Latest update to the HTK horizon platform delivers truly personalised IVR, SMS and email for contact centres and large enterprises

23 June 2010: HTK, the UK Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company for intelligent customer contact by email, voice and mobile text messaging, has announced the latest version of its multi-media platform, HTK Horizon. 

Horizon version 2.2 provides a dynamic IVR capability that automatically adapts to specific customer needs and preferences, reducing the number of calls met by static push-button menus and generic call-queues. Horizon’s high level of personalisation enables callers to find the information they need much faster, resulting in shorter calls, fewer transfers to live agents and more satisfied customers.

With CRM integration out-of-the-box, Horizon provides extensive easy-to–use options for profiling, classifying and targeting customers down to an individual level. This enables non-technical customer service and marketing managers to create personalised, multi-channel contact strategies – including proactive outbound IVR and SMS messaging.

“Traditionally, IVR has been perceived by customers as a cause of irritation, frustration and even anger, often leading to a degradation of customer loyalty and the destruction of brand value,” explains Marlon Bowser, CEO at HTK. “With customers increasingly demanding a return to ‘good old-fashioned personalised service’, press-1-for-this-and-2 for-that simply doesn’t cut it. This is often compounded by long call queues, making IVR a real bug-bear for customers and a major cause of concern to large enterprises.  Horizon delivers a much better customer experience than traditional IVR and represents a significant and important step forwards in the contact centre industry.”

In addition to an intuitive drag-and-drop user interface for the creation of highly personalised IVR services, Horizon 2.2 includes an integrated multimedia content management system, improved support for cost-centre reporting and a wide range of new and improved plug-in applications to automate routine business tasks.

“Not only can HTK Horizon transform the customer experience, but its dynamic IVR capability has already become a cornerstone of marketing campaign management for a leading UK mobile network operator,“ said Bowser. “Horizon is handling over 30 million calls per-year to deliver targeted marketing offers to its pre-pay subscriber base.”

With over 2,500 paying users, HTK Horizon is developing a strong reputation as a leading Cloud-based platform for customer service and marketing automation by interactive voice, email and SMS, with a mission to radically improve the customer experience and help organisations to use great customer service as a competitive differentiator.