empowering agents this way is a key step going forward."
Features within the workforce optimization module include the following:
- Optimized Case-Type Display: Administrators can hide case types to choose which case types will be available in the agent list.
- Case Widgets: Widgets will display all cases owned by the logged-in agent or owned within the agent's team on the site's home page.
- Search High Availability: Search will not be interrupted for agents or customers if the underlying search engine experiences problems.
- Multiwindow Support: This enables Kana Enterprise to run in multiple browser windows within one session, allowing for the use of multiple monitors.
- Embedded Web Pages. Pages can be embedded within the agent desktop so agents do not need to toggle to multiple systems.
- Single Page Scripts: Scripts can be displayed vertically on a single page, so when a user selects an answer to a question in a script, the next question will be displayed immediately below it, saving clicks and page loads.
Additionally, the updated Kana platform includes the ability to harvest agent opinions. "Enterprise feedback management isn't just about surveying customers but about surveying employees," Thurlow says. "This is about how you can start to get engagement models to feedback to trends, which can help with learning and coaching.
"We see a correlation between employee satisfaction [and] engagement and customer satisfaction and engagement. We've talked to a number of organizations who have decided to invest primarily in their employees...empowering them to do the right thing for the customer. We've actually seen customer measures increase significantly."
Features that enable this include the following:
- Activity Streams: Agents can see updates on cases and other relevant activity.
- Service-Level Agreements and Escalation Notices: Agents can be notified of time-sensitive activity in their activity stream feed.
- Collaboration: This enables agents to add notes and comments to posts in the Activity Stream to collaborate with peers.
- Subscription: This provides global configuration options about what can and should be followed, as well as the ability to manually subscribe to items in the system.
"This release builds on what we already do," Thurlow says. "Smart Engagement changes the game about how interactions and context can be intelligently used to increase customer engagement. This is about getting more holistic views about multichannel, whether customers are in the contact center or Web site, and how you can get smarter around the context. I think we do that better than anyone else—we blend rich context with knowledge and process [it] in a way that no one else can do yet."
Thurlow also points out that the continuing changes to the Kana product line signify Verint's commitment to the brand. "It's important to note that Kana's go-to-market plans and everything that we intended to do, we've continued to do within the Kana umbrella," Thurlow says."This is a really big sign that Verint absolutely sees us as a key growth strategy rather than folding us into [their] workforce optimization or customer analytics [solutions]."