Latest CRM Software Industry News

01.29.07
UK’s leading discount brokerage recognized for knowledge management practices that have yielded tremendous business benefits

MENLO PARK, Calif. – January 29, 2007 – KANA Software Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that TD Waterhouse UK, one of the UK’s largest brokers and part of the Toronto Dominion Bank Financial Group, received KMWorld magazine’s 2006 KM Realty Award for making knowledge management a positive reality. The recognition was based on TD Waterhouse’s “Project Resolve”, a knowledge-driven customer service initiative that leveraged KANA IQ in conjunction with IBM Global Business Services to transform the agent and customer experience.

Each year, KMWorld presents the KM Reality Award to an organization with a knowledge management program that has been in place for at least 18 months, has demonstrated senior management support, and has defined metrics to evaluate the program and its impact on organizational goals. This year, KMWorld honored TD Waterhouse UK for demonstrating leadership in the implementation of knowledge management practices and processes.

Using KANA IQ, TD Waterhouse agents now have the ability to quickly and accurately locate critical product and process information, resulting in increased agent productivity and customer satisfaction while reducing queue times and low-value interactions. In addition, the solution allows agents to be rapidly retrained to provide support across multiple lines of business – further enhancing their productivity and transforming the working environment. “KANA IQ understands and reacts to the context of a request and automatically responds with guidance for rapid resolution of customer inquiries,” said Darren Hepworth, Director of Customer Services at TD Waterhouse UK. “The solution has enabled us to optimize customer service and knowledge management within our contact center.”

As a KANA Global Strategic Alliance, IBM Global Business Services consultants played a key role in the project implementation. Optimizing the solution required development of a knowledge management strategy that efficiently integrated information provision with business processes. “IBM’s expertise, project management, and coaching skills were integral to the speed and ease of our implementation,” Hepworth said.

KMWorld judges were impressed by the immediate and substantive business results the knowledge management initiative produced. Within ten days of deploying KANA IQ, TD Waterhouse dramatically improved customer service. Customer hold times were reduced by 24 percent, escalations to the back office team were reduced by 17 percent, and overall call handling times were reduced by 8 percent. Overall, agents turned to KANA IQ for knowledge and process support in almost 90 percent of cases during the initial pilot.

“We are thrilled that our customer TD Waterhouse has been recognized by KMWorld magazine for its knowledge management program,” said Marchai Bruchey, chief marketing officer at KANA. “This acknowledgement is further validation of the ability of our solutions to transform the agent and customer experience. It is also a testament to KANA’s long-standing alliance with IBM Global Business Services and our joint efforts to provide enterprise customers with the resources and expertise needed for more rapid implementation, closer alignment of technology and business objectives and greater return on investment.”

01.22.07
KANA OnDemand Delivers the Enterprise-Class Performance and Scalability of its Award-Winning On-Premise Solutions via the Software as a Service Model

MENLO PARK, Calif. – January 22, 2007 – KANA Software Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced the availability of a fully integrated suite of OnDemand customer service solutions. Based on KANA’s award-winning on-premise applications, the KANA OnDemand suite delivers the enterprise-class security, reliability and performance required for high-volume customer service operations, as well as the traditional benefits of a Software as a Service (SaaS) solution, including lower total cost of ownership, more rapid implementation and faster time-to-value. As a result, organizations can deliver consistent, managed service across all channels, including email, chat, call center and Web self-service, more efficiently and cost effectively than ever before.

KANA’s multi-channel customer service solutions have repeatedly proven their ability to help companies significantly improve service quality, reduce costs and generate additional revenue from effective service and support interactions. To meet the growing demand for these market-leading capabilities in a SaaS delivery model, KANA introduced versions of KANA Response and KANA Response Live in 2005 in this model. Based on the success of this initial launch, and significant customer adoption, KANA is now bringing to market a full OnDemand suite of integrated multi-channel customer service solutions, including KANA Response OnDemand for high-volume email response management and case management; KANA Response Live OnDemand for live chat, co-browse and Web collaboration; and KANA IQ OnDemand, a knowledgebase solution for agent-assisted and Web self-service.

“While many companies are attracted to the SaaS model for its rapid implementation and lower costs, they still require the robust functionality and scalability of traditional software,” said Michael Fields, chief executive officer of KANA. “KANA’s OnDemand suite is built upon proven technologies that can effectively meet the needs of companies of all sizes, while reducing the cost and resources needed to deliver superior service and support across channels. In the coming months and years, we anticipate that the reputation and performance of our solutions will propel KANA to the forefront of the OnDemand customer service market.”

KANA also announced today that Virginia-based health insurance provider Optima Health is leveraging KANA Response OnDemand to more effectively interact with and service members via its rapidly growing email channel. Optima Health selected KANA Response OnDemand because it provided the depth of functionality to meet the company’s needs, including stringent data security requirements, without requiring large upfront capital outlays.

KANA provides access to the KANA OnDemand suite through robust, secure, tier one hosting facilities. These facilities are designed to manage multi-channel customer interactions and are equipped to deliver the security, reliability and performance required for high-volume customer service operations. KANA’s hosting facility has full network and power redundancy and is built to withstand most natural disasters. Moreover, the KANA OnDemand suite has built-in failover inherit within the applications. In the event that a server fails, the application will automatically failover to a backup server to ensure continued uptime.

With KANA OnDemand, businesses have complete flexibility to segregate data within one department or allow full cross departmental and company-wide data access within the same installation. This provides a true 360 degree view of a customer across multiple departments within an organization. In addition, KANA enables businesses to get started quickly and cost-effectively with KANA OnDemand while providing the ability to migrate to on-premise software at any time, as business needs and customer service requirements evolve. KANA leverages industry standard and accepted third party database software to move and port data from KANA OnDemand to the on-premise environment, ensuring seamless data migration.

The KANA OnDemand suite is available immediately. Pricing details are available upon request.

01.10.07
KANA Recognized as a Market Leader in Email Management and Knowledge Management

MENLO PARK, Calif., January 10, 2007 – Kana Software, Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced it has received two 2007 Readers’ Choice Awards from KMWorld magazine, garnering recognition in the technology areas of email management and knowledge management. The acknowledgement by KMWorld readers is further validation of the performance and business value of KANA’s multi-channel customer service solutions.

KMWorld conducts polls each year to gauge which technology companies its readers view as leaders in their respective sectors. Responses were provided through the Internet and at the KMWorld & Intranets 2006 Conference and Exposition, and the results are featured in the January 2007 issue of KMWorld magazine.

“We wanted to measure the elusive ‘Q-factor,’ or brand familiarity, of the leading vendors in our various marketplaces,” said KMWorld publisher Andy Moore. “All of our outreach efforts – whether the magazine, Web events, white papers, conferences – are aimed at connecting buyers of information technology with sellers. We wanted to see how knowledgeable our readers are as a result.”

He added, “Even though there were a few surprises, we were pleased that KMWorld readers really have a solid grasp – and definite opinions – of the marketplace and the many players within it.”

Leading organizations around the world rely on KANA’s integrated solutions to deliver accurate, consistent and timely service across channels, including email, chat, call centers and Web self-service. By delivering an exemplary service experience regardless of how customers choose to communicate, these businesses foster greater satisfaction and loyalty, resulting in increased revenues and improvements to the bottom line.

“KMWorld readers represent the voice of the market as well as our customers and prospects, so we’re thrilled to be recognized as a leader in email management and knowledge management,” said Marchai Bruchey, chief marketing officer at KANA. “We could not ask for more significant validation, and we look forward to continue bringing first-class customer service solutions to market in 2007 and beyond.”

01.08.07
Conference call to discuss results

MENLO PARK, Calif.– KANA Software, Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that the company expects total revenues for the fourth quarter of 2006 will be between $14.0 million and $14.2 million, an increase of approximately 23% year over year and 7% over the third quarter of 2006. Approximately $5.7 million is expected to be recognized as fourth quarter license revenue, a gain of 120% over last year and 30% above the third quarter.

The Company has cash and short-term investments of approximately $5.7 million at December 31, 2006, compared to $4.6 million at September 30, 2006.

“Our business was affected by a few sizeable license transactions that were not completed by quarter end,” said Michael Fields, CEO of KANA. “Although we are disappointed with not achieving our guidance, we did close a significant million-dollar plus transaction in the fourth quarter. We are also pleased to see sequential revenue improvement as well as improved transaction flow with an increased number of license transactions this quarter. It is clearly a challenge to manage the timing of some of the larger transactions. In the future, we plan to take a more conservative approach with respect to factoring in large transactions.”

“Overall, we continue to believe that we are well positioned given the strength of our products and partners, the market opportunity and the confidence that customers have in the value of KANA’s solutions. We are extremely pleased with the progress we made during 2006, including re-building the sales and sales management teams to capitalize on this opportunity in 2007,” Fields concluded.

Conference Call

KANA will host a conference call today, Monday, January 8, 2007 at 4:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST). The conference call is available via Web cast and can be accessed live, and after the call, at the Investor Relations section of KANA Software’s Web site at www.kana.com, or 617-786-2960 Passcode: 9863-5322. A replay of the Webcast will be available within 24 hours or by dialing 617-801-6888, Pin Number: 6092-1706.

KANA plans to release final results for the fourth quarter and year ended December 31, 2006 in February, and will announce the specific date and conference call information in the coming weeks.

All statements relating to the Company’s fourth quarter financial performance contained in this release are preliminary and may change based on the Company’s management and independent auditors completion of customary quarterly closing and review procedures.

12.20.06
Industry Veteran Steve Nesenblatt Joins KANA as Director of Federal Sales

MENLO PARK, Calif., December 20, 2006 – Kana Software, Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that the company is introducing its multi-channel customer service solutions to the federal government market. As part of this strategy, Steve Nesenblatt has joined the company as director of federal sales. Mr. Nesenblatt served previously as vice president, public sector for RightNow Technologies, Inc., where he successfully guided the public sector division to consistent and substantial revenue growth.

“There is tremendous demand for multi-channel customer service solutions in the public sector,” said Michael Fields, CEO of KANA. “Steve’s proven enterprise software sales acumen and strong relationships within the federal government will be invaluable to our efforts to grow this area of the business. Building upon this announcement, KANA expects to formalize its public sector strategy in the first half of 2007.”

“KANA’s proven technology and expertise will be vital to the efforts of Federal agencies to plan and execute a CSLIC model service strategy, ensuring that citizens receive accurate, timely and consistent service regardless of how they choose to communicate,” added Mr. Nesenblatt.

12.05.06
MENLO PARK, Calif. – December 5, 2006 – KANA Software Inc. (OTCBB: KANA.OB, formerly Pinksheets: KANA.PK), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that its shares of common stock have begun trading on the OTC Bulletin Board (OTCBB) under the ticker symbol KANA.OB.

“The upgrade to the OTC Bulletin Board reflects the resumption of current reporting requirements, as well as related operational efficiencies resulting from our efforts to streamline the organization over the past year,” said Michael Fields, KANA’s CEO and Chairman of the Board. “We anticipate that the listing on the OTC Bulletin Board will increase our corporate visibility and trading liquidity, making it easier for prospective investors to purchase our common stock. Building upon this achievement, KANA is working diligently to regain NASDAQ listing status as soon as possible.”

11.28.06
KANA IQ will Enable Europe’s Leading Independent Mobile Phone Retailer to Create a Single Source of Knowledge that Powers all Customer Interactions

MENLO PARK, Calif. – November 28, 2006 – KANA Software Inc. (PinkSheets: KANA), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that The Carphone Warehouse, the leading independent retailer of mobile phones and services in the world, has selected KANA IQ to provide a consistent, high quality customer experience across channels. By leveraging the KANA solution to create a single source of accurate, relevant and timely information, the company expects to increase both customer and employee retention while reducing service delivery costs.

With nearly 2,000 stores in 11 countries, The Carphone Warehouse is the world’s leading independent retailer of mobile phones and services. The company is committed to offering impartial and expert advice on a wide range of products plus unbeatable after sales care. In order to fulfill this mission and maintain its leadership in a highly competitive market, The Carphone Warehouse sought to transform its approach to customer service by developing a central knowledge repository accessible to employees and customers across multiple support channels, including email, telephone and the Web.

A critical component of the project is KANA IQ, KANA’s award-winning knowledgebase solution for agent-assisted and Web self-service. In particular, The Carphone Warehouse was impressed with KANA IQ’s guided knowledge approach, which asks clarifying questions and leverages multiple search and retrieval techniques to bring users to the most targeted relevant information. With the solution, the company expects to improve first contact resolution—increasing customer loyalty and retention while driving down support costs. In addition, KANA IQ will lower training times and bolster employee satisfaction by providing them with the information needed to do their jobs well.

“The KANA technology will significantly improve our ability to deliver a world-class customer experience across all CPW channels, including retail, the Web and the contact center,” said Michael McAuley, Head of Customer Experience at The Carphone Warehouse. “Whether our customers are looking for pre-sales, acquisition or post-sales service and support, we’ll be able to resolve their inquiries as quickly and accurately as possible, regardless of how they’ve chosen to interact with us.”

“The Carphone Warehouse is a product innovator and thought leader in the mobile marketplace,” added Marchai Bruchey, chief marketing officer at KANA. “It’s no surprise that such a progressive company recognizes the substantive business value of improving the customer experience. As leading companies like The Carphone Warehouse look to transform the experience through exemplary service and support, they continue to turn to KANA for the industry’s most scalable multi-channel customer service solutions.”

11.20.06
KANA Response Live Product Honored for Revolutionizing Customer Service and Support

MENLO PARK, Calif. – Nov. 20, 2006 – KANA Software Inc. (PinkSheets: KANA.PK), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that it has been named a Recognized Innovator by the Service & Support Professionals Association (SSPA), the largest and most influential association for technology services and support professionals. KANA was honored specifically for Customer Experience Innovation, and was showcased at the SSPA Services Leadership Conference held last week in Washington, D.C.

“While many areas of customer service and CRM technology are beginning to mature, only a select number of vendors continue to deliver pure innovative products and services,” said SSPA Vice President of Research John Ragsdale. “KANA is truly an innovator in its space and is commended for enabling support organizations to revolutionize the way they service customers.”

Tightly integrated with KANA’s multi-channel suite, KANA Response Live is a comprehensive solution for live chat and Web collaboration that enables customers and prospects to instantly engage with agents via the Web, ensuring that self-service transactions are resolved as quickly as possible and without escalation to calls into the contact center. The latest version includes transfer/conference enhancements and new intra-agent chat capabilities, improving the ability of agents to identify and collaborate with the right-skilled individuals in real-time to assist with the resolution of more complex inquiries.

In addition, KANA Response Live’s sophisticated proactive chat model enables organizations to define business rules that automatically identify and engage Web site visitors who are confused, have questions or are having problems completing transactions. By ensuring that any issues are resolved in real-time, KANA Response Live reduces online abandonment rates while improving overall customer satisfaction.

“We’re thrilled to be recognized by the SSPA for our ongoing commitment to customer service innovation,” said Marchai Bruchey, chief marketing officer of KANA. “With the industry’s most advanced live chat and Web collaboration capabilities, KANA Response Live empowers organizations to maintain an exemplary customer experience, even amid increasing product complexity and exponential growth of eChannel volumes.”

KANA was a winner in the Customer Experience Innovation category. Companies are realizing that delivering an exceptional customer experience is the greatest competitive differentiator they have. The innovative SSPA partners in the Customer Experience category are enabling unique, differentiating experiences for both business and consumer customers.

More information on the SSPA Services Leadership Conference and SSPA Recognized Innovators can be found at www.thesspa.com.

11.14.06
MENLO PARK, Calif. – November 14, 2006 – KANA Software Inc. (PinkSheets: KANA.PK), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that KANA CTO Charlie Isaacs will participate in a panel discussion at the Enterprise Software Roundtable: An Industry in Metamorphosis conference. Presented by Economist Conferences, the event will take place Thursday, November 16, 2006 at the Four Seasons Hotel in East Palo Alto, California.

Who: Charlie Isaacs, chief technology officer at KANA Software; Renee James, vice president and general manager, Software and Solutions Group, Intel; Raj Nathan, senior vice president, Information Technology Solutions Group, Sybase; and John Senor, president, iWay Software Division, Information Builders.

What: Mr. Isaacs, Ms. James, Mr. Nathan, and Mr. Senor will lead a panel discussion entitled “Trends in Global Sourcing and Markets.” The panel forum is designed to stimulate timely, impromptu discussions in an interactive roundtable format, and will provide attendees with insight into the following topics:

 The dynamics of growth: Geography and the sources of talent
 New frontiers in global sourcing: Research and development
 Off-shore testing and customer service
 Evolving markets in the rapidly developing world: Demographics and evolving business processes

When: Thursday, November 16, 2006 at 9:40a.m. PST

Where: Four Seasons Hotel Silicon Valley
2050 University Avenue
East Palo Alto, California 94303

11.09.06
Discussions at the SSPA Services Leadership and Shared Insights Customer Contact Conferences to Focus on the Role of Live Chat and Self-Service in an Effective Multi-Channel Strategy

MENLO PARK, Calif. – November 9, 2006 – KANA Software Inc. (PinkSheets: KANA.PK), a world leader in multi-channel customer service, today announced that the company will be presenting at two upcoming industry events: the SSPA Services Leadership Conference, which will take place November 12-14, 2006 in Washington, D.C., and the Shared Insights Customer Contact Conference, being held November 13-15, 2006 in Boston, MA.

Anand Chopra, director of product marketing at KANA, will present at the SSPA Services Leadership Conference on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 9:30 a.m. EST. Mr. Chopra and Zach McGeary, associate analyst at Jupiter Research, will spearhead a breakout session entitled “Chatting for Commerce – Leveraging Live Chat to Maximize Sales and the Online Customer Experience.” The two industry experts will discuss the emergence of live chat as a viable service and support channel. Attendees will gain firsthand advice on implementing live chat as part of their multi-channel strategies, as well as best practices on effectively applying sophisticated chat capabilities to maximize customer satisfaction, online sales and ROI.

On Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 1:15 p.m. EST, Kate Leggett, director of product management, knowledge management at KANA will participate in a panel session at the Shared Insights Customer Contact Conference. Entitled “The Road to Effective Self Service that Your Customers Will Love!” the panel will explore key considerations in the design, execution and continuous improvement of customer self service channels. In particular, panelists will address how customer care professionals can optimize self-service channels to enhance customer loyalty, provide a unique and enriching customer experience, generate additional revenue opportunities and reinforce a brand image across channels.