20 April 2011
Eckoh plc
("Eckoh" or "the Company")
Eckoh achieves contract renewal with O2
Three-year extension of contract for provision of speech recognition and web-based services
Eckoh, the UK's leading developer of speech recognition solutions for customer contact centres, announces the award of a three-year renewal of its contract with O2, the communications company, for the provision of services using a web-based solution and speech recognition technology.
The initial contract, announced in December 2004, was for an automated telephone-based service, which was extended to include an equivalent web offering in 2007. Under the current contract, Eckoh has enhanced its solution by deploying its PCI DSS compliant, EckohPAY product. Since its launch of the service in December 2004, the Company has handled over one million transactions on behalf of O2.
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, said: "O2 are one of Eckoh's longest standing clients, and we are extremely pleased that they feel we continue to provide them with the highest standard of service. This renewal demonstrates our success in developing our technology and expanding our portfolio to ensure that we are able to satisfy our clients evolving requirements. As we continue to broaden our offering - with speech, web, SMS and now smartphone solutions - we look forward to furthering our relationship with O2 and to providing them and their customers with industry-leading solutions."
Ends
Enquiries:
Eckoh plc
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
Singer Capital Markets
Shaun Dobson Tel: 020 3205 7500
Notes to Editors:
About Eckoh plc
Eckoh plc (AIM: ECK) is the UK's leading developer of speech recognition 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 clients' operational costs, whilst freeing up agents to deal with more complex enquiries. Eckoh is the largest developer of such hosted services in the UK.
Eckoh also provides complementary web, mobile and smartphone applications to its portfolio of blue chip clients.
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
· Telefónica O2 UK Limited is part of Telefónica Europe plc, a business division of Telefónica S.A. which uses O2 as its commercial brand in the UK, Ireland, Slovakia, Germany and the Czech Republic, and has 56.3 million customers across these markets.
· In 2006 Telefónica Europe acquired Be, the UK fixed broadband provider, and in October 2007 O2 launched its broadband service using the Be network.
· O2 is the naming rights partner of The O2, the world-class entertainment venue.
· O2 employs around 11,000 people in the UK and has 490 retail stores.
· In October 2010 O2 was voted the UK's best mobile network by the readers of both What Mobile and Mobile Choice magazine.
· O2 was ranked highest in customer satisfaction for both UK mobile and fixed broadband customers according to the J.D. Power and Associates UK Mobile and Fixed Broadband Studies 2010.
· O2's UK 2G mobile network provides voice and data services to 99% of the UK's population.
· O2's UK 3G (HSPA+ 900 / 2100 MHz) network currently provides voice and high speed data services of up to 14.4Mbps (21Mbps in the coming months) to over 84% of the UK population.
· O2 was the first UK operator to deploy a 4G/LTE trial network and has demonstrated peak speeds of over 100Mbps to a mobile device.
· Telefónica Europe also owns 50% of Tesco Mobile, which operates in the UK and Ireland, and 50% of Tchibo Mobilfunk in Germany.
· For further press information about O2 go to www.o2.co.uk/news