Eckoh secures contract for Pr

RNS Number : 4081Y

Eckoh PLC

22 December 2010

 



Eckoh plc

("Eckoh" or "the Company")

Eckoh secures significant three-year contract to provide speech recognition services to Premier Inn

Premier Inn's parent company, Whitbread plc, awards three-year contract for Eckoh's fully PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) compliant service

 

Eckoh, the UK's leading developer of speech recognition solutions for customer contact centres, today announces that it has secured a new three-year contract with Whitbread plc ("Whitbread"), making Whitbread one of Eckoh's largest clients to date.

The contract is for the provision of a fully PCI DSS compliant speech enabled reservations and cancellations service to Whitbread's hotel brand, Premier Inn. The service, due to be deployed in March 2011, will provide Premier Inn customers with the ability to book and cancel rooms at any Premier Inn hotel throughout the UK.

Whitbread is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant company, operating market-leading businesses in the budget hotels and restaurant sectors. Premier Inn is the UK's largest and fastest-growing hotel brand, with 578 hotels and more than 40,000 rooms across the UK and Ireland. It is expected to add a further 1,905 rooms over the next six months, with the focus on increasing market share and continuing to meet the needs of its customers.

Eckoh is a fully PCI DSS compliant Level 1 Service Provider, processing over £200 million payments annually. The Company's industry-leading VoiceXML platform provides the capability and scalability to meet Premier Inn's future growth requirements.

Kenny King, Head of Procurement, Information Systems of Whitbread, said: "We chose Eckoh because they proved to us that they could provide us with the highest level of PCI DSS compliant infrastructure and the ability to scale up, both of which are crucial to our growth plans and commitment to delivering outstanding customer service."

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer of Eckoh, commented: "We are delighted to have been chosen by Whitbread to host Premier Inn's new booking service in our PCI compliant environment, which will ensure that their customers' cardholder data will be managed securely and they will receive the best possible customer service. This is the second significant contract win for our newly accredited service and, as such, is an affirmation of our strategy to invest in achieving the highest level of compliance. The Eckoh platform will provide Whitbread with the scalability to deliver on their growth strategy and, combined with our PCI compliant infrastructure, will ensure their customers' cardholder data is properly protected at all times."

Ends

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'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 Whitbread PLC

Whitbread PLC is the UK's largest hotel and restaurant company operating market-leading businesses in the budget hotels and restaurant sectors. Its brands include Premier Inn, Beefeater, Table Table, Brewers Fayre, Taybarns and Costa Coffee.

Whitbread PLC employs over 34,000 people and serves 9 million customers every month in its 2,000 outlets across the UK.

Whitbread PLC is a FTSE 100 company, listed on the London Stock Exchange. It is also a member of the FTSE4Good Index.

For more information, visit: www.whitbread.co.uk

About Premier Inn

Award-winning Premier Inn is the UK's largest and fastest-growing hotel brand with 578 budget hotels and more than 40,000 rooms across the UK and Ireland.  Premier Inn bedrooms feature en-suite bathroom, TV with Freeview, and WiFi internet access. Premier Inn offers customers a money-back 'Good Night Guarantee' of a good quality room, comfortable surroundings and friendly service, which is unique amongst Britain's leading hotel chains.

All Premier Inns feature a bar and restaurant; situated inside the hotel or adjacent, offering a wide range of food choices. 

Premier Inn was the first Britain-wide hotel group to sign up with national tourist board VisitBritain; this means Premier Inn is now part of a new quality assessment scheme, specially created for budget accommodation. 

In 2008 Premier Inn launched in Dubai and will be opening in India later this year. On a domestic front, Premier Inn is set to be the largest provide of budget hotels in London by the 2012 Olympics.

For more information, visit: www.premierinn.com.

 

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