Eckoh, a British provider of customer service solutions using speech recognition, is pleased to announce a significant product initiative with a major government transport organization for the implementation of Eckoh's speech recognition call steering product EckohASSIST across its customer service operation.

Eckoh already provides speech services to the organization and this initiative is the next stage in plans to improve the organization's customer service and efficiency. By sourcing the solution through Eckoh this has mitigated the need for them to invest in costly infrastructure, thereby delivering value for its customers while ensuring the technical solution will remain evergreen.

As announced in the full year results on June 6, Eckoh has already conducted a feasibility study for the organization to establish the viability of the initiative. This has identified that by using EckohASSIST the number of misrouted calls can be reduced by more than 75 percent, which will save a minimum of £0.5m per year. Eckoh's solution is due to be developed by the end of the financial year ready for deployment in spring 2012.

This will be the first implementation of EckohASSIST in the United Kingdom that enables all inbound calls to be answered with an automated greeting that simply asks the caller How can I help you?& and allows her to reply in a completely natural manner. EckohASSIST works by using the speech recognition technology alongside a complex statistical engine to determine where the call should be routed. On the occasions when it is difficult to confirm the requirement automatically, the caller's spoken audio is streamed to a contact center agent to classify the call and assist the service. This allows an agent to deal with multiple callers and help them get to the right destination the first time.

Nik Philpot, CEO of Eckoh, added: "We're delighted that such a major organization has taken the decision to enhance their customer service operation by deploying EckohASSIST. With the implementation of this sophisticated call steering solution, callers will have an effective but friendly experience when interacting with the automated speech technology in a totally natural manner. We expect other organizations will follow in adopting this solution to improve the service provided to their customers and to maximize the reduction in costs."

Enquiries:

Eckoh plc
Nik Philpot, CEO
Adam Moloney, group finance director
www.eckoh.com Tel: 01442 458 300

Jeremy Garcia, Nicola Cronk, Gabriella Clinkard, Tel: 020 7466 5000

Singer Capital Markets
Shaun Dobson Tel: 020 3205 7500

About Eckoh
Eckoh is the UK’s leading provider of customer service solutions using speech recognition and complementary services on the Web and mobile. Eckoh's solutions enable transactions, enquiries, or payments to be processed without the caller needing to talk to a contact centre. This significantly reduces its clients' costs, while freeing up contact center agents to deal with more complex enquiries. Eckoh is the largest provider of such hosted services in the UK. Eckoh's secure and resilient infrastructure has the scalability to handle more than 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