26 July 2010
Eckoh plc
("Eckoh" or "the Company")
Eckoh wins contract with Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Eckoh, the UK's leading developer of speech recognition solutions for customer contact centres, is pleased to announce the successful renewal of its contract with Enterprise Rent-A-Car ("Enterprise"), the UK's leading specialist in personal, business and replacement car hire, for the provision of the Company's speech-enabled locator service, EckohLOCATE.
Based on Eckoh's specialist speech recognition software, callers are able to say the name of a town and EckohLOCATE will identify the nearest Enterprise branch within a five mile radius of that location - providing details such as branch address, opening hours and contact information as well as the option to connect through directly to the branch. The Enterprise National Reservations Number (0800 800 227) is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and, since its launch in October 2004, has handled more than 1.5 million call minutes.
In the UK, Enterprise is the sole specialist in providing replacement vehicles and courtesy cars, which are relied upon in the event of an accident. Enterprise, which was established in the UK in 1994, has rapidly expanded and currently has over 330 locations across the UK, with more than 3,000 staff. By using EckohLOCATE, Enterprise contact centre agents are able to focus on more complex calls and in-store queries whilst routine and repetitive requests for basic information are handled by the service.
Parthi Cumarasamy, IT Director - Europe of Enterprise Rent-A-Car, commented: "A level of service that exceeds our customers' expectations has always been at the heart of the Enterprise brand and Eckoh continue to ensure that we provide our customers with a fast, efficient and easy-to-use branch locator service."
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, said: "We are extremely pleased to continue our long-standing relationship with Enterprise Rent-A-Car. By allowing callers to receive branch information quickly and easily, we have freed up their customer service team to focus on value-added transactions - and, as one of our new packaged products, the installation and maintenance of EckohLOCATE is simple and efficient. As such, this contract validates the confidence that our customers have in Eckoh and demonstrates the opportunity for our new productised offering to enhance our existing services."
Eckoh has considerable experience in successfully implementing speech-enabled store and branch locators, with EckohLOCATE providing a convenient way for callers to locate their nearest branch, store or outlet. The service gives callers immediate and accurate access to location-specific information including opening hours, address, telephone number and facilities available, and the option to connect directly to the location.
Ends
Enquiries
Eckoh
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer
Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director
www.eckoh.com Tel: 01442 458 300
Corfin Public Relations
Harry Chathli, Claire Norbury Tel: 020 7596 2860
Seymour Pierce
Jonathan Wright Tel: 020 7107 8000
Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Spencer King Tel: 01784 221 300
Notes to Editors:
About Eckoh
Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK) is the UK's leading developer of speech recognition and IVR solutions for customer contact centres.
Eckoh's sophisticated technology enables routine enquiries, transactions or payments to be processed without the need for the consumer to actually talk to an agent. This significantly reduces its client's operational costs, whilst freeing up agents to deal with more complex enquiries. Eckoh are the largest developer of such hosted services in the UK.
Eckoh's secure and resilient infrastructure has the scalability to handle over 650,000 calls an hour and up to 8,000 calls simultaneously, which means calls can always be answered no matter how unpredictable the circumstances.
For more information, visit: www.eckoh.com
About Enterprise Rent-A-Car
In the UK, Enterprise Rent-A-Car is the sole specialist in providing replacement vehicles and courtesy cars, which are relied upon in the event of an accident. Enterprise also offers daily and weekend rental for private or business use.
Founded in 1957, Enterprise is headquartered in St. Louis and has more than 7,000 offices in the UK, Germany, Ireland, the United States and Canada. Enterprise, which started in the UK in 1994, has rapidly expanded and currently has over 330 locations across the UK, with more than 3,000 staff. Three quarters of the UK population are within five miles of an Enterprise location.
For more information about Enterprise, visit www.enterprise.co.uk/car_rental/home.do.