3rd May 2006

London, UK – May 3rd, 2006 - Fluency Voice Technology, (www.fluencyvoice.com) the speech recognition application company, today announced that its client, Sutton & East Surrey Water plc, has been awarded the Best CIS (Customer Information System) Initiative in Europe for 2005/06 by the US based Utility Planning Network’s (UPN) Utility ACE awards for CIS/CRM Excellence.

This award is in recognition of Sutton and East Surrey Water’s Virtual Call Centre which is underpinned by speech recognition technology from Fluency Voice Technology integrated with DST International’s corporate billing system (www.dsti.com).  The system has improved payment efficiencies through greater customer access.

The competition organised by the Utility Planning Network through the Utility CIS/CRM Consortium, is a cross industry effort with representatives from investor owned and public gas, water and electrical utilities. Many of the judges are former CIS award winners who dedicate much time and expertise to examine the customer service initiatives and recognise their excellence in applying technology to increasing customer service.

Sutton and East Surrey Water plc is based in Redhill, Surrey and has developed a strong internal culture for innovation, leadership and excellence.  It prides itself on constantly being at the cutting edge of development, in particular applying this to continually drive customer service levels higher. It was this focus on improving customer service that led the team to boost its already very efficient call centre with an integrated speech-enabled solution from Fluency Voice Technology integrated with the HiAffinity billing system from DST International. The goal was to develop a “Virtual Call Centre Environment” to introduce an even higher level of efficiency while reducing costs.

The project started with the introduction of a fully automated speech recognition card payment facility in March 2005, part of the Fluency VSA (Virtual Speech Agent) Suite™, allowing customers to pay their bills quickly and easily 24 hours a day.  This has been so successful that the system has been expanded to deal with balance enquiries and direct debit sign-up. Phase 2, incorporating these extensions to the service, went live in February 2006 in time for annual billing and the initial signs are that this is equally popular with customers.  Sutton & East Surrey Water is already planning to extend the service to include meter readings and change of payment method in early 2007.

Some of the early measurable benefits include: -

• Cost savings – Processing a bill payment has been reduced to 40 pence per completed transaction - a saving of £1.20 per call.
• Efficiency increase – The need to re-allocate resources to cover peak call times has been reduced.
• Call queues reduced – In the first year the new service handled around 22% of all calls reducing queue length and answer times.
• Improved access – 24x365 automated payment service ensures customers can pay at their own convenience.

Phil Holder, Sutton and East Surrey Water plc Managing Director, noted, “We pride ourselves on constantly being on the cutting edge of development in particular to continually drive our customer service levels higher. We wanted to develop a ‘Virtual Call Centre Environment’ that would introduce an extraordinary level of efficiency and in turn improve customer service. Fluency’s voice technology combined with DSTi’s proven HiAffinity billing solution offered the flexibility and scalability needed to deliver this project while keeping capital costs down. ”

Nick Fisher, Sutton and East Surrey Water plc Finance Director, said, “Cost savings from integrating Fluency speech recognition with HiAffinity were measurable. The combined savings per transaction and reduction in cost per call have significantly reduced the costs of processing bill payments. At the same time that we lowered our costs, the automated system efficiency in payments increased. The new system offers improved access 24x7 giving our customers the ability to pay at their own convenience.”

Philip Padfield, CEO of Fluency, comments, “Congratulations to Sutton and East Surrey Water whose innovation and relentless focus on customer service has caught the eye of this international panel of judges who have rewarded their achievement with this esteemed award.  This success is testament to the vision of the Sutton & East Surrey Water team and the seamless integration between our speech recognition application and DSTi’s HiAffinity billing system which combined has significantly improved customer service and delivered substantial savings.”

About The Utility Planning Network (UPN)

Founded in 1993, UPN (formerly known as EPN) operates a consortium of North America’s largest commercial and industrial energy buyers and utility companies.  The Utility Ace Program received entries from utilities based in Australia, Africa, Asia, Europe, The United States, South America and Canada.

About Sutton and East Surrey Water plc

Sutton and East Surry Water plc is a water utility company based in Redhill, UK. They supply water to 262,000 customers over an area of 733 square miles, including London Gatwick International Airport in the south east of England.

About DST International (DSTi)

With 19 offices and over 1500 professionals to support its growing client base, DST International provides a unique and comprehensive range of investment management and business process management software solutions and related services to 700 clients in 55 countries. 
http://www.dstinternational.com

About Fluency Voice Technology

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