Eckoh, a global provider of secure payment and multi-channel customer service solutions, has acquired PSS Help, a US-based company specialising in the management of contact centre and customer experience technology. The acquisition will bolster Eckoh's contact centre products and solutions, adding a new range of essential services to their portfolio. It will also assist the company's continued expansion into the US where PSS Help has a significant market presence.

PSS stands for Product Support Solutions. Through its global alliances with Genesys, Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, Microsoft, Nuance and other major contact centre technology providers, PSS Help assists clients in improving the efficiency of their contact centres and the quality of their customer interactions through the various services and solutions it provides. Its large client base encompasses multiple industry sectors and includes well-known brands such as AT&T, CenturyLink, Vodafone, Bank of America and Telstra. Many of PSS Help's clients require third party support for their legacy systems, with PSS Help seeking to assist them through the life cycle of their requirements, from transitioning existing architecture through to innovation, design and deployment of new solutions to solve complex issues.

The acquisition of PSS Help will assist Eckoh's aim to become a dominant provider of secure payments products and customer service solutions for contact centres, primarily in the US and UK markets, through organic growth, partnership and acquisition. PSS Help has a 12 year history of providing contact centre solutions to a worldwide client base with a highly skilled team of 55 people based in the US, UK and Australia. PSS Help will expand Eckoh's total client and partner base considerably, increasing its market presence and share in these markets.

Nik Philpot, Chief Executive of Eckoh, commented: 'PSS Help is a unique business with a highly experienced workforce and quality service offering, making it a trusted partner to a number of large enterprises in the US, UK and Australia. This acquisition not only significantly expands our presence in the US market, a key part of our growth strategy, but it also strengthens our scale and product proposition, with excellent cross-selling opportunities across the enlarged customer base. It therefore represents exciting progress in our aim to become a dominant and best in class provider for contact centre and payment protection solutions. We look forward to welcoming the PSS Help team to Eckoh and remain very excited about the future growth prospects for the Group in the US, UK and now the Australian markets.'

PSS Help has a proven product portfolio ranging from supporting client's legacy systems through to innovative desktop solutions for contact centre agents. Eckoh's strategy has been to provide a range of technology solutions that facilitate as much of consumers' engagement and journey, using their channel of choice, from initial contact through to their interaction with a contact centre agent (if this is required). PSS Help's product set and partnerships will enable Eckoh to begin to extend the reach of its solutions to the desktop of the agent and to the actual infrastructure underpinning this. This will serve to increase client value and assist with retention.

'We are extremely proud of what our employees have accomplished so far, always putting the customer's needs before their own', said Todd Funk, CEO, PSS Help. 'At PSS we have always said 'customer satisfaction is the true measure of our success'. The acquisition by Eckoh is extremely exciting because it gives us the ability to work with new, like-minded colleagues who have the same passion to make our customers successful. We will also gain a dynamic partner through which we can continue our success and offer our customers a market-leading combination of contact centre solutions and services.'

Eckoh has continued to make good progress with its direct international sales over the last year and PSS Help's international presence will complement Eckoh's current reach. In particular, with PSS Help already having an established presence in Australia via its contract with Telstra, Australia's largest telecommunications and media company, this provides a significant opportunity to enter the Australian secure payment market from which other markets in the region could also be exploited.

For further enquiries, please contact:

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

About Eckoh plc

Eckoh is a global provider of secure payment products and customer service solutions, working with organisations in over 10 countries around the world.

Our range of secure payment products removes customer card data from contact centres and IT environments. They are designed to help merchants reduce the risk of fraud and become compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Eckoh's CallGuard product can be deployed on the customer's site or hosted in the Cloud. It allows contact centres to take card payments from customers without their agents seeing, hearing or accessing card data in any way. We have been a PCI DSS Level One accredited Service Provider since 2010 and we currently process over $1 billion in card payments annually.

Eckoh's customer service solutions enable payments, transactions and enquiries to be processed without the caller needing to talk to a contact centre agent. This significantly reduces our clients' costs, whilst freeing up their agents to deal with more complex enquiries. These solutions are delivered over the phone, web and mobile devices. Eckoh is the largest provider of such hosted services in the UK.

For more information, visit: www.eckoh.com

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