Phonovation Makes €500k Network Investment

Increased Demand for SMS and Phone Services Result in Expansion and New Hires

November 19th 2010

Phonovation, an Irish SMS and Integrated Voice Response (IVR) company, announced today that it has invested €500k in a network expansion. The investment is being made off the back of increased demand for its services and will increase the company’s call handling and SMS capacity by 50%.

Phonovation now has the ability to answer 2,100 calls simultaneously and send 650,000 texts per hour on behalf of its clients. These include Quinn Healthcare, UPC, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) and the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA).

Made over the past six months, the investment was used for additional hardware, hosting and staff. The company is currently hiring an additional three network administration and engineering staff.

Gavin Carpenter, Sales Director of Phonovation, said: “The investment was necessary to meet this demand now and well into the future. We have seen a big uptake in combining voice and SMS services for business communications, especially amongst utility companies. So, for example, one way in which the integrated service is being used is to text customers a reminder to pay their bill, with the option of clicking through to a 24/7 automated payment line.”

The SMS service is also being used by businesses to send bulk texts to customers for security authentication, appointment setting and enquiry handling.

Carpenter continued, “In today’s world of information overload, it’s been proven that SMS is very well suited to the way we want to communicate and be communicated with. When you add an automated telephone booking and payment service to this, you can see how effective a tool it is for doing business.”

The effectiveness of SMS was proven earlier this year when a study, conducted in June, revealed that 99% of all text messages sent are read by the recipient (Mobile Squared, June 2010). According to the Direct Marketing Association’s 2010 Response Rate Trend Report, texting has much higher response and conversion rates than other media.

Carpenter continued: “Thanks to its low cost and ease of use, SMS is still a very important element of mobile communication. With five million mobile phone subscribers now in Ireland the potential for enhancing and improving business by SMS in Ireland is huge.”

In October, Phonovation revealed a strategy to expand into Europe with integrated voice and SMS services.