Real-Time Customer Service Solution Supports Co-browsing, Text Chat, and Internet Callback
MENLO PARK, Calif., February 25, 2004 –KANA (NASDAQ: KANA), a leading provider of knowledge-powered customer service applications, today announced KANA Response Live , a KANA Assisted-Service module for Web collaboration, online chat and co-browsing that enables companies to provide real-time interaction over the Web, reducing abandonment rates, positively impacting customer satisfaction and increasing the profitability of each customer relationship.
Organizations are increasingly demanding customer service solutions that enable them to interact with customers in real-time over the Web. Web collaboration enables customer service agents to chat customers through issues, while co-browsing allows agents to guide customers through on-line transactions, delivering higher completion rates of Web-based transactions and more satisfied customers.
KANA Response Live delivers on this vision by enabling healthcare, financial services, technology and telecommunications companies to increase on-line transaction close rates and customer satisfaction. KANA Response Live allows customer service agents to chat and co-browse with customers at the perfect time to assist them through on-line transactions.
KANA Response Live provides a valuable communication channel that allows our customers to easily interact with our representatives during their online banking transaction, said Randy Adams, Senior Vice President at Wells Fargo. This ensures our customers have the support they need to complete their online banking transactions with ease and confidence.
The KANA Response Live solution helps companies more effectively reach, serve, and retain customers by offering a superior online experience. The product includes the following capabilities:
— Text Chat and Predefined Responses (PDRs) – Provides text chat messages and PDRs consisting of pre-formatted responses or free form messages for frequently asked questions, along with agent spell check and keyword blocking for professional communications.
— Multiple Chat/Co-browse Sessions – Contact center agents can interact simultaneously with up to four customers for both text chat and co-browse. Response Live is the only product available in the market that supports multiple co-browse sessions.
— Queueing and Routing – Response Live provides the ability to route Web requests in a similar manner to a call center system that is, based on skill-base, product focus, language, or other customer designated factors.
— Agent Transfer – Agents can transfer a customer to another agent, or escalate the issue to a manager, if they need assistance. In this case, both the text chat transcript and co-browse information are automatically passed to the new agent.
— Service Level Monitoring – Using Response Live’s Supervisor Console, supervisors and contact center management can obtain a real-time view of the queue and agent group statistics. The console also allows supervisors to modify queue priorities, send whisper messages, and adjust agent group properties to correct any resource or service level issue that may arise.
KANA Response Live integrates with the entire KANA iCARE suite, including KANA Response for e-mail management and KANA IQ for self-service. When integrated with KANA Response, text chat messages are routed based on the queuing, routing and workflow of the industry’s leading e-mail management solution. In addition, the Response Live text transcripts are stored within KANA Response’s e-mail exchanges to provide a complete customer interaction history.
KANA IQ and KANA Response Live provide significantly enhanced agent support, enabling agents to easily access answers to customer questions without abandoning the chat screen. When Response Live is added to KANA IQ for Self- and Assisted-Service, customers gain the ability to escalate the interaction from self-service to agent-assisted service.
KANA Response Live enhances our multi-channel contact center solution and provides the collaboration capabilities our customers are seeking, said Brian Kelly, executive vice president of marketing and product strategy at KANA. Web collaboration is an extremely effective communication tool to reach high-value customers and ensure higher satisfaction and transaction rates among the customer base. Organizations that deploy KANA Response Live benefit from more profitable customer relationships.
KANA Assisted Service, part of KANA’s overall Service Resolution Management suite that also includes Self Service and Proactive Service solutions, ensures that agents have transparent access to current and consistent knowledge, as well as effective means of communicating and interacting with customers. With KANA Assisted Service, enterprises can reduce agent-training time and dramatically increase agent productivity.
KANA`s CRM solutions address the needs of Global 2000 organizations in healthcare, telecommunications, financial services, high technology and other markets, giving businesses a competitive advantage and increasing their ability to service, market to and understand their customers. Companies around the world benefit from KANA`s knowledge-powered approach to managing customer relationships, which combines sophisticated analytics with thin-client Web architecture to deliver extraordinary customer interactions that decrease costs and drive revenue.
About KANA
KANA (NASDAQ: KANA) provides enterprise customer support and communications applications enabling organizations to better service, market to, and understand their customers and partners. Optimized for specific vertical industries, KANA`s iCARE applications are in use at more than half of the world`s largest 100 companies. An award-winning, modular suite of eCRM applications available on J2EE and .Net, KANA iCARE applications enable customers to do business when, where and how they want, improving customer experiences while decreasing costs in contact centers and marketing departments. KANA`s partner-centric business model includes strategic relationships with the largest systems integrators in the world to support and sell KANA iCARE. For more information visit www.kana.com .
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-looking Statements Under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:
Information in this release regarding KANA’s forecasts, projections, expectations, beliefs, and intentions are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. These statements include statements about KANA’s expected revenue, operating results, EBITDA, cash flows, long-term success, new business and market position. All forward-looking statements included in this release are based upon information available to KANA as of the date of this release, which may likely change, and we assume no obligation to update any such forward-looking statement. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results could differ materially from our current expectations. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to: competition in our marketplace, including introductions of new products or services, or reductions in prices, by competitors; risks associated with lack of market acceptance of KANA’s products or services; inability to enhance and develop our products and services within budget and on schedule; inability to attract and retain qualified employees, to manage cash and expenditures or to expand sales; inability to manage our business in light of recent personnel reductions; KANA’s history of losses; the effect of potential military action and terrorist activities; and slow economic conditions, particularly as they affect spending by our prospective customers on eCRM and similar enterprise software products. These and other factors are risks associated with our business that may affect our operating results and are discussed in KANA’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and our quarterly reports on Form 10-Q.
NOTE: KANA is a registered trademark, and KANA Software, KANA iCARE, KANA Contact Center, KANA IQ, KANA ResponseIQ, KANA Response, KANA Marketing, KANA iCARE Analytics and the KANA logo are trademarks of KANA Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Contact Information:
Jessica Hohn
KANA
508/598-3356
[email protected]
Jason Ouellette/Renee Miller
PAN Communications for KANA
978/474-1900
[email protected]