Eckoh processes ?2.5m for Comic Relief

RNS Number : 0592F

Eckoh PLC

18 April 2011

 



18 April 2011

Eckoh plc

("Eckoh" or "the Company")

Eckoh processes £2.5 million for Comic Relief

 

Eckoh, the UK's leading developer of speech recognition solutions for customer contact centres, is pleased to announce that it has processed £2.5 million in telephone donations for Comic Relief's Red Nose Day 2011 campaign. This compares to £1.1m that Eckoh processed for the charity in 2010.

Eckoh has worked with Comic Relief since March 2010 providing card payment processing, and speech recognition enabled transcription for Comic Relief's Sport Relief 2010 and Red Nose Day 2011 campaigns.

Red Nose Day is one of the UK's biggest charity fundraising events, which so far this year has raised over £74 million - an all time high at this stage. All the money raised by the public will be spent by Comic Relief to help transform the lives of poor and vulnerable people across the UK and Africa.

Eckoh provided Red Nose Day's main automated donation line, which utilised the Company's EckohPAY product that allowed callers to make a secure donation to the charity. In addition, EckohID was used to capture the name and address of callers for Gift Aid declaration: transcribed data is transferred daily to Comic Relief to allow them to reclaim the basic rate tax on the donation, which increases its value.

Radha Chakraborty, Operations Director of Comic Relief, said: "Comic Relief relies hugely on the invaluable support it gets from its partners. Once again, Eckoh has delivered a solution that ensured the smooth processing of donations with its scalable call handling platform, whilst reducing our operational costs through the implementation of automated speech recognition technology."

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, said: "Eckoh is proud to continue its support for Comic Relief, an incredibly worthwhile cause that makes a real difference to so many people here in the UK and overseas. By choosing Eckoh, the charity is able to provide a secure environment for callers and maximise the value of the donations it receives."

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Enquiries:

Eckoh plc

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer

Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director

www.eckoh.com                                                                                  Tel: [phone]

Corfin Public Relations          

Harry Chathli, Claire Norbury                                                            Tel: [phone]

Singer Capital Markets

Shaun Dobson                                                                                    Tel: [phone]

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

About Comic Relief

·      Comic Relief delivered another spectacular evening of top telly treats on Friday 18th March, as Red Nose Day 2011 entertained the nation while raising an incredible sum of money to help poor and vulnerable people in the UK and Africa.  As the evening drew to a close £74,360,207 had been raised which is the highest total reached on the night in Red Nose Day's 23 year history.

·      Comic Relief was launched on Christmas Day in 1985, live on BBC One.  At that time, a devastating famine was crippling Ethiopia and something had to be done.  That something was Comic Relief.  The idea was simple - Comic Relief would make the public laugh while they raised money to help people in desperate need.  Before too long, Red Nose Day was created and the first ever event in 1988 raised a staggering £15m.  To date, twelve Red Nose Days have raised more than £580m.  That money has helped, and is helping, to support people and communities in dire need both in the UK and Africa.

·      Comic Relief, registered charity 326568 (England/Wales); SC039730 (Scotland)

 

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