Eckoh, the UK’s largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, is pleased to announce the appointment of Chris Rome as BT Channel Manager, who will assume the key responsibility for managing the BT/Eckoh partnership and developing the relationship going forward.

Chris Rome has over 15 years of experience in the self-service and contact centre industry and has an exceptional track record in leading customer solution sales for IVR and speech recognition self-service applications. Previous roles have been with Periphonics Voice Processing Systems UK Ltd and Nortel Networks UK Ltd, working closely with BT. In his new role working for the BT channel he will look to consolidate on the significant contracts that have already been won and extend the number of solutions that Eckoh provides to BT customers.

Eckoh formed a strategic business alliance with BT in 2003 to address the growing opportunity for automated self-service using speech recognition technology. The BT and Eckoh partnership has over the past 6 years helped numerous clients across the financial services, government, utilities, retail & distribution, telecoms and travel & leisure sectors to transform their business operations through the introduction of these solutions. The most recent win was a £1.5 million contract for an advanced speech recognition self-service application as an integral element of a 21st century multimedia contact centre for a major Government Transport organisation.

Together Eckoh and BT have combined competencies to create an unparalleled suite of self-service capabilities. The recent launch of BT’s ‘Making Contact Centres Efficient’ programme is an innovative proposition that addresses a common problem that organisations face with their contact centres – how to deliver excellent customer service whilst driving down costs. The proposition combines best-of-breed technology and professional services to provide organisations with a proven combination of products and services to de-risk the transformation of their contact centres towards delivering better customer service whilst simultaneously balancing costs to serve customers.

Eckoh’s CEO Nik Philpot, who has overall responsibility for Eckoh’s sales strategy, will assist Chris in his new role and he will also be strengthening the wider team of experienced account and project managers who support the individual BT client activities on a day-to-day basis.

"Chris Rome brings with him years of technical sales experience and detailed knowledge of the self-service and speech recognition proposition," commented Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer, at Eckoh. "His energy and skills combined with this experience will ensure that the BT and Eckoh partnership continues to flourish as we move into the next decade, and I’m looking forward to assisting him in accelerating the sales of hosted self-service as an integral part of the BT contact centre offering.”

About Eckoh
Eckoh is the UK’s largest provider of hosted speech recognition services, with over 7 years of experience in successfully deploying speech solutions. These allow our clients to efficiently manage their contact centres by replacing the more repetitive calls with an effective and intuitive automated service. Our solutions address high volume service requests including billing queries, delivery tracking services, travel timetable checks or transactional payments at a fraction of the cost of a live agent and on a 24 hour a day basis.

Our carrier-grade platform has the scalability to handle over 650,000 calls an hour and up to 8,000 simultaneously. Our platform has the capacity to manage even the most dramatic and unexpected call peaks, making it the most scalable and flexible speech-enabled platform in Europe. All of our clients’ automation requirements; from speech, SMS, web to touch tone IVR are met via a single infrastructure, protecting them from the need for large scale technology investment – now or in the future.

Eckoh formed a strategic business alliance with BT in 2003. Working in partnership we have helped 20 clients across the financial services, government, utilities, retail & distribution, telecoms and travel & leisure sectors to transform their business operations through the introduction of hosted self-service solutions.

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 2009, BT Group’s revenue was £21,390 million.

British Telecommunications plc (BT) is a wholly-owned subsidiary of BT Group plc 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


Enquiries

Eckoh
Nik Philpot, Chief Executive Officer
Adam Moloney, Group Finance Director
www.eckoh.com             Tel: 01442 458 300

Corfin Communications
Harry Chathli, Claire Norbury     Tel: 020 7977 0020