KANA introduces "industry first" end-to-end omnichannel service solution

Customer experience provider KANA has revamped its Enterprise solution to deliver a new omnichannel customer service suite, claiming to be the industry’s first end-to-end tool.

Combining its knowledge management services with Sword Ciboodle’s BPM and contact centre capabilities, which it acquired last year, head of product software Steven Thurlow explains that instead of thinking simply in multichannel, KANA has now taken a holistic approach.

“That enables the customer to have the channel of their choice at the right time and that's key to be able to engage the customer at every point that they want to touch an organisation but then also to offer a consistent experience both in terms of knowledge and processes that can underpin that,” Thurlow told MyCustomer.com in an interview.

Based on the new “everyone serves” mantra, the next generation of Enterprise intends to underpin the entire customer journey with a service ethos. According to the firm, this will reduce customer effort as they are assisted when moving from one channel to another – removing frustrating repetition – whilst knowledge capabilities provide context and reduce effort for the service agent.

Interactive channel choices such as video and virtual assistant also prevents agents from dealing with unnecessary burdens so they can focus on higher value customers, said KANA.

Meanwhile, listen and respond activity streams embedded within the web-based dashboard enable agents to deal with customers’ service requests from social channels, as well as the ability to deal with queries from chat, email, social and search via their smart devices while on the go.

James Norwood, CMO for KANA Software, said of the launch: “KANA Enterprise is the biggest product launch in our history because it unifies the best of all KANA solutions on a single platform creating the industry’s first true end-to-end customer service suite.

“Some industry commentators suggest end-to-end customer service is still five years out from mainstream adoption, but we firmly believe and have substantiated with customers that the need is here today. Together with these forward-thinking businesses we’re redefining customer service.”

Early adopters of the platform so far include Salmat, Australia’s largest and most experienced provider of outsourced contact center solutions, and a European commercial airline.

David Besson, CEO of Salmat Customer Engagement Solutions, said: “We needed a solution that could seamlessly integrate customer information, workflow processes and communication channels through a single, unified agent desktop that enables our agents to service our clients’ customers as efficiently as possible – that solution was KANA Enterprise.”

KANA bought Sword Ciboodle in July last year for an undisclosed sum, claiming the move was intended to bolster KANA's value proposition, particularly around agent desktop, business process and case management in the contact centre, and social CRM communities on the web.

Ovum analyst Aphrodite Brinsmead said at the time that the acquisition highlighted a key trend in customer service to integrate web services with the voice driven contact centre.

She said: “Enterprises need to connect customer touchpoints and channels in order to improve the customer experience and ultimately increase customer loyalty. But in order to do this they need better tools to manage and match interactions across web chat, social media and communities with those through email and voice."

KANA Enterprise is available via Cloud, on-premise and hybrid models.