Kana, RightNow take different approaches with CRM suites

Two competitors Monday announced new customer relationship management software. Kana unveiled the Intelligent Customer Acquisition and Retention for the Enterprise (iCARE) suite, and RightNow Technologies announced Version 5.0 of its Web eService Center.

Both suites are built around Web-based tools that aim to automate the handling of customer service and support inquiries, though the two companies differ in their product strategies.

One obvious distinction is their delivery methods. Kana licenses software to be deployed at a customer site, while RightNow software is hosted.

Kana used to offer a hosted version, but the Menlo Park, Calif., company said in April that it plans to discontinue the service. By contrast, while RightNow offers traditional licensing as well as hosting, the latter is much more popular among its customers. Greg Gianforte, CEO of the Bozeman, Montana, company, says 80% to 90% of new RightNow customers opt for its hosted service over onsite deployment.

The companies' development tactics, too, are dissimilar. RightNow builds new functionality into each iteration of its software suite, while Kana tends to add by acquisition.

Over the last two years Kana bought four companies, including Broadbase Software - which on its own acquired five companies during the same time period. As a result, Kana's development efforts necessarily are focused on integrating the different products.

The companies also differ in their market aspirations. While RightNow is focused on customer service and self-service apps, Kana eyes a broader share of the CRM market. The iCARE suite combines its hallmark e-mail management tools with marketing automation and analytic tools gained in Kana's Broadbase acquisition.

Kana is "clearly trying to be an enterprise CRM vendor, not just a service vendor," says John Ragsdale, research director at Giga Information Group. On the other hand, RightNow seems to have no interest in taking on full-service CRM vendors such as Siebel, Oracle or PeopleSoft. Rather, RightNow is partnering with these companies and has no plans to introduce sales and marketing tools, Ragsdale says.

iCARE features

One highlight of Kana's new suite is ResponseIQ, which links Kana's existing e-mail management tool with a repository of searchable corporate resources.

For example, if a customer searches a company's knowledge repository using Web self-service tools but doesn't find an answer, the customer can send an e-mail message to a support desk. Kana's e-mail response management system analyzes the content of an incoming e-mail and responds if the answer is found within the now-linked knowledge base. If the customer still is not satisfied and requests a live agent, the agent can see the communication chain - including online items viewed by the customer, the e-mail the customer sent, plus the auto-response - and pick up the support process without repeating any steps.

A searchable knowledge base linked to e-mail management tools is something Kana lacked, Ragsdale says. "A key component of automated e-mail is the ability to intelligently respond with appropriate content," he says.

Additional iCARE features include:

Results-ranking enhancements. Kana's existing IQ software is the searchable repository of corporate resources used by customers and contact center agents. New in the iCARE version of IQ is the ability to automatically adjust the order in which content is delivered based on user trends.

Java-based contact center app. Kana retooled Silknet's Web-based customer service app to run on the J2EE platform, and the result is the new Contact Center EJB component. Customers were looking for greater scalability and performance from the Silknet app, says Bud Michael, Kana's executive vice president of marketing.

Analytic tools. In the area of business analytics, the new suite offers iCARE Analytics, which is embedded in Kana's customer service and marketing software.

Web eService Center features

New to RightNow's suite is a feature that enables e-mail routing based on customers' emotional state. Called SmartSense, this feature looks for inflammatory language that suggests a customer is dissatisfied, such as profanity, a string of all-capitalized words or angry graphics like a frowning face. Companies can set up business rules to handle such messages, forwarding them automatically to a supervisor or manager, for example.

While the ability to analyze correspondence content is not new, it is usually done for the purpose of finding an appropriately skilled customer agent, says Giga's Ragsdale. Looking at a person's emotional state for the purpose of improving customer service is something new - and welcome, he says.

"If you're going to serve the customer, you've got to look at more than their login/password and purchase history," Ragsdale says. "I hope it's an indication of a trend."

Additional eService Center 5.0 features include:

Multi-language support. RightNow added the ability to store multiple languages in a single database. Prior to Version 5.0, companies had to set up separate databases for content in each of the 15 languages RightNow supports.

Knowledge-base browsing. With a new eService Center interface, customers can browse a company's knowledge base - which is automatically sorted and arranged hierarchically by eService Center as data is added and accessed - instead of simply searching by keyword or phrase.

Collaborative features. Call transfer and call monitoring are new to Version 5.0. When a customer is using Web chat to communicate with an agent, the agent can now transfer a customer to another department, for example. Earlier versions did not have this capability. Call monitoring adds a SmartSense meter to live chat correspondence.

RightNow Web eService Center 5.0 is available now. Pricing starts at $30,000 for a two-year license and hosting.

Available now, Kana's iCARE application suites start at $300,000. Standalone applications begin at $95,000.

Kana, RightNow take different approaches with CRM suites

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