Press ReleasesKANA Introduces New Era Of Customer Service With KANA 10priceline.com Selects KANA 10 To Streamline Service Processes and Further Enhance Customer ExperienceMenlo Park, Calif. – June 30, 2009 – KANA Software, Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in innovative customer service solutions, today announced availability of KANA 10, the industry’s first service experience management (SEM) platform for managing the entire customer service experience. This new solution, which gives major corporations and institutions the control needed to help ensure their customers receive exceptional service, has been selected by online travel service provider priceline.com. Developed in conjunction with IBM and KANA customers, KANA 10 is a Web services-based solution that fuses the IBM service-oriented architecture (SOA) portfolio with KANA’s decade of experience in knowledge management and messaging with new ‘experience flow’ functionality, all in a Web 2.0 platform. KANA 10 brings a new era of flexibility and control to customer service. It can replace traditional approaches by enabling companies to rapidly model and deploy their customers’ entire service experiences. KANA 10 also transcends traditional solutions in which critical customer information resides in separate applications or silos that are difficult to integrate, making it hard for businesses to adjust quickly to changing business conditions. With KANA 10’s Web services architecture, customers’ existing technology and resources are linked into a single application, providing a seamless experience that can be managed by executives and easily accessed by customer service agents (CSRs). All KANA 10 users, whether a business analyst or CSR, will have a unified view of all pertinent customer information. Business leaders can quickly and effectively design, deploy, and modify customer service processes, or ‘experience flows,’ allowing for real-time process optimization that helps increase revenue, reduce risk, and ensure consistent service. KANA CEO Michael Fields elaborated, “Working closely with companies like priceline.com has shown us that companies today need dynamic new technology platforms that let service executives control business processes as needed and provide CSRs streamlined ways to more rapidly provide customers the information they want. That’s precisely what KANA 10 is designed to do.” A longstanding KANA customer, priceline.com is a good example of the customer service evolution taking place at progressive enterprises. “Priceline.com wanted a solution that increased our agility in accommodating varying business conditions and changes in products to ensure our customers have the ideal service experience,” said priceline.com’s Chief Technology Officer, Ron Rose. “KANA 10, with its experience flow capability, provided us with the ability to accomplish that.” Balancing KPIs Forrester Research stated in its April 2009 report titled, “The State Of Customer Experience, 2009,” that “With more access to information, more sensitivity to price, and less sensitivity to advertising, customers are getting harder to win and keep. Organizations try to woo these empowered consumers with mediocre customer experiences — but it won’t work. Firms need to dramatically raise the bar on the customer experience they provide.” To this end, in October 2008 research titled “The Forrester Wave™: Customer Service Software Solutions, Q4 2008,” Forrester also reported that the next generation of customer service applications will integrate three core capabilities — providing multichannel interactions, automating multiple business processes, and accessing multiple customer databases and data sources. Proven IBM SOA Technology “KANA 10 exemplifies how a Web services-based solution can radically benefit businesses today,” said Beth Smith, Vice President of Business Development for IBM WebSphere. “Our partnership with KANA has resulted in a solution that fits ideally into IBM’s ‘smarter planet’ initiative. KANA 10 lets customers integrate disparate customer service systems, knowledge, process, and information, and effectively leverage them across all service channels. This is an excellent example of leveraging Web services in a service-oriented environment. Leveraging IBM's WebSphere Process Server, KANA’s solution provides a reliable platform for providing business agility for human workflow, rapid process changes, and efficient use of resources.” KANA 10’s key features include:
KANA 10 is available immediately from KANA and IBM. Additional Resources:
http://www.kana.com/index.php/service-experience-management.html
http://www.kana.com/images/stories/flash/Kana10_short.html
About IBM: For details on how IBM is helping clients and Business Partners to make smarter, faster decisions by using SOA, visit http://www.ibm.com/soa. About KANA: KANA is a world leader in multi-channel customer service. KANA's integrated solutions allow companies to deliver consistent, managed service across all channels, including email, chat, call centers, and Web self-service, so customers have the freedom to choose the service they want, how and when they want it. KANA's clients report double-digit increases in customer satisfaction, while reducing call volumes by an average of 20 percent. KANA's award-winning solutions are proven in more than 600 companies worldwide, including approximately half of the world's largest 100 companies. For more information, visit http://www.KANA.com. NOTE: KANA is a registered trademark of KANA Software, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. # # # # Press/Media Lauren Dresnick, 650-343-2735 |