British messaging services provider HTK has launched a new Web-based marketing platform that provides a unified and personalized approach to customer interaction.

HTK Horizon delivers a more effective and valuable customer experience by integrating SMS, MMS and WAP with a wide range of other inbound and outbound communication technologies, including interactive voice response (IVR), email and Web.

"HTK provides a platform that can help to improve customer loyalty, whilst reducing the operating cost of customer-interaction, through smarter implementation of a multichannel communications strategy that leverages CRM data and customer preferences,? said Marlon Bowser, CEO of HTK. ?The result can be a reduction in customer frustration? and other negative emotions that undermine customer-service automation and increased revenues through more successful marketing campaigns.

"Fundamentally, through the Software-as-a-Service pay-as-you-go model, the HTK Horizon platform enables class-leading customer-service and marketing automation programs without capital investment,? he said. ?HTK also provides training and other professional services, including a free-of-charge workshop program, to help businesses on the way to more intelligent customer contact.?

HTK Horizon is ideal for a wide range of applications such as sales and marketing, billing and payments, customer service and operations management. It can also be used for meeting reminders, providing emergency warnings and information via text message, email or voice. 

Because it is a Web-based, SaaS service it is fast to implement and easy to integrate, with on-demand, usage-based pricing and no up-front costs.

For example, a British wireless carrier ran an SMS campaign, with a call-to-action asking customers to reply to an outbound text message.

Using the multichannel capability of Horizon in a back-to-back test of 20,000 customers, the call-to-action was changed from an SMS response to an interactive voice response (IVR).

The marketing response rate improved from 10.8 percent to 27.9 percent, leading to a higher campaign conversion rate of 18.9 percent against 8.1 percent for the text-only campaign.

Other than the IVR response channel, the content of the outbound text message in both cases (two groups of 10,000 customers each) was equivalent.

HTK Horizon handles more than 30 million inbound marketing voice calls for the carrier each year.

All HTK customers can be notified of operational Horizon system changes and events of interest to them personally, anytime and anywhere. It can stay in close contact with its customers, without bombarding them with information that is not relevant, using the preferred communication channel (or channels) of each customer individually.

HTK has worked with several customers in the development of Horizon, including Cable & Wireless, BT and Specsavers. British mobile operator O2 is already using Horizon to interact with its pre-pay and post-pay mobile customers, using SMS call-to-actions and personalized inbound IVR response.

?Mobile is ubiquitous,? Mr. Bowser said. ?It allows us to communicate as and when we choose to, using all of our human senses and without constraint.

?If I want to read my correspondence, I can read it,? he said. ?If I want to talk I can talk, or if I want to type then I can choose how I do that ? from email to instant messaging and real-time text protocols such as Google Wave.

?And I can do any of that, when I want to, practically anywhere. Mobile is uniquely powerful as a business proposition and offers a progression of capabilities for tomorrow that will multiply any investment made today.?

Chris Harnick reported for this story.