No Need to Check Your List Twice with Greenstar

DUBLIN, IRELAND, December 17, 2010 (Press-News.org) Recycling company Greenstar is making life easier for its customers this Christmas with bin collection and billing reminder texts. Using a bulk texting service from SMS provider, Phonovation, Greenstar sends reminders to customers' mobiles the night before their bin is due to be collected. The service is proving very popular with the majority of their 70,000 domestic customers already signed up.

The SMS service is also being used to send billing reminders to customers, with the result that an extra 5,000 customers a week are paying on time. When customers receive a text they can conveniently click through to a phone line, also provided by Phonovation, to check their account balance and pay their bill.

Commenting on the Phonovation service, Alice Keogh, Head of Customer Services from Greenstar said: "The SMS reminder service has delivered real results for us. More customers are paying on time and the volume of calls to our call centre about billing and bin collection has fallen significantly. Our call centre agents can now concentrate on finding and retaining new customers, which will help us grow the business into the future."

Phonovation is currently the only company in Ireland offering a dual automated Integrated Voice Response (IVR) payment mechanism and SMS service. Companies using the service only pay per SMS delivered and can track customers' responses, making it highly cost-effective and measurable.

Following an investment of EUR500,000 in its SMS network, Phonovation can now handle 650,000 texts per hour and 2,100 calls simultaneously. Gavin Carpenter, Sales Director of Phonovation, said: "This SMS reminder service makes a lot of sense for Greenstar as it helps them not only to stand out amongst their competitors but also to ensure a better cashflow- crucial today for every business."

He continued: "By simplifying the payment process, our clients are cutting costs, saving time and delivering an all-round better experience to their customers. Other ways in which the service is being used include marketing and promotions, security authentication, appointment setting and enquiry handling."

For further information please contact:
Odharnait Ansbro
Bvisible Communications http://www.bvisible.ie _http://www.bvisible.ie/_
01 845 2401
bernice@bvisible.ie

About Phonovation
Phonovation is an Irish owned, privately funded company founded in 1988 and specialising in Integrated Voice Response (IVR) and SMS solutions as well as mobile and web apps. It supplies content and response facilities, from information awareness campaigns to automated 24 hour payment lines, to a variety of public and private organisations. Customers include the ESB, the HSE, Greenstar and most of Ireland's national newspapers and broadcasters including RTE.

In 2009 Phonovation processed nearly 15 million calls and text messages. It has the capacity to answer 1,740 calls simultaneously, making it the largest IVR platform in Ireland. The company currently employs 16 top level staff. More information can be found at http://www.phonovation.com _http://www.phonovation.com/_

About Greenstar

Greenstar is Ireland's leading provider of environmental, waste management and recycling solutions. Employing more than 760 people across 40 sites nationwide. Greenstar currently provides household waste and recycling services to over 70,000 household customers in eleven counties nationwide including Cork, Dublin, Waterford, Wexford, Wicklow, Sligo, Donegal, Kilkenny , Mayo, Limerick and Co. Down.

Greenstar provides waste management solutions to industry, business and domestic customers and in FY2008/9 handled over 1.1 million tonnes of waste, recycling or recovering over 60% of that waste.

Greenstar has invested over EUR320M since it was founded in 1999 to develop essential integrated waste management infrastructure and is making further investment in its Dublin operations to produce fossil fuel substitutes (SRF) from waste previously sent for disposal. In 2010, Greenstar will generate enough energy from recycled waste to power 35,000 homes.

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