KANA Expands Lead in E-mail Response Automation With Banter Server Integration to KANA Response

KANA Customers Using the World-Leading E-mail Response Management Solution Benefit from Banters Technology for Understanding and Automating Online Written Communication

SAN FRANCISCO and MENLO PARK, Calif., July 14, 2003 —-KANA® (NASDAQ: KANA), a leading provider of enterprise customer support and communications applications, today announced that it has embedded Banter Server in KANA Response™ software. The integrated technology enables more effective and cost-efficient response to customer inquiries by combining natural language understanding capabilities from Banter with KANA’s market-leading e-mail response management application, setting a new standard for e-mail response automation in the industry.

Banter, a provider of software that understands and automates online customer communication, partnered with KANA to integrate the unique capabilities of Banter Server into KANA Response. An integral part of KANA’s award-winning iCARE™ suite, KANA Response is the most effective and widely used e-mail response management system in the world. Optimized to support specific vertical industries such as telecommunications, high technology, healthcare and financial services, it provides world-class agent-assisted service with fast, high volume, intelligent, automated e-mail, Web, and instant messaging request management.

With the optional integration of Banter Server, KANA Response users have greater capabilities for natural language understanding, ensuring customer requests are more rapidly understood by the application and routed to the appropriate customer service representative. Banter Server combines proprietary technology for natural language processing, statistical and semantic modeling with automatic machine learning distinctively positioned to analyze and understand the content of documents and messages written in everyday, informal forms.

“We evaluated natural language understanding tools and found Banter’s technology to be the only one that offered true understanding of and the capabilities for real-time learning from informal written communication,” said Tom Doyle, president of KANA. “KANA Response with Banter is uniquely suited to be the best choice for Global 2000 organizations needing to meet and exceed customer demand with fast and efficient e-mail response, without increasing costs in the contact center.”

Banter Server focuses on e-mail and offers cross-channel support. And unlike other natural language processing solutions, Banter Server handles dynamic and informal e-mail as opposed to static and formal types of communication. Banter Server also provides: real time feedback for easy maintenance and long-term accuracy; the ability to identify and analyze multiple languages; the ability to understand multiple intents in a single message; and the statistical likelihood that an answer is correct and not a relative ranking, making the Banter score meaningful and actionable.

“We are excited to work with KANA to provide natural language understanding capabilities within KANA Response,” said Chris Brennan, CEO of Banter. “Together, we set the standard for driving better customer relationships and delivering process improvement through e-mail automation.”

KANA provides eCRM applications optimized for specific industries to drive better relationships through effective, efficient interactions with customers at all points of contact (self-service, Web collaboration, phone, e-mail, live chat) and throughout the enterprise. KANA’s industry-specific applications and customizations address the unique needs of Global 2000 organizations in these markets, giving businesses a competitive advantage and increasing their ability to service, market to and sell to their customers. Companies around the world benefit from KANA’s customer-centric approach to managing customer relationships, which combines sophisticated analytics with thin-client Web architecture to deliver extraordinary customer interactions that decrease costs and drive revenue.

About Banter

Banter’s solutions integrate with customer interaction software to better automate the handling of inquiries by uniquely understanding of the meaning of email and other forms of customer communication. Software enhanced by Banter’s technology dramatically reduces support costs while improving the quality of service. Banter’s proven track record includes more than 50 customers, including such global entities as ABN AMRO America, RBC Financial Group, VeriSign and Wells Fargo Bank, and partners such as KANA, Siebel, Remedy, Avaya and others. Based in San Francisco, Banter is backed by Mayfield Fund, FTVentures, RBC Technology Ventures and others. For more information, visit www.banter.com or call 1-877-992-2683.

About KANA

KANA (NASDAQ: KANA) provides enterprise customer support and communications applications enabling organizations to better service, market to, and understand their customers and partners. Optimized for specific vertical industries, KANA’s iCARE applications are in use at more than half of the world’s largest 100 companies. An award-winning, modular suite of eCRM applications available on J2EE and .Net, KANA iCARE applications enable customers to do business when, where and how they want, improving customer experiences while decreasing costs in contact centers and marketing departments. KANA’s partner-centric business model includes strategic relationships with the largest systems integrators in the world to support and sell KANA iCARE. For more information visit www.kana.com.