Kana Delivers Cloud Customer Service Suite for Midmarket

Kana Software has unveiled a cloud customer service suite targeting midsize and growing businesses, as well as divisions and subsidiaries of larger enterprises. Kana Express features a new user interface, advanced analytics and international language support.

By leveraging cloud computing, Kana Express offers secure management of phone, email, live and automated chat, social and Web self-service channels “without the costs and complexities often associated with more traditional midmarket systems,” said Kana. Additionally, it scales to support hundreds of thousands of transactions daily and integrates with other front- and back-office systems.

“Kana Express is purpose-built to address midmarket needs,” James Norwood, chief marketing officer, Kana Software, said in a statement. “While alternatives are either too complex, take too long to implement or betray their low cost with light functionality, Kana Express is an affordable end-to-end, omni-channel service offering that midmarket organizations can implement quickly to realize a rapid return on investment.”

New features include a modern user interface (UI) for Internet Explorer, Chrome, Firefox and Safari browsers that helps agents resolve more customer issues at the first contact, reduce average handle times and increase quality scores. It also includes contextual knowledge management that displays relevant interaction and engagement history to agents and self-service Web customers.

An advanced reporting and analytics framework also was added, which offers users control over performance reporting, trend analysis and forecasting to help service teams stay ahead of issues and turn opportunities into revenue-generating activities, said Kana. Building on the existing reporting and analytics framework, the latest release also delivers extensive personalization, extended graphical visualization and expanded reporting options.

The new Agent Experience UI enables use on mobile devices, including tablets, and includes Section 508/AA compliancy for accessibility by people with disabilities. It provides user-definable time zones, international address validation and support for 30 languages out-of-the-box, including full support for double-byte character sets, allowing midmarket businesses to operate globally.

The new suite is available with flexible subscription pricing and service plans, implementation and training services, and subscription licenses that include a 30-day risk-free money-back guarantee.

Other companies are addressing the challenges of midmarket businesses. More networking, software and service providers are starting to realize the opportunities in this sector. As an example, VAI and Riva recently announced an integrated S2K enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) product for midmarket customers to give them faster access to critical business information.

Even Cisco Systems, known for selling to the enterprise, is paying more attention to the midmarket through its partner channel. That’s because the networking giant estimates that there are about 1.4 million midsize companies that will spend about $55 billion on technology and services by 2016.