Kana to extend self-service reach

CRM company Kana will unveil this week three self-service applications that extend the concept of knowledge-management-to-knowledge-services from the end-user to the customer service agent, heralding a new trend in service resolution management. 

Kana Agent IQ for Retail Banking, IQ for Branch Banking, and Agent IQ for Telecommunications are vertical enhancements to Kana’s knowledge-management-driven self-service capabilities that sit on top of the Agent IQ platform.

In exposing and integrating knowledge services to contact center agents to resolve service issues, a new trend in CRM is being revealed, according to Tim Hickernell, vice president at Meta Group. Hickernell said he expects other ISVs in this market such as Primus, RightNow Technology, and ServiceWare to follow suit. 

The technology will require additional interfaces to support those services to agents.    

“Ultimately, it requires a change in the architecture of the application and the service, said Hickernell.

Guy Hilbert, vice president of industry solutions at Kana, said as the number of services offered to customers multiples, especially in the telecommunications and financial services industries, the ability of a single agent to resolve customer service issues grows increasingly complex.

“We are now able to take our knowledge management products and put them in the hands of the agent. Once they know the context of the service, it enables them to resolve any issues,” said Hilbert.

Up until now, Kana customer service resolution solutions were fairly horizontal in approach. But as Kana goes deeper into supporting more of the resolution process, they must go vertical to be of value, according to Hickernell.

The retail banking solution offers agents best-practices decision support, guided access to content to resolve customer queries, and cross sell recommendations.

The telecommunications solution will give agents contextually relevant access to legacy accounts, customer equipment, and customer contract information in a single desktop view.

At the end of last year, Kana announced its intention to acquire Hipbone, a company that has chat, co-browsing, and file sharing technology. Kana’s Hilbert said those features will be integrated into these applications so that agents will be able to tap into “second tier service.”

Second tier service will allow customer service agents to contact in real time an expert agent without having to transfer the caller or put them on hold.

The future of self-service CRM solutions, which is now moving from customer facing to agent facing, will be extended even further.

“Once you make the changes to the fundamental architecture, the services can be exposed to anywhere, including channel partners such as distributors and retailers,” Hickernell said.

The three Kana vertical applications and a fourth, Customer IQ for Retail Banking, are shipping now.