You must question whether a company believes in customer service when you get a never-ending list of menus when you call the 800 number. Then again, it's not always necessary to get a live person for help.
That's where Intervoice (NASDAQ:INTV) is finding opportunity. The company is a leading provider of speech-enabled software. Basically, callers can use voice prompts to get the information they need. No need for touch-tone menus or long waits to speak with a customer service rep.
In fact, Intervoice has more than 23,000 active deployments with companies such as Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD), Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), and SBC (NYSE:SBC).
Last week, the company announced its quarterly results. Intervoice posted revenues of $44.3 million, a 6.5% increase from the same period a year ago. Net income was much more impressive, increasing from $3.6 million to $5.1 million. It seems Intervoice is having success keeping its cost structure under control.
In the quarter, the company generated $3.5 million in cash, with the total balance at $49 million. Moreover, Intervoice is accumulating a nice backlog, which stood at $40.2 million and represented a 33.6% increase from last year.
Intervoice has had success with forging strategic partnerships. For example, the company has an alliance with Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ), which should result in better products and access to new customers. Its biggest alliance may be with Microsoft. The deal deploys Microsoft's new .Net technologies and is already bearing fruit with customer wins such as Gtech (NYSE:GTK).
Unfortunately, the company has a black eye from possible accounting irregularities in 2000 and 2001 -- a time when a variety of software companies got too aggressive. The good news is that the company's audit committee is investigating the matter.
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Fool contributor Tom Taulli owns none of the stocks mentioned in this article.
