Sep 17, 2008 - Reston, VA - Contact Solutions (CSI), the leader in contact automation, announced that its customer RideCharge has introduced a compelling business traveler application that takes full advantage of the CSI shared IVR services. The integrated solution allows business travelers to quickly and easily reserve, pay for, and receive confirmation of payment for ground travel—taxis, sedans and shuttles. There is no other solution on the market that integrates all of these key components. The ability to automate the process using CSI shared IVR services adds significant value to the entire operation.</br><br />RideCharge provides major corporations with travel management software that allows their business travelers to electronically book, pay for and document their taxi travel expenses. Once a traveler books a taxi online with RideCharge, the system inserts that booking into the taxi company’s dispatch system and it shows up as a pickup reservation on the driver’s computer. Once in the car, the passenger can dial-in using a cell phone to a system built by Contact Solutions to pay for the taxi. Upon payment a message is sent to the driver, and RideCharge bills the traveler’s credit card and sends the cash to the taxi fleet.</br><br />Contact Solutions Chief Executive Officer Paul Logan said, “The IVR application we built with RideCharge has been amazingly successful right out of the gate. RideCharge customers love it, and it’s a totally new use of IVR—a real-time alternative payment system.”</br><br />RideCharge eliminates the estimated 20-30% of often accidental over-reporting of taxi expenses by employees with verifiable electronic receipts. It protects against traveler identity theft, by enabling travelers to pay for taxis without handing a credit card to a driver.</br><br />“The IVR system that CSI built for RideCharge allows any traveler carrying a mobile phone to quickly and securely pay for taxi rides from the back seat of the car, without using cash, all in a completely automated fashion, “said RideCharge President Sanders Partee, “It’s a major innovation in the use of IVR technology to improve the business travel experience.”</br><br />RideCharge also allows travelers to book trips online or on mobile smart phones, such as Blackberries. The system provides real-time ‘where’s my car’ updates to travelers’ mobile phones, and E-receipts are auto-emailed to travelers, eliminating paper receipts tracking. RideCharge enhances traveler safety by allowing travelers to avoid hailing unidentified taxis off the street, often late at night in unfamiliar cities, with no record of the car being dispatched or the driver identity. RideCharge has been received with excitement by travel managers and travelers alike.</br><br />A video of how this works can be found at <a href="www.ridecharge.com/video">www.ridecharge.com/video</a>.</br><br /><strong>About RideCharge</strong></br><br />RideCharge offers the first Direct Connect Taxi booking and expense management engine at <a href="http://www.ridecharge.com/">http://www.ridecharge.com/</a>. With innovative use of web and mobile phone technology, RideCharge delivers a new level of convenience to business travelers. RideCharge allows travel managers to control ground transportation costs by providing electronic booking, payment, and expense management for taxi, sedan, limo and shuttle services. RideCharge gets rid of paper receipts, allows travelers to find reliable service in unfamiliar cities, and helps streamline ground transportation costs. When using RideCharge as a traveler, you’ll experience a new level of convenience. You can book reliable vehicles that are tracked electronically to deliver patent pending ‘where’s my car’ messages directly to your mobile phone, in real time. When your car is 10 minutes away, you’ll know. When it’s outside, you know. Stuck in a meeting, but need to book a car? No problem: RideCharge lets you book rides on your mobile phone. The trips are automatically inserted into your itinerary and the resulting charge is automatically captured and added to your expense report. You even pay for your rides with your mobile phone by electronically sending charges to your corporate card, so you don’t have to carry cash and never have to track paper receipts again. You book, charge, and expense—all with no paper and no hassle.</br><br /><strong>About Contact Solutions</strong></br><br />Contact Solutions (CSI) saves its call center clients millions of dollars by significantly improving their contact automation while uplifting customer satisfaction levels. Deploying time-tested shared IVR services, world-class IVR applications and procedures, and an industry-leading project management approach focused on Continuous Improvement around six distinct Centers of Excellence; the company has helped the contact center industry redefine contact automation standards. Large enterprises such as American Express, Delta Airlines, Motorola and many government entities benefit from the company's focused, cost-effective contact automation approach. Contact Solutions is based in Reston, VA. Visit Contact Solutions at <a href="www.contactsolutions.com">www.contactsolutions.com</a>.<br /></br><br />©2008 Contact Solutions, Inc. All rights reserved. All trademarks and company names mentioned are the property of their respective owners.