Contract extension with O2
Eckoh PLC
18 June 2007
ECKOH AWARDED THREE YEAR CONTRACT EXTENSION WITH O2
Eckoh plc ('Eckoh'), the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition
services, today announced a three year contract extension for the provisioning
components of O2's Age Verification and Parental Control solutions, using
advanced self-service technology. Under the terms of the new contract, Eckoh
will supplement the automated telephone based service with an equivalent web
based offering, providing O2 customers with extended self-service options and
24/7 channel choice.
The contract renewal follows on from Eckoh's successful management of the Age
Verification and Parental Control provisioning services since 2004. Both
services are key components of O2's infrastructure developments designed to
ensure that only customers over the age of 18 can access commercial content
services classified as 18, and to offer parents a robust method of restricting
access to internet sites on their child's mobile.
Both telephone and web based self-service components will be managed from
Eckoh's highly scalable and fully resilient self-service platform, which is
capable of handling 650,000 calls an hour and 8,000 calls simultaneously. The
use of web based technologies and techniques, form an integral part of the
extended solution, drawing upon Eckoh's substantial web design and deployment
heritage.
Eckoh's browser-based business intelligence system will further enable O2 to
directly monitor call and web statistics measured by volume, type of request and
time of day, as well as the ability to track customer channel usage and service
performance on a real-time basis.
Jim Hennigan, Executive Director, Eckoh commented:
'The extension of our agreement with O2 is a clear indication of their long term
commitment to both Eckoh and the advanced self-service solution, which has
proved so fundamental to this important service. The new web based capability
will form an integral part of O2's enhanced solution, providing customers with
an even more comprehensive and convenient self-service offering as well as
extended 24/7 channel choice.'
Jonny Shipp, Head of Content Standards at O2, said:
'The age verification service is one of the core elements of our programme to
restrict children's access to inappropriate content and give parents more
control and greater peace of mind. Over the past 3 years, Eckoh has demonstrated
its capability as a service provider that has the necessary expertise and
technical infrastructure to deliver an extremely robust solution. We are
confident that the extended web capability will provide our customers with an
even more convenient service whilst ensuring a high level of consistency across
our contact channels, whether web or telephone based. '
More about Parental Control and Age Verification Provisioning Services:
The Parental Control provisioning establishes the profile of the handset by
automatically capturing the customer's mobile number, which is then verified
with O2's internal systems. On validation of customer details, the user is
prompted to select a PIN number, which they can use to enable or disable the
controls on their handset.
Age Verification establishes the profile of the handset by automatically
capturing the customer's mobile number, which is then verified with O2's
internal systems. On validation of customer details, the user is advised of the
charges to activate Age Verification and taken through a secure credit card
module. If the user chooses to switch Open Access off, then they are advised
that Age Verification will be de-activated in the next hour and a text message
will be sent to confirm same.
Both services offer peace of mind to parents wishing to protect their children
whilst online.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Eckoh plc
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer
Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director
Jim Hennigan, Executive Director
www.eckoh.com Tel: 01442 458 300
Corfin Communications
Harry Chathli, Neil Thapar, Ben Hunt Tel: 020 7929 8989
Seymour Pierce
Jonathan Wright Tel: 020 7107 8050
About Eckoh
Eckoh is the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services. Eckoh
enables its clients to communicate more effectively and to enhance their
profitability, whilst making life better for the people who use their services.
Eckoh provides automated services in virtually every industry sector for clients
including Vue Cinemas, William Hill, O2, Ideal Shopping Direct, DEFRA, The
London Stock Exchange, National Rail Enquiries, AXA PPP healthcare, BSkyB,
Parcelforce Worldwide, BAA, Barclays Stockbrokers, TD Waterhouse, United
Utilities, Scottish Power and NIE (Northern Ireland Electricity).
Eckoh is also a market leader in providing interactive services to large media
owners and has amongst its clients ITV, the UK's largest commercial broadcaster,
Trinity Mirror, the largest newspaper publisher and IPC, the leading consumer
magazines group.
In 2003, Eckoh formed a strategic alliance with BT to capitalise on the growing
opportunity for speech recognition services in the corporate marketplace. The
alliance, which was extended in July 2005 until 2010, has supplied speech
services to over 25 clients generating more than 55 million minutes of speech
self-service transactions. The combined strengths of both parties have created
an unrivalled and value-added speech proposition and clients of the alliance
include: National Rail Enquiries, AXA PPP healthcare, Parcelforce Worldwide,
Barclays Stockbrokers, TD Waterhouse, NIE, Enterprise Rent-A-Car and Three
Valleys Water.
Eckoh has a call processing platform of 10,000 lines (capable of handling over
650,000 calls an hour) of which over 8,000 lines incorporate speech recognition
technology making it one of the largest speech enabled call processing platforms
in Europe.
In the year to 31 March 2007 Eckoh generated a turnover of £103 million with an
adjusted PBT of £2m and had cash balances of £9.6m. Further information can be
found at www.eckoh.com.
This information is provided by RNS
The company news service from the London Stock Exchange