SALT LAKE CITY, Dec. 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- When your corporate mission is to deliver the best customer service solutions on the market so that leading organizations throughout the world can cultivate loyal and profitable customers, delivering excellent customer service yourself becomes paramount to achieving that vision. That's the challenge KANA Software Inc. (OTC:KANA), faced when it decided to shut down an outsource center in India and backshore a previously decentralized worldwide support operation. A world leader in multi-channel customer service, KANA supports more than 600 companies worldwide and counts more than half of the world's largest 100 companies in that base. In 2006, KANA, based in Menlo Park, Calif., determined it was time to close a 20-person outsourced customer support operation based in India and centralize three in-house support centers located around the world under one common contact handling system. The company immediately began research on contact handling technology suppliers, an effort that lead to the selection of the UCN (OTC:UCNN) (BULLETIN BOARD: UCNN) inContact(TM) product as its core contact distribution and voice interaction (ACD/IVR) system. The Challenge According to KANA VP of Customer Service, Tony Sung, there were three top criteria driving vendor selection: 1. The system had to be flexible and on-demand. "We wanted a system that was adaptable to our growing business needs" said Sung. "Currently, we have three support centers, two in the United States and one in Europe. We wanted the option of using home-based agents. We wanted the option of having multiple support centers in multiple geographic areas." In contrast, points out Sung, "a premises-based solution is not flexible and it generates several hundred thousand dollars in up front costs and ongoing 'soft costs', like technical staff to support the hardware." 2. The system had to support traditional TDM phone equipment. "Even though VoIP technology may be jazzy and new," observed Sung, "it's not bullet proof, which can result in poor voice quality and lead to a bad customer experience. Until those technologies mature a bit, VoIP is not an option." 3. The vendor had to be reputable, have a good product and good support people who know the contact center space. The Solution Part of KANA's customer service vision is to offer continuous support no matter where the caller is located. To achieve this vision, KANA first segmented the world into three large regions, then assigned a discrete phone number to each region. As a result, all worldwide support calls are routed to one of three UCN numbers, then into inContact for centralized call handling and reporting. A different set of call handling and routing rules are applied to each regional phone number. For example, Pacific Rim customers may be routed to Amsterdam or Menlo Park, depending on time of day. U.S. customers call one common toll-free number and may be routed to Menlo Park or Manchester, New Hampshire. Using inContact to deliver an inbound caller to the right support person with the right product skills is one example of how KANA is leveraging technology to reduce overall wait time for its customers. First, inContact looks at the originating number of the inbound caller. If it recognizes that number as an existing customer on a specific product, then the call is immediately routed to the first available agent with the right product skills. If the customer has more than one product, an IVR presents a product selection menu to the customer, then the call is routed to the right product specialist. This process is currently deployed in the US, with plans to roll out worldwide in 2007. Managing customer service levels is another element of the system, according to Sung. For example, in the US, after-hours the system asks for a four-digit account code, performs a look up and verifies the code. If it's a premium customer, the process goes to a paging service and calls the on-duty support person. If it's not a premium service customer, then the call is sent to voice mail, where the messaged is queued and handled by the support team in the morning. Business Benefits Since all calls are handled by a single system, KANA management now has a centralized view of total call volume and call volume by region. Within the US, KANA can determine call volume based on product. Prior to this system, each region operated independently. From signed paperwork to turn-up, the KANA project took about 60 days. "Most on-premises solutions would have taken several more months and several hundreds of thousands to implement. Having an on-demand solution allows us the ability to scale at any pace we need to or to consolidate specific facilities. It gave us the flexibility that we needed," said Sung. 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%. For more information visit http://www.kana.com/. About UCN, Inc. UCN (OTC:UCNN) (BULLETIN BOARD: UCNN) is the leading provider of all-in-one, off-premises contact handling services that improve the customer contact experience and the productivity of those handling the contacts. InContact(TM) includes an integrated suite of advanced contact handling applications and reporting, monitoring, recording, administration and workforce management application. InControl(TM) is a unique, rapid application development tool that enables inContact customers to develop highly flexible, customized business contact handling processes in record time. To learn more about UCN visit http://www.ucn.net/. Safe Harbor Statement: The Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 provides a safe harbor for forward-looking information made on the Company's behalf. All statements, other than statements of historical facts which address the Company's expectations of sources of capital or which express the Company's expectation for the future with respect to financial performance or operating strategies, can be identified as forward-looking statements. Such statements made by the Company are based on knowledge of the environment in which it operates, but because of the factors previously listed, as well as other factors beyond the control of the Company, actual results may differ materially from the expectations expressed in the forward-looking statements. (For the complete statement please click to: http://www.ucn.net/safeharbor) DATASOURCE: UCN, Inc. CONTACT: Jan Johnson, VP of Marketing of UCN, Inc., +1-801-320-3263, ; or Investors, Scott Liolios, , or Ron Both, both of Liolios Group Inc., +1-949-574-3860, for UCN, Inc.; or PR, Rod Anderson of Snapp Norris Group, +1-801-208-1100, , for UCN, Inc.; or Ed Hadley of PAN Communications, +1-978-474-1900, , for KANA Software Inc. Web site: http://www.kana.com/ Web site: http://www.ucn.net/

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