response services for a two-year period.

The contract is to provide a number of services including real time card payment processing, speech recognition enabled transcription, contact centre call handling and competitions. These services will help to maximise the fundraising efforts for the next two Comic Relief campaigns - Sport Relief 2010 and Red Nose Day 2011.

As one of the UK's biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active, raise cash and change lives. The Sport Relief Weekend is taking place from Friday 19^th March to Sunday 21^st March 2010 and it'll be three whole days of energy, entertainment and events for everyone to enjoy. From the Friday of fundraising fun, right through to the Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile on Sunday, it promises to be a brilliant weekend. All the money raised will be spent by Comic Relief to help transform the lives of poor and vulnerable people across the UK and the world's poorest countries.

Eckoh will provide Sport Relief's main donation line, which will be promoted during the Sport Relief Weekend. Eckoh's scalable call handling platform and sophisticated technology will be utilised to ensure a significant and robust network is available for the automated processing of donations. The success of the service will be based, in particular, on two of Eckoh's core products: EckohPay (real time card payment processing) and EckohID (automated name and address capture). 

The Group has also taken over provision of the year-round donation line (03457 910 910) for Comic Relief. Currently in operation for Sport Relief, it will become Red Nose Day's donation line in 2011.

The fundraising kit request line (0345 605 8000) allows callers to request a fundraising pack, which comprises of ideas, posters and sponsorship forms. The service utilises Eckoh's speech recognition technology to capture name and address, and data is transferred daily to Comic Relief for fulfilment.

Caroline Lien, Operations Director of Comic Relief, said: "Eckoh are delivering us a diverse range of solutions that not only meets all our requirements, but will also reduce our operational costs through the implementation of automated speech recognition technology."

General enquires to 0300 123 5070 from the public are routed through to the Sport Relief contact centre, where calls are answered by live advisors. The service gives Comic Relief the functionality to manage various features, such as the closed times and related messages. Messages left out of hours are delivered directly to the contact centre team to ensure responses are managed efficiently. Comic Relief has the ability to overflow calls to Eckoh's contact centre allowing a greater capacity of calls to be handled during peak calling times.

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, said: "We are delighted to be given the opportunity to support such a worthwhile cause and one that makes a real difference to so many. The diverse nature of services being delivered to Comic Relief demonstrates Eckoh's expertise in a number of core areas. As such, this contract win represents a positive start to 2010 and we hope to continue this momentum going forward." 

In November 2009, Eckoh successfully supported the BBC's "Children in Need" appeal after being appointed by Children in Need to provide a variety of services for that campaign.

Ends

Enquiries

Eckoh plc
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer
Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director
www.eckoh.com	Tel: [phone]
Corfin Communications
Harry Chathli, Claire Norbury	Tel: [phone]
Seymour Pierce
Jonathan Wright	Tel: [phone]

Notes to Editors:

About Eckoh

Eckoh is the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, with over 7 years of experience in successfully deploying speech solutions. These allow our clients to efficiently manage their contact centres by replacing the more repetitive calls with an effective and intuitive automated service. Our solutions address high volume service requests including billing queries, delivery tracking services, travel timetable checks or transactional payments at a fraction of the cost of a live agent and on a 24 hour a day basis.

Our carrier-grade platform has the scalability to handle over 650,000 calls an hour and up to 8,000 simultaneously. Our platform has the capacity to manage even the most dramatic and unexpected call peaks, making it the most scalable and flexible speech-enabled platform in Europe. All of our clients' automation requirements; from speech, SMS, web to touch tone IVR are met via a single infrastructure, protecting them from the need for large scale technology investment - now or in the future.

Eckoh formed a strategic business alliance with BT in 2003. Working in partnership we have helped 20 clients across the financial services, government, utilities, retail & distribution, telecoms and travel & leisure sectors to transform their business operations through the introduction of hosted self-service solutions.

About Comic Relief

Comic Relief is a charitable organization founded in the UK whose vision is "a just world free from poverty." The money raised is allocated to a wide range of grants and social investments aimed at delivering real and long-lasting change to the poorest, most vulnerable people at home and across the world. Comic Relief also works on informing the public and young people, in particular, about global citizenship and the underlying causes of extreme poverty. Comic Relief has invested £6.3m of the money raised from last year's Red Nose Day campaign to help protect over one million people in Africa from malaria.  The money is being used to purchase and distribute more than one million long-lasting insecticide treated bed nets, educate people to spot the symptoms of malaria early and to support health services enabling people living in malaria-affected communities to be diagnosed and treated quickly and effectively.

Further information is available on www.comicrelief.com

About Sport Relief

As one of the UK's biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active, raise cash and change lives. The Sport Relief Weekend takes place from Friday 19^th March to Sunday 21^st March 2010 including a night of Sport Relief telly on BBC One and the Sainsbury's Sport Relief Mile events across the UK on Sunday 21^st March. All the cash raised by the public will help transform the lives of those living tough lives across the UK and the world's poorest countries.

Since its launch in 2002, millions of people have taken part in Sport Relief, helping to raise over £80 million. Sport Relief has a unique history of dedicated people doing extraordinary things to rise to the challenge, from David Walliams' astonishing swim across the English Channel to Eddie Izzard's truly amazing marathon a day around the UK.   Further information is available on www.sportrelief.com

Sport Relief is an initiative of Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland).

 

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