October 9, 2012
By Leonard Klie, Editor, CRM magazine and SmartCustomerService.com

Kana Introduces Lagan Express CRM for the Government Mid-Market

Kana Software, a provider of customer service solutions delivered on-premises or in the cloud, yesterday introduced Lagan Express, a knowledge-centric multichannel cloud customer service solution delivered via the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model to meet the constituent service needs of mid-market public-sector organizations.

Lagan Express unifies customer contact records and knowledge resources and automatically delivers contextual help and information when and where needed.

At its core is a centralized knowledge base that automatically scans text in email, chat sessions, and Web self-service interactions to find relevant information in seconds. The solution also features reporting and analytics that provide real-time insight into the status of each department and agent.

Lagan Express is available in two packages-Lagan Express Agent Experience and Lagan Express Web Experience-that can be implemented alone or collectively.

Lagan Express Agent Experience is a suite of agent-facing applications in a single agent desktop that includes capabilities to handle inbound and outbound email management, call management (including campaigns and computer telephony integrations) and letter, fax and counter documentation and transactions. The solution also applies and monitors service level agreements and response times.

Lagan Express Web Experience offers customer-facing Web applications, including Web self-service (with natural language search, FAQ, auto-suggestion, and portal services), live chat, virtual assistant, and Web form submission.

Additional options include Lagan Express Mobile Experience, which provides mobile applications for service requests, and Lagan Express Social Experience, providing advanced social media analytics that allow organizations to listen to and identify important messages in social media, and engage directly with customers. Both can be integrated with the core Lagan Express service.

"It's very quick to implement and start realizing value," says Iain Daws, product marketing manager for the public sector at Kana. "It ensures a more consistent delivery of services"

Daws says Kana will likely add capabilities to Lagan Express going forward, but initially sought to keep it "simple and elegant."

The product was built using products that Kana acquired when it purchased Lagan Technologies, a provider of customer service solutions for the government sector, in November 2010 and Trinicom, a provider of cloud-based solutions for customer service, knowledge management, Web self-service, social communities, live chat, and virtual assistants, in April of this year.

"The Lagan brand has always been tied to the public sector," Daws says. "It has a lot of customers in the public sectors in the [United Kingdom] and North America."

Kana offers similar products for the commercial sector under the Kana brand, Daws says.