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Home arrow Investor Relations arrow RNS Announcements arrow 2005 arrow Magistrates courts choose automated payment collection service
Magistrates courts choose automated payment collection service    28/11/05 Print E-mail
The North East Region of Her Majesty’s Court Service (HMCS) has signed up to a 24-hour self-service, telephone based solution, that will significantly increase the volume of fine payment collections as well as achieve transformational cost savings by giving customers the option to pay their court fines and fixed penalties through an automated payment service.

The advanced self-service technology, developed by Eckoh in association with BT, was introduced to the West Yorkshire HMCS some 18 months ago, where it has already yielded transformational cost savings; the 24/7 self-service payment solution is expected to achieve similar results for the outstanding 6 HMCS areas of the North East region.

As well as freeing up contact centre agents to focus on more proactive payment enforcement, the new service is expected to stimulate a higher volume of inbound calls from customers seeking to pay their fines outside of office hours. Information provided by West Yorkshire, shows that some 15% of citizens prefer to pay their court fines outside normal hours of business. Recent statistics provided by West Yorkshire HMCS, shows a transformational 36% increase in fine payments, quarter on quarter, since their payment application was rolled out in June 2003.

The innovative self-service technology will be run off BT/Eckoh’s state-of-the art call processing platform, which is capable of handling over 650,000 calls an hour. This ensures that callers can always be confident of connecting straight through to the service without the prospect of call queuing or encountering busy/engaged tones.

Paul Skelton (North East Regional Performance Manager) comments:

“The self service solution delivered by Eckoh and BT will be particularly helpful for customers who want to pay their fines quickly and discreetly and who are simply not able to make payments during normal business hours. We look forward to working with Eckoh and BT to match the significant cost savings and tremendous operational achievement being enjoyed by HMCS - West Yorkshire”

Jim Hennigan (Managing Director - Eckoh Technologies) said:

“West Yorkshire is clear testament to the tremendous cost savings and revenue enhancements that can be achieved by automating a high volume of routine call types. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to work with the remaining North East HMCS areas on what’s sure to be another highly significant case study for the self-service industry.”
 
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