British Telecom (BT) has installed KANAelectronic customer relationship management (eCRM) software to handle incoming e-mails to its Web portal, BT.com.
The U.K.’s largest voice and Internet service provider expects up to 20,000 customer e-mails each week on a wide range of product and service support queries.
“E-mail is a vital part of customer communication,” said BT’s Adam Marchmont. “We wanted to make the most of that contact, so we replaced our previous provision, which utilized many different e-mail management systems, with one of the industry’s best.”
In addition to establishing an efficient system for handling and responding to customer e-mail, BT also wanted to analyze the nature of queries, using that information head off future problems.
The KANA iCARE suite used by BT allows for agent-assisted service, automated e-mail, Web, and instant messaging request management. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The KANA deployment comes as BT, with partner Yahoo!, pushes for new broadband subscribers in the United Kingdom.
The companies will also spend millions of dollars on an online and offline ad campaign to support the initiative. The drive could result in increased e-mail queries by prospective customers.
KANA, based in Menlo Park, Calif., and with offices in Manchester, N.H., tailors software for the telecommunications, financial services, health care, technology, retail, government and higher education markets.