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Kana Communications Offers Holiday E-tailers a List to 'Check Twice' for a Successful '99 Shopping Season
Superior Online Customer Communications Essential to Capitalize on Holiday E-tailing Opportunities
PALO ALTO, Calif.--Oct. 22, 1999-- Kana Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:KANA), a market leading provider of online customer communications solutions, offers a list of tips for e-tailers hoping to take advantage of the $8 billion 1999 online holiday shopping season.The good news: it's not too late for e-tailers to beef up their online communications infrastructure to ensure that customers have a positive experience. E-tailers that implement a complete online customer communication system now can enhance customer loyalty, increase top line revenues, and decrease support costs during the holiday rush.
The 1999 online shopping season should be a benchmark for e-commerce, according to Ken Cassar, digital commerce analyst at Jupiter Communications. Companies that do well will receive the confidence of investors, and share in the greater e-commerce dollars in years to come.
Companies that don't, could find themselves out of the e-commerce game, he said. Jupiter analysts expect holiday e-commerce spending to reach $8 billion this year, up from $3.1 billion last year.
With the competition one click away, e-tailers must provide consumers with a seamless and personalized shopping experience.
According to Melissa Bane, director of Yankee Group's Internet Market Strategies team, ``Customer experience and convenience is catching up with price in terms of importance to shoppers choosing a site. E-businesses that have the infrastructure in place to a manage customer communications effectively will be a step ahead of the competition.''
``Forty-six percent of Americans surveyed recently by Visa plan to buy at least some gifts online this year, which has e-tailers scrambling to make online shopping a positive experience for their customers,'' commented Michael McCloskey, CEO of Kana.
``The key to success will be communicating effectively with customers throughout the buying experience, from the initial marketing outreach to servicing the customer.''
By now, serious e-tailers have established the e-commerce basics: security, speed, product selection, easy page navigation and outstanding fulfillment. But the real winners -- Kana customers such as Williams Sonoma, Gap, and eToys -- will also communicate effectively with customers to attract and retain them.
Five Ways E-Tailers Can Impact the Bottom Line with Superior Online Customer Communications
Kana offers these tips for e-tailers that want to enhance customer loyalty, generate additional revenue and reduce support costs:
-- Your Customers Want to Hear from You
Drive customers to your Web site or retail stores with targeted, permission-based electronic direct marketing. This year's successful e-tailers will supplement paper catalogs with electronic direct marketing efforts that enable them to profile and engage customers in one-to-one conversations and deliver targeted messages.
-- Make E-commerce Easy
Savvy e-tailers will ease their customers' minds about that last minute gift order by effectively managing their online customer communications. Implement an e-commerce based messaging system to instantaneously confirm orders or keep buyers informed of order status.
-- It's Expensive to Keep Customers Waiting
E-tailers must implement a plan to effectively manage inbound online customer communications before the holidays, or risk losing future customers. A comprehensive e-mail response program can help e-tailers easily manage tens of thousands of emails per day, and usually respond within 24 hours.
-- Give Customers Exactly What They Want
A recent spot survey by Business 2.0 magazine found that 40% of automated responses didn't even answer the customer's question. Smart e-businesses will deploy a customer service solution that uses the best in online artificial intelligence to offer more efficient, accurate and timesaving responses. The ideal online customer communications solution will manage incoming messages efficiently and also be flexible enough to provide the option for a live customer service agent to review responses before sending.
-- If You Don't Know Your Customer, Someone Else Will
E-tailers must retain all customer data in order to offer customers personalized experiences in the future. A complete online customer communications system will integrate customer information from electronic direct marketing campaigns, transactions, and customer service interactions.
The Kana Solution
Kana is helping a wide variety of e-tailers to communicate more effectively this season with Kana 4, a market leading solution that manages online communications for the entire customer life cycle from electronic direct marketing to e-commerce to ongoing customer support.
Kana Connect is an innovative electronic direct marketing solution that enables e-businesses to deliver individually targeted messages and increase the lifetime value of their customers. The application enables marketers to profile, target and engage customers in one-on-one conversations through permission-based, e-mail communication.
Kana Commerce is a powerful transaction status solution that enables e-businesses to proactively communicate with customers throughout the e-commerce experience. The application reduces customer service inquiries by providing personalized order status, such as receipts, statements and notifications; engages the customer in an ongoing dialogue; and provides a vehicle for targeted marketing and promotional messages.
Kana Response is a market leading customer service solution that manages high volumes of e-businesses e-mail and Web-based communications, as well as proactive outbound e-mail customer service. Automated and artificial intelligence technology ensures the application scales to meet the most demanding enterprise requirements, while the dynamic customer database provides a way to store customer information, identify needs and proactively target individuals with personalized messages.
Kana is a proven solution chosen by 10 of the top 20 most visited sites on the Internet, in a variety of industries worldwide, ranging from Internet Services to travel to financial to e-tailing.
About Kana Communications, Inc.
Kana Communications, Inc. (Nasdaq:KANA - news) is a market leading provider of online customer communications solutions for electronic direct marketing, e-commerce and online customer service.
Kana develops, markets and supports a comprehensive suite of e-business infrastructure solutions that allow companies to manage high volumes of inbound and outbound e-mail and Web-based communications, while facilitating the delivery of targeted and personalized information to each customer.
The company has more than 130 customers, including ten of the top twenty most visited sites on the Internet. Kana is based in Palo Alto, with offices Worldwide. For more information about the company, please visit Kana's website at http://www.kana.com or call Jason Cigarran at 650/325-9850.
Note to Editors: Kana Communications, Kana and the Kana logo are trademarks of Kana Communications, Inc. All other company and/or product names are either trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.
Editorial Contact:
Jason Cigarran
Kana Communication
650/325-9850
jcigarran@kana.com
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