Company is a Leading Specialist in Multi-Channel Customer Interaction Software for Mid-sized Commercial Businesses and the Public Sector
KANA Now Delivers Comprehensive Customer Service Solutions – from the Midmarket to the Enterprise – On-Premise or On-Demand
SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 24, 2012 — KANA Software, Inc., a global leader of customer service solutions used by more than 600 enterprises including half of the Global 100 and more than 200 government agencies, today announced it has completed its acquisition of privately held Trinicom, a provider of cloud-based web customer service (WCS) and customer interaction software. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Trinicom, based in the Netherlands, serves more than 200 predominantly mid-sized organizations in both the public and private sector, offering fast, efficient access to comprehensive and multi-channel WCS capabilities such as knowledge management, web self-service, social communities, live chat and virtual assistant technology, as well as call, campaign and email response management – all from a single on-demand cloud application.
The acquisition expands KANA’s customer and revenue base and strengthens its product portfolio. KANA will continue to support new and existing Trinicom customers, as well as accelerate the development of Trinicom core capabilities, and expand its market reach to mid-sized businesses globally.
“More and more companies are leveraging customer service solutions to maximize profitable growth, improve employee productivity and customer satisfaction, while managing costs and brand reputation,” said Mark Duffell, CEO of KANA. “We are bringing together two substantial players within our industry: KANA that’s focused on helping many of the world’s largest enterprises and governments transform their complex business requirements into effective customer experiences, and Trinicom, which supports KANA Acquires Cloud Customer Service Company Trinicom 2 mid-sized businesses with a strong online sales and services focus get rapid access to comprehensive multi-channel web customer service and contact center infrastructure.”
Affordable Customer Service from the Cloud
Trinicom enables KANA to offer an end-to-end customer service solution from the cloud, so adding ondemand software-as-a-service (SaaS) to KANA’s existing on-premise and hosting choices. Easy-to-use, rapid-to-implement, high performance, multi-channel — and most importantly packaged SaaS customer service applications are ideal to meet the needs of the midmarket and smaller local government and public sector entities. These organizations recognize the need to provide vital customer/constituent service and stay competitive and relevant in a climate of continuing economic uncertainty, characterized by tightened budgets and cost reduction strategies. With Trinicom’s highly elastic SaaS deployment model, customers can enjoy the freedom of pay-as-you-go pricing that flexes with their business needs.
“Cloud-based customer service offerings using the SaaS format are rapidly gaining acceptance in customer service and support (CSS), with more than 90% of IT organizations in North America and Western Europe reporting that they would consider SaaS,” according to technology research firm Gartner.1
Addressing the Underserved Midmarket
Negative service experiences lead to customer dissatisfaction in the midmarket just as they do for larger enterprises, ultimately resulting in reduced customer loyalty and brand devaluation. Mid-sized businesses can often lose sight of customer service as they focus on driving revenue growth while minimizing costs. For example: Responding too late to a customer question or quotation request, giving the wrong answer to a customer question, or worse — not answering a question at all.
Typically underserved by traditional CRM vendors or high-end customer service offerings, mid-sized organizations in both public and private sectors are increasingly seeking enabling technology to support emerging customer experience needs and to build, enhance, and extend relationships with customers. However, midmarket companies are often challenged by resource constraints, including smaller IT budgets and less access to credit. To this end, they require customer service solutions that can deliver the same level of service experience enjoyed by larger enterprises, but without the associated complexity and cost; the technology must be affordable, easy-to-use and easy-to-own.
With Trinicom multi-channel web customer service, mid-sized businesses can improve service quality by answering customer questions consistently and on time; manage costs effectively by offering online knowledge and FAQs 24/7; and expedite service resolution by answering questions in the contact center faster and at the first call.
“Organizations should evaluate options for Web-enabling core customer service business applications to improve Web-initiated customer service and support, particularly when there is a requirement to lower the cost of service while maintaining and improving customer satisfaction levels,” according to a recent Gartner report. 2
“This acquisition enhances KANA and Trinicom’s ability to serve all customers from mid-size to the enterprise, and expands KANA’s global footprint significantly, particularly in Europe, strengthening support for all customers across all regions,” said Wilco Rietberg, CEO of Trinicom. “This will add considerable value to the combined company’s customers, while accelerating our own market growth and momentum.”
About KANA Software
KANA makes every customer experience a good experience. A global leader in customer service solutions delivered on-premise or in the cloud, KANA Service Experience Management (SEM) lets organizations take complete control over customer service interactions, so they can take care of customers, while managing costs and reinforcing brand. By unifying and maintaining context for customer journeys across agent, web, social and mobile experiences, KANA solutions have reduced handling time, increased resolution rates and improved net promoter score (NPS) at more than 600 enterprises, including half of the Global 100 and more than 200 government agencies. KANA has been majority owned by Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity investment firm, since 2009. The company is based in Silicon Valley, California and has offices worldwide.
About Trinicom
Trinicom is a leading specialist in multi-channel customer interaction software. Based on cloud technology, Trinicom can be focused fully on an organization’s customer contact processes, and ensures that all customer interactions are handled quickly and uniformly from a central knowledge base. Trinicom also advises customers on the optimum service experience for a multi-channel contact center, with the emphasis on improving service provision via the web, email, chat and telephone, and on reducing service costs. With modules such as web self-service, email response management, live chat, 4 call management, hypersearch, chatbot, emailing, campaigns, portal services and letter, fax and counter contact, Trinicom enables businesses to process customer interactions across all channels quickly and efficiently. A Dutch company, Trinicom numbers more than 200 leading organizations at home and abroad among its customer base.
