Keyword tool creates email responses

Kana Software is offering a program to automate email responses for busy service groups.

Kana Response 8.0 lets firms reply to emailed inquiries quickly by searching through keywords and intelligently forwarding messages to appropriate destinations, said the firm. The latest version increases security functions and supports up to 500,000 emails per day. The tool will be available as on-premises software and as a hosted offering.

Kana said Response 8.0 aids contact centre staff by removing the need for repeated tasks such as cut-and-paste procedures. “The email channel is definitely on the incline, especially for customer service,” said Brian Kelly, Kana executive

vice-president of corporate strategy.

“You definitely don’t take the human factor out of the process, but we can parse the email and generate a response [from a source such as] order status or knowledge base, and then the agent can review it or prettify it, use it or not use it.”

The trend towards automated helpdesks requires rules-based software, analysts said. “The number of emails sent daily is growing exponentially and we do not see it slowing down,” said Esteban Kolsky, research director at Gartner. “There is still a critical need for email response management systems with deep functionality and capabilities.”

Kana has a market value of $44m, a fraction of the price it generated as a leader in e-commerce software during the dot-com zenith.