Last checked at 4 Aug 2008 07:00
4th August 2008
BT AND ECKOH WIN A THREE YEAR CONTRACT WITH THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE
BT and Eckoh's hosted solution to provide an automated fine payment service for all Magistrates' Courts across England and Wales
BT and Eckoh, the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, today announced that they have been awarded a new three year, multi-million pound contract with the Ministry of Justice, to provide an automated fine payment service for Magistrates' Courts ("Courts") across England and Wales. BT and Eckoh will also supply the live contact centre operation to support the automated service, providing the Courts with a complete end-to-end telephony solution.
The service, which allows citizens to pay fines conveniently 24 hours a day, has resulted in nearly 15 per cent of fines being paid out of office hours for one Court already using it. It has also enabled them to considerably lower the cost of collecting the fines which will be reflected across other Courts as they take up the service.
The automated fine payment service, which was first introduced by BT and Eckoh in 2004, is currently in place across a third of the Courts network and the new agreement, signed under a Catalist framework agreement, will see the service being rolled out nationally over the next twelve months.
The current service processes an average of 278,000 fine payments per year. There are future plans to extend the scope of the service for the payment of fixed penalty notices, including speeding offences and other on-the-spot charges which would see the volume of transactions significantly increase even further.
The service will be hosted on BT/Eckoh's state-of-the art call processing platform, which is capable of handling over 650,000 calls an hour and 8,000 callers concurrently. The scalability and resilience of the BT/Eckoh platform ensures that callers will always be connected immediately and that the service will be available on a 24/7 basis. BT and Eckoh supply speech services to over 25 clients.
Mark Quartermaine, managing director, BT Public Sector commented: "Once considered an experimental technology, automated speech recognition is now robustly allowing organisations to cut costs and inefficiencies whilst responding to the citizen's need to be able to conduct business with Government quickly, easily and at a time convenient to them. We're pleased that the benefits the current users have seen have resulted in the service now being extended nationally."
Nik Philpot, CEO, Eckoh said: "We are delighted with this opportunity to develop our relationship with the Ministry of Justice. The adoption of the automated fine payment service is a real vote of confidence in the effectiveness of telephone-based automation in the public sector and in the BT/Eckoh solution. The Government's Varney Report urges all public sector bodies - including the Courts - to significantly reduce their operating costs, whilst ensuring that their services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The results that we have already delivered for the Courts demonstrate that telephone self-service can be a central part of the strategy to achieve this extremely challenging target."
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For further enquiries, please contact:
| Eckoh plc |
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| Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director Jim Hennigan, Executive Director www.eckoh.com | Tel: 01442 458 300 |
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| Corfin Communications |
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| Harry Chathli / Neil Thapar / Alexis Gore | Tel: 020 7977 0020 |
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| Seymour Pierce |
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| Jonathan Wright | Tel: 020 7107 8000 |
BT
For further information
Inquiries about this news release should be made to the BT Group Newsroom on its 24-hour number: 020 7356 5369. From outside the UK dial + 44 20 7356 5369. All news releases can be accessed at our web site: http://www.btplc.com/News
Justine Manche, BT Global Services PR, Tel: 020 7356 5371 or email: justine.manche@bt.com
Anna Miller, Fishburn Hedges, Tel: 020 7544 3041 or email: anna.miller@fishburn-hedges.co.uk
Notes to Editor
About Eckoh
Eckoh is the UK's largest provider of hosted speech recognition services and sets the standard for outsourced automated solutions across Europe. Eckoh enables its clients to communicate more effectively and to enhance their profitability, while making life better for the people who use their services.
Eckoh provides automated services in virtually every industry sector for clients including TD Waterhouse, Vue Cinemas, William Hill, O2, Ideal Shopping Direct, DEFRA, The London Stock Exchange, the COI, National Rail Enquiries, AXA PPP healthcare, Parcelforce Worldwide, BAA, Barclays Stockbrokers, United Utilities and ScottishPower.
Eckoh is also a market leader in providing interactive services to large media owners and has amongst its clients Trinity Mirror, the largest newspaper publisher, IPC, the leading consumer magazines group and Bauer, the largest privately owned publisher in Europe.
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. 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 financial year ending March 2008, Eckoh generated turnover of £25.6 million and had cash and short term investment balances of £6.8 million. Further information can be found at www.eckoh.com
About BT
BT is one of the world's leading providers of communications solutions and services operating in 170 countries. Its principal activities include the provision of networked IT services globally; local, national and international telecommunications services to our customers for use at home, at work and on the move; broadband and internet products and services and converged fixed/mobile products and services. BT consists principally of four lines of business: BT Global Services, Openreach, BT Retail and BT Wholesale.
In the year ended 31 March 2008, BT Group plc's revenue was £20,704 million with profit before taxation and specific items of £2,506 million.
British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group and encompasses virtually all businesses and assets of the BT Group. BT Group plc is listed on stock exchanges in London and New York.
For more information, visit www.bt.com/aboutbt