Customer Care

West Corp. (News - Alert), which offers outsourced communication solutions to businesses, has reportedly completed its acquisition of TeleVox Software, Inc., which offers communication and automated messaging services to the healthcare industry.

West announced in early February that it had signed agreements to acquire TeleVox Software and CenterPost Communications in separate transactions. The CenterPost transaction is still pending.

Both TeleVox and CenterPost are fast-growing firms in the notifications market. TeleVox’s solutions help its health care customers to more effectively communicate with their patients, reducing no-shows and improving the overall patient experience.

Meanwhile, CenterPost provides self-service automated notification solutions. Companies using CenterPost applications can communicate with customers via e-mail, fax, wireless text and instant messaging. The company focuses on clients in the pharmaceutical, travel, insurance and financial services industries.

The CenterPost transaction is also expected to close this quarter. The total cost of both transactions - before transaction expenses and working capital adjustments - is approximately $161 million.

West said in earlier statements that it expects automated notifications to become a market opportunity of over $1 billion by 2009. The company hopes to become number one in this market segment, which is currently fragmented with no clear leader.

West, which had its first billion-dollar year in 2004, reported $1.86 billion in revenue for last year and said that with the help of two acquisitions it would hit $2.05 billion to $2.13 billion this year.

In a company statement released in early February, West CEO Thomas B. Barker said the acquisition of TeleVox and CenterPost will significantly add to West’s strengths. Both businesses revolve around managing voice-oriented transactions and offer a strong recurring revenue model with solid margins. West brings to the table economies of scale, access to critical capital investment and expertise in developing large and successful sales organizations.

The company is betting that the increasing use of mobile communications will help drive the growth of automated notifications, which alert people by phone or e-mail about such things as medical appointments, flight cancellations and bank account and credit card changes. Recent research shows that companies are increasingly moving toward self-service applications. As a result, they will need increased notification services.

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Patrick Barnard is Assignment Editor for TMCnet and a columnist covering the telecom industry. To see more of his articles, please visit Patrick Barnard’s columnist page.