4th July 2006

London, UK – July 4th, 2006 - Fluency Voice Technology, (www.fluencyvoice.com) the speech recognition application company, has today announced that EDF Energy, one of the largest energy companies in the UK generating around 7% of the UK’s electricity, has successfully deployed Fluency’s speech recognition technology and is enjoying major efficiency gains as 21% of its calls are now handled by the ‘human like’ automated speech system.

EDF Energy supplies energy to over 5 million customer accounts in the UK and over 25% of the UK population depends on it for electricity supplies. With such a large customer base, EDF Energy runs a substantial call centre operation to handle customer enquiries and payments. Its call centres receive around 12 million calls each year, almost 10 million of which are currently taken by live agents.

As the business continues to grow, EDF Energy was striving to find more efficient ways of managing its call centre operations, by reducing customer queues, and enabling agents to focus on the more complex queries. Following a formal tendering process, EDF Energy selected a sophisticated, feature-rich interactive speech recognition call centre application from Fluency, to handle the more routine calls.

Since going live at the end of July 2005, the Fluency application has been handling the equivalent of 2.5 million calls a year, representing 21% of EDF’ Energy’s total call volume. These comprise the three most common type of customer call: those seeking account balances, those making payments and those registering meter readings. EDF Energy is using Fluency’s PaymentCapture;and IDVS (Identification and Verification with Status) applications; both of which form part of the Virtual Speech Agent (VSA) Suite™. PaymentCapture enables fast payment for straightforward transactions, such as paying a balance. IDVS allows accurate validation of customers before providing access to personal account information such as outstanding bills. 

The fact that Fluency had an off-the-shelf speech recognition application designed specifically for the utilities market was instrumental both in EDF Energy selecting the Fluency solution, and in this being implemented in just four months.

Mike Belton is head of management information at EDF Energy said, "Fluency already addressed the three areas where we wanted to make immediate service improvements. This meant less risk than if we had implemented a bespoke solution, and will ultimately mean lower cost, as bespoke solutions need ongoing attention so the cost can be more unpredictable.” Having a stable platform, however, means that EDF Energy can grow bolder in its use of Fluency's speech recognition application. Eventually, Mike would like to see the system handle as many as 5 million calls a year. "Our business is growing but it doesn't make economic sense to keep expanding the call centre, so we need to be able to work smarter with the resources we have already," he notes. "EDF Energy recognises that customers are increasingly more comfortable using self service facilities which are conveniently available 24 hours a day and if this is their channel of choice we want to make sure we give them the best possible experience. The Fluency solution will enable us to do this."

"EDF Energy clearly understands the value of automating calls with speech technology and is enjoying early benefits in efficiency gains and improved customer service as a result," said Philip Padfield, CEO of Fluency Voice. "We are confident that our world-class solution will allow EDF Energy to free up agents to handle more complex queries, reduce call queues and keep its customers satisfied, which ultimately will increase profitability."

Commenting on Fluency's natural language system Mike added, "We've observed customers talking to the system as though they think they're really dealing with a human being. We also like way it mixes speech and touchtone functionality, giving callers the best of both worlds. With the continued growth in mobile phone use, relying on touchtone alone is no longer an option."

About Fluency Voice Technology

Fluency Voice Technology is a leading provider of packaged speech recognition applications for use in call centers. Our solutions enable enterprises to significantly reduce costs and enhance customer service by automating much of the high volume call center activities.

Key sectors for which Fluency has developed applications are Financial Services, Travel & Transport, Utilities, Telecoms and Retail. Fluency has always been at the forefront of speech recognition and has changed the way in which businesses use speech by introducing the first ever packaged speech application in 2002. Fluency has offices in the UK, US and India.

About EDF Energy

EDF Energy is one of the largest energy companies in the UK. We employ over 11,000 people, supply gas and electricity to over five million customer accounts, and we are a major generator.

As one of the largest regulated and private networks operators in the UK we distribute electricity to over a quarter of the country's population. We are one of the few vertically integrated companies, which means we manage energy from the moment it's harnessed, to the second it's used, with expertise in generation, distribution and supply

For more information please visit our website at www.edf-energy.com